VERSES

ΤΟ

Mr. SHENSTONE.

Written at a Ferme Ornee, near Birmingham,

T

By the late Lady LUXBOROUGH.

IS Nature here bids pleasing scenes arise, And wifely gives them Cynthio to revise: To veil each blemish; brighten every grace; Yet ftill preserve the lovely parent's face. How well the bard obeys, each valley tells; These lucid streams, gay meads, and lonely cells; Where modeft art in filence lurks conceal'd, While nature shines fo gracefully reveal'd, That she triumphant claims the total plan, And, with fresh pride, adopts the work of man.

To

TO WILLIAM SHENSTONE, Efq. at the LEASOWES,

By Mr. GRAVES of CLAVERTON.

"Vellem in amicitia fic erraremus!" HOR.

OEE! the tall youth, by partial fate's decree,

SE

To affluence born, and from reftraint fet free. Eager he feeks the fcenes of gay refort

The mall, the rout, the play-house, and the court:
Soon for fome varnisht nymph of dubious fame,
Or powder'd peerefs, counterfeits a flame.
Behold him now, enraptur'd, fwear and figh,
Dress, dance, drink, revel, all he knows not why;
Till by kind fate reftor'd to country air,
He marks the roses of fome rural fair:
Smit with her unaffected, native charms,
A real paffion foon his bofom warms;
And wak' from idle dreams, he takes a wife,
And tastes the genuine happiness of life.

Thus in the vacant season of the year,
Some Templar gay begins his wild career.
From feat to feat o'er pompous fcenes he flies,
Views all with equal wonder and furprize;
Till fick of domes, arcades, and temples grown,
He hies fatigued, not fatisfy'd, to town.
Yet if fome kinder Genius point his way
To where the Mufes o'er thy Leafowes stray,

Charm'd

Charm'd with the fylvan beauties of the place,
Where art affumes the fweets of nature's face,
Each hill, each dale, each confecrated grove,
Each lake, and falling ftream his rapture move.
Like the fage captive in Calypfo's grott,
The cares, the pleasures of the world forgot,
Of calm content he hails the genuine sphere,
And longs to dwell a blissful hermit here.

VERSES

VERSES received by the post, from a LADY

H

unknown, 1761.

Ealth to the Bard in Leafowes happy groves;
Health, and fweet converfe with the mufe
he loves!

The humbleft votary of the tuneful nine,
With trembling hand attempts her artless line,
In numbers fuch as untaught nature brings;
As flow, fpontaneous, like thy native springs.

But ah! what airy forms around me rife! The ruffet mountain glows with richer dies In circling dance a pigmy crowd appear, And hark! an infant voice falutes my ear. "Mortal, thy aim we know, thy task approve; "His merit honour, and his genius love: "For us what verdant carpets has he fpread, "Where nightly we our myftic mazes tread? "For us, each fhady grove, and rural feat, "His falling ftreams, and flowing numbers fweet : "Did'st thou not mark, amid the winding dell, "What tuneful verse adorns the moffy cell? "There every fairy of our fprightly train "Refort, to blefs the woodland and the plain. "There, as we move, unbidden beauties glow, * The green turf brightens, and the violets blow; "And