See the poor native quit the Lybian fhores,
Ah! not in love's delightful fetters bound!
No radiant fmile his dying peace reftores,

Nor love, nor fame, nor friendship heals his wound.

Let vacant bards difplay their boaftive woes,
Shall I the mockery of grief display?

No, let the mufe his piercing pangs disclose,
Who bleeds and weeps his fum of life away !

On the wild beach in mournful guise he stood,
Ere the fhrill boatswain gave the hated sign;
He dropt a tear unfeen into the flood;
He ftole one fecret moment, to repine.

Yet the mufe liften'd to the plaints he made;
Such moving plaints as nature could inspire;
To me the muse his tender plea convey'd,

But smooth'd, and fuited to the founding lyre.

Why am I ravish'd from my native strand? What favage race protects this impious gain? Shall foreign plagues infeft this teeming land, And more than fea-born monsters plough the main ?

Here the dire locufts horrid fwarms prevail;
Here the blue afps with livid poison fwell;

Here the dry dipfa writh his finuous mail;

Can we not here, fecure from envy, dwell?

When

When the grim lion urg'd his cruel chace, When the ftern panther fought his midnight prey, chriftian race?

What fate referv'd me for this

O race more polish'd, more fevere than they!

Ye prouling wolves purfue my latest cries!
Thou hungry tyger, leave thy reeking den!
Ye fandy wastes in rapid eddies rife!

O tear me from the whips and fcorns of men!

Yet in their face fuperior beauty glows;

Are fmiles the mien of rapine and of wrong ? Yet from their lip the voice of mercy flows,

And ev❜n religion dwells upon their tongue.

Of blissful haunts they tell, and brighter climes, Where gentle minds convey'd by death repair, But ftain'd with blood, and crimson'd o'er with crimes, Say, fhall they merit what they paint fo fair?

No, careless, hopeless of those fertile plains,
Rich by our toils, and by our forrows gay,
They ply our labours, and enhance our pains,
And feign these distant regions to repay.

For them our tufky elephant expires;

For them we drain the mine's embowel'd gold; Where rove the brutal nations wild defires ?— Our limbs are purchas'd, and our life is fold!

Spoke by a favage.

Yet

Yet fhores there are, bleft shores for us remain, And favour'd ifles with golden fruitage crown' Where tufted flow'rets paint the verdant plain, Where ev'ry breeze shall med'cine ev'ry wound,

There the ftern tyrant that embitters life

Shall, vainly fuppliant, spread his asking hand; There shall we view the billow's raging ftrife, Aid the kind breast, and waft his boat to land.”

ELEGY

Taking a view of the country from his retirement, he is led to meditate on the character of the ancient BRIWritten at the time of a rumoured tax upon

TONS.

luxury. 1746.

TH

Hus DAMON fung-What tho' unknown to praise Umbrageous coverts hide my muse and me; Or mid the rural fhepherds, flow my days,

Amid the rural fhepherds, I am free.

To view fleek vaffals crowd a stately hall,
Say fhould I grow myself a folemn slave?
To find thy tints, O TITIAN! grace my wall,
Forego the flow'ry fields my fortune gave?

Lord of my time my devious path I bend,
Thro' fringy woodland, or smooth-fhaven lawn ;
Or penfile grove, or airy cliff ascend,

And hail the scene by nature's pencil drawn.

Thanks be to fate-tho' nor the racy vine,
Nor fatt'ning olive cloath the fields I rove,
Sequester'd shades, and gurgling founts are mine,
And ev'ry filvan grott the mufes love.

Here

Here if my vifta point the mould'ring pile,
Where hood and cowl devotion's afpect wore,
I trace the tott'ring reliques with a fmile,
To think the mental bondage is no more!

Pleas'd, if the glowing landskip wave with corn; Or the tall oaks, my country's bulwark, rise; Pleas'd, if mine eye, o'er thousand vallies borne, Discern the Cambrian hills fupport the skies.

And fee PLINLIMMON! ev'n the youthful fight
Scales the proud hill's etherial cliffs with pain!
Such CAER-CARADOC! thy ftupendous height,
Whofe ample fhade obfcures th' Iernian main.

Bleak, joylefs regions! where, by science fir'd,
Some prying fage his lonely step may bend;
There, by the love of novel plants infpir'd,
Invidious view the clamb'ring goats afcend.

Yet for thofe mountains, clad with lafting fnow,
The freeborn BRITON left his greenest mead;
Receding fullen from his mightier foe,
For here he faw fair liberty recede.

Then if a chief perform'd a patriot's part,
Suftain'd her drooping fons, repell'd her foes,

Above or Perfian luxe, or Attic art,
The rude majestic monument arose.

Progreffive