To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steal it, Was never said in rhyme.

EPISTLES.

Among the rest a shepherd (though but young
Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill
His few yeeres could, began to fill his quill.

Britannia's Pastorals.-BROWNE.

EPISTLES.

TO GEORGE FELTON MATHEW.

SWEET are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true
Than that in which the brother poets joy'd,
Who, with combined powers, their wit employ'd
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.

شود

The thought of this great partnership diffuses
Over the genius-loving heart, a feeling

Of all that's high, and great, and good, and
healing.

Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee
Past each horizon of fine poesy;

Fain would I echo back each pleasant note
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float
'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:
But 'tis impossible; far different cares
Beckon me sternly from soft "Lydian airs,"

And hold my faculties so long in thrall, That I am oft in doubt whether at all I shall again see Phoebus in the morning: Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning! Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream; Or a wrapt seraph in a moonlight beam; Or again witness what with thee I've seen, The dew by fairy feet swept from the green, After a night of some quaint jubilee Which every elf and fay had come to see: When bright processions took their airy march v Beneath the curved moon's triumphal arch.

But might I now each passing moment give To the coy Muse, with me she would not live In this dark city, nor would condescend 'Mid contradictions her delights to lend. Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind, Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic, That often' must have seen a poet frantic ; Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing, And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing; Where the dark-leaved laburnum's. drooping

clusters

Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres, And intertwined the cassia's arms unite,

With its own drooping buds, but very white. Where on one side are covert branches hung, 'Mong which the nightingales have always sung