Not all the force of manhood's active might, Not science shall extort that dear delight, Adieu foft raptures! tranfports void of care! Tedious again to curfe the drizling day! The felf-fame hawthorns bud, and cowflips blow! O life! how foon of ev'ry blifs forlorn! We start false joys, and urge the devious race: A tender prey; that chears our youthful morn, Then finks untimely, and defrauds the chace. ELEGY ELEGY His recantation. XII. O more the mufe obtrudes her thin disguise; N° No more with aukward fallacy complains, Ere the chill winter of our days arrive, No more the paints the breast from paffion free; I feel, I feel one loitering wifh furvive Ah need I, FLORIO, name that wish to thee? The ftar of VENUS ufhers in the day, The first, the lovelieft of the train that shine! The ftar of VENUS lends her brightest ray, When other stars their friendly beams refign. Still in my breast one foft defire remains, Pure as that ftar, from guilt, from intʼrest free, Has gentle DELIA trip'd across the plains, And need I, FLORIO, name that wish to thee ? While, cloy'd to find the scenes of life the fame, 3 I slept I slept not long beneath yon rural bow'rs; And lo! my crook with flow'rs adorn'd I see = Has gentle DELJA bound my crook with flow'rs, And need I, FLORIO, name my hopes to thee? ELEGY ELE GY XIII. To a friend, on fome flight occafion estranged from him. HE EALTH to my friend, and many a chearful day Around his feat may peaceful shades abide ! Smooth flow the minutes, fraught with fmiles, away, And, 'till they crown our union, gently glide. Ah me! too fwiftly fleets our vernal bloom! Say, were it ours, by fortune's wild command, Life is that stranger land, that alien clime : Shall kindred fouls forego their focial claim? Launch'd in the vast abyss of space and time, Shall dark fufpicion quench the gen'rous flame? Myriads of fouls, that knew one parent mold, But But we have met-where ills of every form, Where paffions rage, and hurricanes defcend: Say, fhall we nurse the rage, affift the storm? And guide them to the bofom-of a friend? Yes, we have met thro' rapine, fraud, and wrong: Might our joint aid the paths of peace explore! Why leave thy friend amid the boist'rous throng, Ere death divide us, and we part no more? For oh! pale fickness warns thy friend away! And point the wither'd regions of the tomb. Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start, ELEGY |