"I, by twenty sail attended, I had cast them with disdain; And obey'd my heart's warm motion, "For resistance I could fear none, Had our foul dishonour seen, Nor the sea the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been. "Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, He has better play'd an English part,' Had been better far than dying Unrepining at thy glory, Thy successful arms we hail; But remember our sad story, And let Hosier's wrongs prevail : Sent in this foul clime to languish, Think what thousands fell in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish, Not in glorious battle slain. 6 "Hence, with all my train attending Wander through the midnight gloom. "O'er these waves, for ever mourning, THE SUICIDE. T. WARTON. BENEATH the beech, whose branches bare, And whistle hollow as they wave; A wretched suicide holds his accurs'd abode. Lower'd the grim morn, in murky dyes Full of the dark resolve, he took his sullen way. K I mark'd his desultory pace, His gestures strange, and varying face, And ah! too late aghast I view'd The reeking blade, the hand imbru'd; He fell, and groaning grasp'd in agony the ground. Full many a melancholy night And sought the powers of sleep, To spread a momentary calm O'er his sad couch, and in the balm Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to steep. Full oft, unknowing and unknown, Abrupt the social board to quit, And gaze with eager glance upon the tumbling flood. Beck'ning the wretch to torments new, A spectre pale, appear'd; While, as the shade of eve arose, And brought the day's unwelcome close, More horrible and huge her giant-shape she rear'd. "Is this," mistaken Scorn will cry, Parent of fairest deeds, and purposes sublime?" Ah! from the Muse that bosom mild And rous'd to livelier pangs his wakeful sense of woe. Though doom'd hard penury to prove, More wounds than nature gave he knew, Then wish not o'er his earthy tomb Nor, oh! forbid the twisted thorn, With Spring's green swelling buds to vegetate anew, What though no marble-piled bust With speaking sculpture wrought? Hung with unfading flowers, from fairy regions brought. What though refus'd each chanted rite? To touch the shadowy shell: And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom Of Laura lost in early bloom, In many a pensive pause shall seem to ring his knell, To sooth a lone, unhallow'd shade, Sudden the half-sunk orb of day And thus a cherub voice my charm'd attention took : "Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praise; In vain with hues of gorgeous glow Unless Truth's matron hand the floating folds con fine. "Just Heav'n, man's fortitude to prove, The tribes of hell-born woe: Yet the same Power that wisely sends Life's fiercest ills, indulgent lends Religion's golden shield to break th' embattled foe. “Her aid divine had lull'd to rest Had bade the sun of Hope appear To gild his darken'd hemisphere, And give the wonted bloom to Nature's blasted form. "Vain man! 'tis Heav'n's prerogative |