WHAT slender youth, all-odor'd, presses Thee, Pyrrha, in the roseate shade? For whom thine auburn-flowing tresses, Simply becoming, dost thou braid?

2.

How oft, alas, by thee forsaken,
Shall he his alter'd fate deplore;
View the dark deep, that storms awaken,
And wonder at th' unwonted roar ;

3.

Who now enjoys, too fond believer,
Thy golden charms; who always kind
And lovely deems his dear deceiver,
Forgetful of the faithless wind.

4.

Ah wretch, by whom untried thy beauty! My votive tablet on his fane

Shews my dank weeds, with grateful duty Hung to the Ruler of the Main.

1802.

VERSES

ADDRESSED, IN 1782, TO MR. WRIGHT, OF DERBY.

BY ANNA SEWARD.

1.

THOU, in whose breast the gentle Virtues shine;
Thou, at whose call th' obsequious Graces bow,
Fain wou'd I, kneeling at the Muses' shrine,
Pluck the green laurel for thy modest brow!

2.

And shou'd in vain my feeble arm extend,
In vain the meed these faltering lays demand;
Shou'd from my touch the conscious laurel bend,
Like coy Mimosa, shrinking from the hand,

3.

Yet thy bright tablet, with unfading hues,
Shall beam on high in Honor's sacred fane,
By him emblazon'd, whose immortal Muse
Adorn'd thy science with her earliest strain;

**

4.

Brought every gem the mines of Knowledge hide, Cull'd roseate wreaths from Fancy's flowery plains, And with their mingled stores new bands supplied, That bind the Sister-Arts in closer chains.

Mr. Hayley celebrated Mr. Wright's talent in his first work EPISTLES ON PAINTING.

5.

What living lights, ingenious Artist! stream
In mingling mazes, as thy pencil roves;
With orient hues in bright expansion, beam,
Or bend the flowing curve, that Beauty loves!

6.

* Charm'd, as we mark, beneath thy magic hand, What sweet repose surrounds the sombrous scene, Where, fring'd with wood, yon moon-bright cliffs expand,

The curl'd waves twinkling, as they wind between,

7.

Start, as on high thy red Vesuvius glares,
O'er earth and Ocean pours his sanguine light,
With billowy smoke obscures the rising stars,
Or darts his vollied lightning thro' the night;

8.

Sigh, where, 'mid twilight shades, yon pile sublime,
In cumbrous ruin, nods o'er Virgil's tomb,
Where nurs'd by thee, poetic ivies climb,
Fresh florets spring, and brighter laurels bloom;

9.

Or weep for Julia in her sea-girt cave,

Exil'd from love in beauty's splendid morn,
Wild as she gazes on the boundless wave,
And sighs in hopeless solitude forlorn!

"Mr. Wright's MOONLIGHT VIEWS OF MATLOCK;"-his "VESUVIUS;"-his "VIRGIL'S TOMB ;"-and his "JULIA," banished to a desert Island by her Grandfather, Augustus Cesar, for her amours with Ovid.

10.

Now, ardent Wright, from thy creative hand,
With outline bold, and mellowest coloring warm,
Rival of Life, before the canvass stands,
My Father's lov'd, and venerable Form!

11.

O, when his Urn shall drink my falling tears,
Thy faithful tints shall shed a bless'd relief,
Glow, with mild lustre, thro' my darkned years,
And gild the gathering shades of filial grief!

ON WIT *.

BY ANNA SEWARD.

WIT must at once be vigorous, light, and gay,
Sense, satire, humour, mix'd in frolic play;
Yet from the coarse grotesque be distant far
As from the smoky torch the brilliant star;
And spring from images in contact brought
Till then ne'er coupled or in fact, or thought;
Yet, when together seen, we laugh, and wonder
That things so like, so long were kept asunder.

* Pope thus defines wit

True wit is nature to advantage drest,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest. This by no means appears an accurate definition. Wit, to deserve its name, must in some degree strike and surprise, and to produce those effects novelty of idea is even more necessary than felicity of expression; tho' to the perfection of that rare faculty, both are

necessary.

ODE,

ON THE 4th OF NOVEMBER, THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION, 1688.

A COLLEGE EXERCISE.

IN IMITATION OF ALCEUS.

σε ου λιθοι εδε ξυλα.”

WHAT constitutes the Bard?

Not silver sounds, nor numbers that compel
Proud Tyranny's regard;

Not the sweet witchery of Fancy's spell,
That can at will entrance

The captive sense, and bid the charmed soul,
To faery measures dance:

No-but an energy

that

An intellectual fire,

spurns controul,

That fann'd by Freedom, to sublimest heights

Impels us to aspire,

And from base earth the spirit disunites :

This constitutes the Bard.

Then in the shouts that “ring from side to side" Loud o'er the rest be heard,

The Muse's hail! which at this season wide

May pour the patriot rage,

She, Freedom's best ally, whose voice alone
Through ev'ry clime and age

Prevailing, mocks the thunders of the throne.

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXON.

T. P.