You she preferr❜d to all the gay resorts
Where female vanity might wish to shine,
The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts.
Her modest beauties shunn'd the public eye:
To your sequester'd dales

And flower-embroider'd vales

From an admiring world she chose to fly :
With Nature there retir'd, and Nature's God,
The silent paths of wisdom trod,

And banish'd every passion from her breast,
But those, the gentlest and the best,
Whose holy flames with energy divine
The virtuous heart enliven and improve,
The conjugal and the maternal love.

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns By your delighted mother's side,

Who now your infant steps shall guide? Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have form'd your youth, And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth?

O loss beyond repair!

O wretched father! left alone,

To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own!
How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe,
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe!

Now she, alas! is gone,

From folly and from vice their helpless age to save?

Where were ye, Muses, when relentless Fate
From these fond arms your fair disciple tore ;

From these fond arms, that vainly strove
With hapless ineffectual love

To guard her bosom from the mortal blow?
Could not your favouring power, Aonian

maids,

Could not, alas! your power prolong her date, For whom so oft in these inspiring shades, Or under Camden's moss-clad mountains hoar, You open'd all your sacred store, Whate'er your ancient sages taught,

Your ancient bards sublimely thought,

And bade her raptur'd breast with all your spirit glow?

Nor then did Pindus or Castalia's plain,
Or Aganippe's fount your steps detain,
Nor in the Thespian valleys did you play;
Nor then on Mincio's bank *

Beset with osiers dank,

Nor where Clitumnus + rolls his gentle stream,
Nor where through hanging woods,

Steep Anio pours his floods,

* The Mincio runs by Mantua, the birth-place of Virgil.

+ The Clitumnus is a river of Umbria, the residence of Propertius.

The Anio runs through Tibur or Tivoli, where Horace had a villa.

Nor yet where Meles* or Ilissus † stra

Ill does it now beseem,

That, of your guardian care bereft,

To dire disease and death your darling should be left.

Now what avails it that in early bloom,

When light fantastic toys

Are all her sex's s joys,

[Rome;

With you she search'd the wit of Greece and

And all that in her latter days

To emulate her ancient praise
Italia's happy genius could produce;
Or what the Gallic fire

Bright sparkling could inspire,
By all the Graces temper'd and refin'd;
Or what in Britain's isle,

Most favour'd with your smile,

The powers of Reason and of Fancy join'd
To full perfection have conspir'd to raise ?
Ah! what is now the use

Of all these treasures that enrich'd her mind,
To black Oblivion's gloom for ever now consign'd.

At least, ye Nine, her spotless name

'T is yours from death to save,

And in the temple of immortal Fame

With golden characters her worth engrave.

* The Meles is a river of Ionia, from whence Homer, supposed to be born on its banks, is called Melisigenes.

+ The Ilissus is a river at Athens.

Come then, ye virgin-sisters, come,

And strew with choicest flowers her hallow'd tomb: But foremost thou, in sable vestment clad,

With accents sweet and sad,

Thou, plaintive Muse, whom o'er his Laura's urn Unhappy Petrarch call'd to mourn;

O come, and to this fairer Laura pay

A more impassion'd tear, a more pathetic lay.

Tell how each beauty of her mind and face
Was brighten'd by some sweet peculiar grace.
How eloquent in every look

Through her expressive eyes her soul distinctly spoke!
Tell how her manners, by the world refin'd,
Left all the taint of modish vice behind,
And made each charm of polish'd courts agree
With candid Truth's simplicity,

And uncorrupted Innocence !

Tell how to more than manly sense

She join'd the softening influence

Of more than female tenderness:

How, in the thoughtless days of wealth and joy,
Which oft the care of others' good destroy,

Her kindly-melting heart,

To every want and every woe,
To guilt itself when in distress,

The balm of pity would impart,

And all relief that bounty could bestow !

Ev'n for the kid or lamb that pour'd its life

Beneath the bloody knife,

Her gentle tears would fall,

Tears from sweet Virtue's source, benevolent to all.

Not only good and kind,

But strong and elevated was her mind:

A spirit that with noble pride
Could look superior down

On Fortune's smile or frown;
That could without regret or pain
To Virtue's lowest duty sacrifice
Or Interest or Ambition's highest prize;
That, injur'd or offended, never tried
Its dignity by vengeance to maintain,
But by magnanimous disdain.
A wit that, temperately bright,
With inoffensive light

All pleasing shone; nor ever past
The decent bounds that Wisdom's sober hand,
And sweet Benevolence's mild command,
And bashful Modesty, before it cast.
A prudence undeceiving, undeceiv'd,
That nor too little nor too much believ'd,
That scorn'd unjust Suspicion's coward fear,
And without weakness knew to be sincere.
Such Lucy was, when, in her fairest days,
Amidst th' acclaim of universal praise,

In life's and glory's freshest bloom, [tomb. Death came remorseless on, and sunk her to the

So, where the silent streams of Liris glide,
In the soft bosom of Campania's vale,
When now the wintry tempests all are fled,
And genial Summer breathes her gentle gale,
The verdant orange lifts its beauteous head:
From every branch the balmy flowerets rise,
On every bough the golden fruits are seen;