I slept not long beneath yon rural bow'rs; And lo! my crook with flow'rs adorn'd I fee: Has gentle DELIA bound my crook with flow'rs, And need I, FLORIO, name my hopes to thee? ELEGY 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 fhades abide! Smooth flow the minutes, fraught with finiles, away, And, 'till they crown our union, gently glide. Ah me! too swiftly fleets our vernal bloom! Ere wintry doubt its tender warmth destroy. Say, were it ours, by fortune's wild command, Life is that ftranger land, that alien clime: Myriads of fouls, that knew one parent mold, But But we have met-where ills of every form, Yes, we have met-thro' rapine, fraud, and wrong: For oh! pale ficknefs warns thy friend away! And point the wither'd regions of the tomb. Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start, part, : ELEGY ELE GY XIV. Declining an invitation to vifit foreign countries, be takes occafion to intimate the advantages of his own. W To lord TEMPLE. WHILE others loft to friendship, loft to love, Waste their best minutes on a foreign strand, Be mine, with British nymph or swain to rove, And court the genius of my native land. Deluded youth! that quits thefe verdant plains, In vain he boasts of his detefted prize; No more it blooms to British climes convey'd, Th' exotic folly knows its native clime; I cover I covet not the pride of foreign looms; In fearch of foreign modes I fcorn to rove; Nor, for the worthless bird of brighter plumes, Wou'd change the meanest warbler of my grove. No diftant clime fhall fervile airs impart, Or form these limbs with pliant ease to play; 'Tis long fince freedom fled th' Hefperian clime; Her citron groves, her flow'r-embroider'd fhore; She faw the British oak afpire fublime, And foft CAMPANIA's olive charms no more. Let partial funs mature the western mine, * Let CEYLON'S envy'd plant perfume the feas, Till torn to season the Batavian bowl; Ours is the breast whofe genuine ardours please, The cinnamon. Let |