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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

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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!
Loft to our wonted friendship, loft to joy!
Soon may thy breast the cordial with refume,

Ere wintry doubt its tender warmth destroy.

Say, were it ours, by fortune's wild command,
By chance to meet beneath the torrid zone;
Wou'dft thou reject thy DAMON's plighted hand?
Wou'dft thou with fcorn thy once lov'd friend difown?

Life is that ftranger land, that alien clime:
Shall kindred fouls forego their focial claim ?
Launch'd in the vaft abyfs of space and time,
Shall dark fufpicion quench the gen❜rous flame?

Myriads of fouls, that knew one parent mold,
See fadly fever'd by the laws of chance!
Myriads, in time's perennial lift enroll'd,
Forbid by fate to change one tranfient glance!

But

But we have met-where ills of every form,
Where paffions rage, and hurricanes descend :
Say, fhall we nurse the rage, affist 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 boift'rous throng,
Ere death divide us, and we part no more?

For oh! pale ficknefs warns thy friend away!
For me no more the vernal rofes bloom!
I fee stern fate his ebon wand difplay;

And point the wither'd regions of the tomb.

Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start,
Sad as thou follow'ft my untimely bier;
"Fool that I was-if friends fo foon must
"To let fufpicion intermix a fear."

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,
To catch the follies of an alien foil!
To win the vice his genuine foul disdains,
Return exultant, and import the spoil!

In vain he boasts of his detefted prize;

No more it blooms to British climes convey'd,
Cramp'd by the impulse of ungenial skies,
See its fresh vigour, in a moment, fade!

Th' exotic folly knows its native clime;
An aukward stranger, if we waft it o'er ;
Why then these toils, this coftly waste of time,
To fpread foft poifon on our happy shore?

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;
Trembling I view the GAUL's illufive art,
That steals my lov'd rufticity away.

'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,
To shed its luftre o'er th' Iberian maid;
Mien, beauty, fhape, O native foil, are thine;
Thy peerless daughters afk no foreign aid.

*

Let CEYLON'S envy'd plant perfume the feas,

Till torn to season the Batavian bowl;

Ours is the breast whofe genuine ardours please,
Nor need a drug to meliorate the foul.

The cinnamon.

Let

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