Like their's, dread Power, my chearful morn display'd

The flattering promise of a golden noon;
Till each gay cloud, that sportive Nature spread,

Died in the gloom of thy diftemper'd frown.,

Yes; ere I told my two and twentieth. year,

Swift from thy quiver flew the deadly dart; Harmless it pafs'd 'mid many a blythe compeer,

And found it's fated entrance near my heart,

Pale as I lay beneath thy ebon wand,

I saw them rove thro? Pleasure's How'ry field I saw Health paint them with her rosy hand,

Eager to burst my bonds, but forc'd to yield.

Yet while this mortal cot of mouldering clay

Shakes at the stroke of thy tremendous power, Ah, must the transient tenant of a day

Bear the rough blast of each tempestuous hour!

Say, shall the terrors thy pale Aag unfolds,

Too rigid queen! unnerve the foul's bright powers ; Till with a joyless smile the eye

beholds Art's magick charms, and Nature's fairy bowers !

No; let me follow ftill, those bowers among,

Her flowery footsteps, as the goddess goes ; Let me, just lifted 'bove th' unletter'd throng,

Read the few books the learned few compose :

And fuffer, when thy awful pleasure calls

The foul to share her frail companion's smart; Yet fuffer me to taite the balm that falls

From Friendship’s tongue, so sweet upon the heart.

Then,

Then, tho' each trembling nerve confess thy frown,

E'en till this anxious being shall become But a brief name upon a little stone,

Without one murmur I embrace my doom,

For many a virtue, shelter'd from mankind,

Lives calm with thee, and lord o'er each desire ; And many a feeble frame, whose mighty mind

Each muse has touch'd with her immortal fire.

E’en he *, sole terror of a venal age,

The tuneful bard, whose philofophick soul,
With such bright radiance glow'd on Virtue's page,

Learn'd many a lesson from thy moral school.

He too t, who' mounts, and keeps his distant way,'

His daring mind thy humanizing glooms Have temper'd with a melancholy ray,

And taught to warble 'mid the village tombs.

Yes, goddess; to thy temple's deep recess

I come; and lay for ever at its door The fyren throng of Follies numberless,

Nor with their flattering fongs should foothe me more.

Thy decent garb Thall o'er iny limbs be spread,

Thy hand shall lead me to thy sober train, Who here retir’d, with pensive Pleasure tread

The silent windings of thy dark domain.

Hither the cherub Charity shall fly

From her bright orb, and brooding o'er my mind, For misery raise a sympathizing sigh,

Pardon for foes, and love for human kind :

Then, while Ambition's trump, from age to age,

It's slaughter'd millions boasts; while Fame shall rear Her deathlefs trophies o'er the bard and fage,

Be mine the widow's figh, the orphan's prayer!

T-,

1.
"HE festive roar of laughter, the warm glow

Of brilk-ey'd joy, and friendship's genial bowl,
Wit's season'd converse, and the liberal flow

Of unsuspicious youth, profuse of soul, Delight not ever ; from the boifterous scene

of riot far, and Comus' wild uproar, From Folly's crowd, whose vacant brow serene

Was never knit to Wisdom's frowning lore, Permit me, ye time-hallow'd domes, ye piles

Of rude magnificence, your folemn rest,
Amid your fretted vaults and length’ning ifles,

Lonely to wander ; no unholy guest,
That means to break, with facrilegious tread,
The marble slumbers of your monumented dead.

II.
Permit me with fad mufings, that inspire

Unlabour'd numbers apt, your filence drear
Blameless to wake, and with th’Orphean lyre

Fitly attemper'd, soothe the merciless ear Of Hades, and stern Death, whose iron fway

Great Nature owns thro' all her wide domain ; All that with oary fin cleave their smooth way

Thro’ the green bosom of the spawny main,

And

And those that to the streaming ether spread,

In many a wheeling glide, their feathery fail ;
And those that creep; and those that statelier tread,

That roam o'er forest, hill, or browzed dale ;
The victims each of ruthless fate must fall;
E'en God's own image, Man, high paramount of all.

III.
And ye, the young, the giddy, and the gay,

That startle from the sleepful lid of light
The curtain'd rest, and with the diffonant bray

Of Bacchus, and loud jollity, affright
Yon radiant goddess, that now shoots among

These many-window'd ifles her glimmering beam ;!
Know, that or ere it's starr'd career along

Thrice shall have roll'd her filvery-wheeled team,
Some parent breast may heave the answering sigh,

To the flow pauses of the funeral knoll ;
E'en now black Atropos, with scowling eye,

Roars in the laugh, and revels o'er the bowl,
E’en now in rosy-crowned Pleasure's wreath
Entwines in adder folds all unsuspected Death.

IV.
Know, on the stealing wing of time thall flee

Some few, some short-liv'd years and all is paft;
A future bard these awful domes

may

see,
Muse o'er the present age as I the last;
Who mouldering in the grave, yet once like you

The various maze of life were seen to tread,
Each bent their own peculiar to pursue,

As custom urg'd, or wilful nature led;
Mix'd with the various crowd's inglorious clay,

The nobler virtues undiftinguish'd lie ;
No more to melt with Beauty's heav'n-born ray,

No more to wet Compassion's tearful eye,
Catch from the poet raptures not their own,
And feel the thrilling melody of sweet renown.

V. Where

V.
Where is the master-hand, whose femblant art

Chifiei'd the marble into life, or taught
From the well-pencil'd portraiture to start

The nerve that beat with soul, the brow that thought !
Cold are the fingers that in stone-fix'a trance

The mute-attention rivetting, to the lyre
Struck language: dimm'd the poet's quick-ey'd glance,

All in wild raptures flahing heaven's own fire.
Shrunk is the finew'd energy, that strung

The warrior arm ! 'Where sleeps the patriot breast
Whilome that heav'd impaffion'd! where the tongue

That lanc'd it's lightning on the towering crest
Of scepter'd infolence, and overthrew
Giant Oppreffion, leagu'd with all her earth-born crew!

VI.
These now are past: long, long, ye fleeting years,

Pursue, with glory wing'd, your fated way,
Ere from the womb of time unwelcome peers

The dawn of that inevitable dáy,
When wrapt in shrouded clay their warmest friend

The widow'd virtues shall' again deplore,
When o'er his úrn in pious grief thall bend

ws His Britain, and bewail one patriot more ;

9.r ) For soon must thou, too soon! who spread'It abroad

Thy beaming emanations unconfin'd, Doom'd, like some better angel fent of God To scatter blessings over humankind,

01: Union Thou too muft fall, O Pitt! to shine no more,

6:22: And tread those dreadful paths.a Faulkland trod before!

VII.

guiti; Fast to the driving winds the marshall'd clouds Sweep discontinuous o'er thetherial plain ;

2wO1 Another still upon another crouds,

All hastening downward to their native mailt,

1.