What now avails, how great? how gay?

How fair, how fine, their matchlefs dames?

Here fleeps their undiftinguish'd clay;

And e'en the ftones have loft their names.

And yon gay crouds muft foon expire,
Unknown, unprais'd, each fair-one's name!
Not fo the charms that bards infpire;
Increafing years increase their fame.

Oh, Mira! what is state or wealth?
The great can never love like me!
Wealth adds not days, nor quickens health,
Then, wiser thou, come happy be!

Come, and be mine! in this sweet spot,
Where Efk rolls clear his little wave,

We'll live, and Esk shall, in a cot,

See joys that Rosline never gave.

HIGHAM

ON

HIGHAM HILL.

A PASTORAL.

BY MR. NICHOLLS.

N Higham Hill, when prospects fair
Salute the wand'ring fight,

I love to breathe the morning air,
And fleep the fummer night:
There, how charming 'tis to wake
When filver Cynthia reigns!
Whilft Philomel, from flow'ry brake,
Pours forth her love-lorn strains.

Then, oh! then, I love to rife,

And trace the broom-clad hill;

Whilft thro' the ftillness foftly flies
The whispers of the rill;
Nor elfe is heard to interpose,

From dingle, bush, or dale,
Save Thames, foft kiffing, as he goes,
The rush-embroider'd vale.

As down the flope I traverse then,

I fcan with curious eye

The wonders Heav'n prefents to men,

And wish the atheist by:

His mind, howe'er impervious grown

To theologick lore,

With me, I think, would quickly own

A fupernatural Pow'r!

When business dulls the mental pow'rs,

To Higham Hill I run,

And with the breath of op'ning flow'rs

There hail the rifing fun.

Then

Then how my foul revives again!

My fancy takes her flight;

The muse resumes her wonted strain, And fings with new delight!

Let the proud thing of human race,
Who, like a fummer fly,
Scuds to-day from place to place,
And must to-morrow die ;
Let him to greatnefs bend the knee,
Or heap up fordid wealth;
The top of Higham Hill for me,
That feat of Peace and Health!

Peace and Health! O, facred theme, With all that's blissful fraught!

The rest is but an empty dream,

Not worth a poet's thought:

May he, who strives for more than this,

Still turn a barren foil,

Nor ever meet a ray of bliss

To mitigate his toil!

Bear me from hence, fome rural god,

To Higham Hill again;

The choiceft bloom that decks the fod I'll fcatter round thy fane :

For, O! I long, at fervid noon,

To breathe the blue-bell's sweet; To fit and hear the throstle's tune, Where spreading hazels meet;

Or ftray by hawthorn hedge, or rove

Adown the pathless way,

When ev'ry fong-bird chears his love

Beneath the bloom of May:

.

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero fate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were plac'd around,

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound;

(So fhould defert in arms be crown'd.)

The lovely Thaïs by his fide,

Sat like a blooming Eaftern bride,

In flow'r of youth and beauty's pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deferves the fair.

Timotheus, plac'd on high,.

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touch'd the lyre;
The trembling notes afcend the sky,

And heavenly joys inspire.
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