Ere the chill winter of our days arrive, No more she paints the breast from paffion free; I feel, I feel one loitering with furvive Ah need I, FLORIO, name that wish to thee? The ftar of VENUS ufhers in the day, The first, the lovelieft of the train that shine! The ftar of VENUS lends her brightest ray, When other stars their friendly beams refign. Still in my breast one foft defire remains, Pure as that ftar, from guilt, from int'reft free, Has gentle DELIA trip'd across the plains, And need I, FLORIO, name that with to thee? While, cloy'd to find the fcenes of life the fame, I flept 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 ELEGY XIII. To a friend, on some flight occasion estranged from him. EALTH to my friend, and many a chearful day Around his feat may peaceful shades abide! Ah me! too swiftly fleets our vernal bloom! Say, were it ours, by fortune's wild command, Life is that ftranger land, that alien clime : Shall kindred fouls forego their focial claim? 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 fickness warns thy friend away; Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start, ELEGY Declining an invitation to vifit foreign countries, he takes occafion to intimate the advantages of his own. WHIL To Lord TEMPLE. HILE others loft to friendship, loft to love, Deluded youth! that quits thefe verdant plains, In vain he boasts of his detefted prize; Th' exotic folly knows its native clime; An aukward ftranger, if we waft it o'er ; Why then thefe toils, this coftly waste of time, To spread foft poison on our happy shore ? I covet I covet not the pride of foreign looms; No diftant clime fhall fervile airs impart, Or form thefe limbs with pliant ease to play; 'Tis long fince freedom fled th' Hefperian clime; Her citron groves, her flow'r-embroider'd shore; She faw the British oak aspire fublime, And foft CAMPANIA's olive charms no more. To fhed its luftre o'er th' Iberian maid; * Let CEYLON's envy'd plant perfume the feas, Ours is the breaft whofe genuine ardours please, Let the proud Soldan wound th' Arcadian groves, *The cinnamon. Tell |