The shady arbour, and refreshing breeze,
In circling eddies, crown'd their noon-day toil;
The sweets of rural elegance and ease,

Survey'd their pleasures with applauding smile.* But, ah! these youthful sportive hours are fled; These scenes of jocund mirth are now no more: No healing slumbers 'tend my humble bed,

No friends condole the sorrows of the poor.

And what avail the thoughts of former joy?
What comfort bring they in the adverse hour?
Can they the canker-worm of care destroy,
Or brighten fortune's discontented lour?

He who hath long traversed the fertile plain,
Where nature in its fairest vesture smiled,
Will he not cheerless view the fairy scene,
When lonely wandering o'er the barren wild?
When, from the summit of a towering hill,
My seats of former happiness I spy,
The tears of sorrow o'er my cheeks distil,
While mournful thoughts the gushing streams
supply.

For now pale poverty, with haggard eye
And rueful aspect, darts her gloomy ray;
My wonted guests their proffer'd aid deny,
And from the paths of Damon steal away.

Thus, when fair summer's lustre gilds the lawn,
When ripening blossoms deck the spreading tree,
The birds with melody salute the dawn,

And o'er the daisy hangs the humming bee.

But when the beauties of the circling year
In chilling frosts and furious storms decay,
No more the bees upon the plains appear,
No more the warblers hail the infant day.

*This stanza has been generally omitted.

To the lone corner of some distant shore,
In dreary devious pilgrimage I'll fly,
And wander pensive, where deceit no more
Shall trace my footsteps with a mortal eye.

There solitary saunter o'er the beach,

And to the murmuring surge my griefs disclose; There shall my voice in plaintive wailings teach The hollow caverns to resound my woes.

Sweet are the waters to the parched tongue;
Sweet are the blossoms to the wanton bee;
Sweet to the shepherd sounds the lark's shrill song;
But sweeter far is solitude to me.

Adieu, ye fields, where I have fondly stray'd!

Ye swains, who once the favourite Damon knew; Farewell, ye sharers of my bounty's aid!

Ye sons of base ingratitude, adieu!

AGAINST REPINING AT FORTUNE.

THOUGH in my narrow bounds of rural toil
No obelisk or splendid column raise;
Though partial fortune still averts her smile,
And views my labours with condemning eyes;

Yet all the gorgeous vanity of state

I can contemplate with a cool disdain;
Nor shall the honours of the gay and great
E'er wound my bosom with an envious pain.

Avails it aught the grandeur of their halls,
With all the glories of the pencil hung,
If truth, fair truth! within the unhallow'd walls
Hath never whisper'd with her seraph tongue?

Avails it aught, if music's gentle lay

Hath oft been echoed by the sounding dome, If music cannot soothe their griefs away,

Or change a wretched to a happy home?

Though fortune should invest them with her spoils,
And banish poverty with look severe-
Enlarge their confines, and decrease their toils-
Ah! what avails, if she increase their care?

Though fickle, she disclaim my moss-grown cot, Nature! thou look'st with more impartial eyes: Smile thou, fair goddess! on my sober lot;

I'll neither fear her fall nor court her rise.

When early larks shall cease the matin song;
When Philomel at night resigns her lays;
When melting numbers to the owl belong-
Then shall the reed be silent in thy praise.

Can he who with the tide of fortune sails,
More pleasure from the sweets of nature share?
Do zephyrs waft him more ambrosial gales,
Or do his groves a gayer livery wear?

To me the heavens unveil as pure a sky;
To me the flowers as rich a bloom disclose;
The morning beams as radiant to my eye;
And darkness guides me to a sweet repose.

If luxury their lavish dainties piles,

And still attends upon their fated hours, Doth health reward them with her open smiles, Or exercise enlarge their feeble powers?

'Tis not in richest mines of Indian gold, That man this jewel, happiness, can find, If his unfeeling breast, to virtue cold,

Denies her entrance to his ruthless mind.

Wealth, pomp, and honour, are but gaudy toys-
Alas, how poor the pleasures they impart!
Virtue's the sacred source of all the joys
That claim a lasting mansion in the heart.

CONSCIENCE.

AN ELEGY.

-Leave her to heaven,

And to the thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.-SHAKSPEARE.

No choiring warblers flutter in the sky;
Phoebus no longer holds his radiant sway;
While nature, with a melancholy eye,
Bemoans the loss of his departed ray.

Oh happy he, whose conscience knows no guile!
He to the sable night can bid farewell;
From cheerless objects close his eyes a while,
Within the silken folds of sleep to dwell.

Elysian dreams shall hover round his bed,

His soul shall wing, on pleasing fancies borne, To shining vales where flowerets lift their head, Waked by the breathing zephyrs of the morn.

But wretched he, whose foul reproachful deeds
Can through an angry conscience wound his rest;
His eye too oft the balmy comfort needs,

Though slumber seldom knows him as her guest.

To calm the raging tumults of his soul,
If wearied nature should an hour demand,
Around his bed the sheeted spectres howl;
Red with revenge the grinning furies stand.

Nor state nor grandeur can his pain allay;
Where shall he find a requiem to his woes?
Power cannot chase the frightful gloom away,
Nor music lull him to a kind repose.

Where is the king that conscience fears to chide? Conscience, that candid judge of right and wrong, Will o'er the secrets of each heart preside,

Nor awed by pomp, nor tamed by soothing song.

DAMON TO HIS FRIENDS.

THE billows of life are supprest;
Its tumults, its toils, disappear;
To relinquish the storms that are past,
I think on the sunshine that's near.

Dame Fortune and I are agreed;
Her frowns I no longer endure;
For the goddess has kindly decreed
That Damon no more shall be poor.

Now riches will ope the dim eyes,

To view the increase of my store; And many my friendship will prize, Who never knew Damon before.

But those I renounce and abjure
Who carried contempt in their eye;
May poverty still be their dower,

That could look on misfortune awry!

Ye powers that weak mortals govern,
Keep pride at his bay from my mind;
Oh let me not haughtily learn

To despise the few friends that were kind!