And bursts her breast, with many a sigh, Beneath the moon's lack-lustre eye.
Now lap me in the wild of pleasure,
While I taste each lurking treasure
Of syren Cyrce's cup divine,
And smile as rosy as the wine,
That purply dances in the glass
Proffer'd by Hebe, blooming lass,
Whose tresses, interwove with show'rs
Of lilies, and all roseate flow'rs,
Steal the raptur'd soul of Jove,
And string the bow of sportive Love,
To pierce his awful bosom through,
And make him court, in public view;
While sliding down the cloudy vault,
Entic'd by some delicious thought,
He clothes himself in down of dove,
And leaves the golden throne above,
Forgetting quite the thund'ring Jove,
And revels in the fair-one's breast;
And raptur'd in ecstatic rest,
Devours the tempting feast of joy,
While Cytherea's winged boy
Mimics the gold, and in his heart
Fixes swift another dart,
Then sets him on some alien scheme,
To satisfy her am'rous flame;
While scepter'd Juno raves above,
To find out her gallanting Jove.
But oh! let not the jocund Muse,
Ever recite the talk of shrews;
But panting, trembling, sighing, wooing,
Never mind what they are doing.
Goddess, on thy way sublime
Waft me to the Indian clime,
Where the slaves, with labour faint,
O'er the fervid furrows pant,
And fearful of the master's eye,
Smother soft the rising sigh,.
That weeps, the toil of day undone,
And fury of the scorching sun;
That lifts aloft his burning crest,
And the hot buckler on his breast,
That fires the kindling world around,
And scathes the sky, a fiery mound!
O let me join their bitter woe,
My tears with pangs congenial flow,
And while I raise the angry strain,
Curse their fell tyrant's galling chain,
That lording o'er his helpless train,
Sinks the slave below the man!
Now, now, quick frenzy fires my eye,
I see the gory murd'rer die;
He wallows in the crimson flood
Of wife and children's steaming blood;
And now by furies stern possest,
Ile stabs the dagger in his breast;
His grim frown seems to threat the sky,
And madness flashes from his eye-
But now how calm the angry frown
That call'd avenging lightnings down ;
He sees bright cherubs rang'd around
Start upward at the grizzly wound,
And leave his soul, depress'd with care,
To feel the pangs of wild despair;
To fathom deep th' abyss of night,
And plunge the realms devoid of light,
Save the blue sulphur's glimm'ring gleam,
Tortur'd by many a demon's scream,
He wails the knell, in slaughter dy'd,
And the stern frown of suicide.
To castled cliffs and antres vast,
Cavern'd in the rocky waste,
My footsteps lead; where Spenser trod,
Or Milton woo'd th' inspiring god;
There let me tune exalted lays
To bards divine of former days,
And, dress'd in all thy varying hues,
Invoke thee, goddess, for my muse,
To wing my soaring soul above,
And rival with the bird of Jove
In lofty flight, and frame my song
The lucid-beaming stars among ;
While minding sweet my mortal cars,
I catch the music of the spheres ;
And, like Prometheus bold, reveal
To wond'ring earth the fire I feel,
Inspiring in my tuneful soul
Contempt of ev'ry mean controul,
That blames sweet Fiction's fairy song,
Or calls Description's heighten'd beauties wrong.
NOW faintly beaming on her lucid throne,
The moon, pale regent of the sky,
Her silvery sceptre sways on high,
While Silence, smoth'ring ev'ry sound
Unfit to hail her matron-ear,
Save the lone turtle's solitary moan,
That makes her awful pause more drear, And keeps the list'ning sense in stilness bound, Her ermine curtain gently draws around: Till mounted on the scowling blast,
Anon the midnight demons rave,
And hurling in the iron air,
Come the fleet bands of wild Despair;
And Ruin, tumbled on the rocking wave,
And Conscience' haggard form with bleeding bosom
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