Dwell on thy praise, and feel, while life remains,
The joy of grief from thy harmonious strains.
Still to thy shade each sacred honour pay,
And to thy grave devote the mournful lay.
"Tis Nature's charm to ease the troubled breast,
And sooth the anguish of the soul to rest;
We fondly hope, by dear delusion led,
To wake our own sensations in the dead,
By sympathy reverse the eternal doom,
Revive the clay and animate the tomb.
ON SOME FLOWERS PAINTED BY A LADY.
"TWIXT Art and Nature long has been the strife,
Tis rare the copy pleases as the life;
But in MIRANDA's chaste designs we view
The pictur'd flower more beauteous than the true,
Her
every touch can some new grace impart,
And Nature blushing yields the palm to Art!
-Yet Nature hold! for her soft cheek discloses
Still fairer lilies, and still brighter roses;
Art sces abash'd, nor more disputes the throne,
For those O Nature, those are all thy own!
LATE CONNUBIAL RUPTURE IN
SIGH, fair injur'd stranger! for thy fate;
But what shall sighs avail thee? thy poor heart,
'Mid all the "pomp and circumstance" of state,
Shivers in nakedness. Unbidden, start
Sad recollections of Hope's garish dream,
That shap'd a seraph form, and nam'd it Love,
Its hues gay-varying, as the orient beam
Varies the neck of Cytherea's dove.
To one soft accent of domestic joy,
Poor are the shouts that shake the high-arch'd dome; Those plaudits, that thy public path annoy,
Alas! they tell thee-Thou'rt a wretch at home!
O then retire, and weep! Their very woes
Solace the guiltless. Drop the pearly flood
On thy sweet infant, as the FULL-BLOWN rose,
Surcharg'd with dew, bends o'er its neighb'ring BUD.
And ah! that Truth some holy spell might lend
To lure thy wanderer from the syren's power;
Then bid your souls inseparably blend,
Like two bright dew-drops meeting in a flower.
ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH CHANNEL.
ROLL, roll thy white waves, and envelop'd in foam
Pour thy tides round the echoing shore,
Thou guard of Old England, my country, my home,
And my soul shall rejoice in the roar.
Though high-fronted valour may scowl at the foe,
And with eyes of defiance advance;
"Tis thou hast repell'd desolation and woe,
And the conquering legions of France.
'Tis good to exult in the strength of the land,
That the flow'r of her youth are in arms,
That her lightning is pointed, her jav'lin in hand,
And arous'd the rough spirit that warms;
But never may that day of horror be known,
When these hills and these vallies shall feel
The rush of the phalanx by phalanx o'erthrown,
And the bound of the thundering wheel.
The dread chance of battle, its blood, and its roar,
Who can wish in his senses to prove?
To plant the foul fiend on Britannia's own shore,
All sacred to peace and to love?
Hail glory of Albion! ye fleets, and ye hosts,
I breathe not the tones of dismay;
In valour unquestion'd still cover your coasts,
But may Heav'n keep the slaughter away!
Thou gem of the ocean, that smil'st in thy power,
May thy sons prove too strong to be slaves;
Yet, let them not scorn in the dark-fated hour,
But exult in their rampart of waves.
The nations have trembled, have cowr'd in the dust,
E'en the Alps heard the conqueror's song,
When the genius of Gaul with unquenchable thirst
Push'd her eagles resistless along.
And still they advance; and the nations must bleed ;
Then sing, O my country, for joy;
Thy girdle of ocean by Heav'n was decreed
To protect what the sword would destroy.
Roll, roll thy white waves, and envelop'd in foam
Pour thy tides round the echoing shore;
Thou guard of Old England, my country, my home,
And my soul shall rejoice in the roar.
COMPELL'D by death his millions to disgorge,
Sir Thomas hardly left a mite to George:
And hence the astonishing report was spread,
That George half-wish'd his father was not dead.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame.
Ir, blazon'd by the Muse, Calypso's smile,
The Sirens' melody, Acrasia's isle
Peopled with Graces ever blith and young,
Nymphs such as Titian drew, or Ovid sung,
In earlier days my fancy could engage
Ere Time display'd Reflexion's sober page:
At length the gay delusion charms no more:
Haste we those distant ages to explore,
When Poesy, to real merit just,
Around the Patriot's tomb, or Sage's bust,
Twin'd amaranthine chaplets, and withstood
The thunderbolts of fell Oppression's brood.
As once, in Egypt's miserable realm, Some proud unfeeling Statesman seiz'd the helm, With specious words assailing Pharaoh's throne, Deaf to a trampled nation's loudest groan, Their bricks exacting when depriv'd of straw, His nod like Jove's, his wild caprice was law, Till, to perdition doom'd, beneath the tide, With all his host o'erwhelm'd, the Monarch died: When under Tyranny the World lay mute, The Form Divine degraded to the Brute; A new device the Bards of Phrygia found, They, d'en to things inanimate, gave sound:
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