And, ah! forgive a stranger rude,
A wretch forlorn,' she cry'd, 'Whofe feet unhallow'd thus intrude Where Heaven and you refide!
But let a maid thy pity share,
Whom love has taught to stray;
Who feeks for reft, but finds defpair
'Companion of her way.'
My father liv'd befide the Tyne,
A wealthy lord was he:
And all his wealth was mark'd as mine,
He had but only me.
To win me from his tender arms,
Unnumber'd fuitors came;
Who prais'd me for imputed charms,
And felt, or feign'd, a flame.
Each hour a mercenary croud
"With richest proffors strove;
Among the reft young Edwin bow'd,
'But never talk'd of love.
In humbleft, fimpleft habit clad,
No wealth or power had he; 'Wisdom and worth were all he had
But these were all to me.
The bloffom opening to the day, The dews of heaven refin'd, "Could nought of purity display 'To emulate his mind.
The dew, the bloffoms of the tree,
With charms inconftant fhine;
Their charms were his; but, woe to me! Their conftancy was mine.
For ftill I try'd each fickle art, 'Importunate and vain ;
And while his paffion touch'd my heart,
'I triumph'd in his pain :
Till quite dejected with my scorn,
"He left me to my pride,
And fought a folitude forlorn,
In fecret where he died.
'But mine the forrow, mine the fault!
And well my life shall pay ;
I'll feek the folitude he fought,
And ftretch me where he lay !
And there forlorn, difpairing hid,
'I'll lay my down and die.
'Twas fo for me that Edwin did,
And fo for him will I !
"Forbid it, Heaven !' the Hermit cry'd,
And clafp'd her to his breast:
The wond'ring fair-one turn'd to chide :
'Twas Edwin's felf that prefs'd
· Turn, Angelina, ever dear ;
My charmer turn to fee
6 Thy own, thy long-loft Edwin here, 'Reitor'd to love and thee.
Thus let me hold thee to my heart,
" And every care refign:
And shall we never, never part,
My life—my all that's mine!
'No, never from this hour to part ;'We'll live and love fo true,
♦ The figh that rends thy constant heart • Shall break thy Edwin's too!'
HAT am I? how produc'd? and for what end When drew I being? to what period tend? Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance, Dropp'd by wild atoms in diforder'd dance?
Or from an endless chain of caufes wrought,
And of unthinking fubftance, born with thought?
By motion which began without a caufe
Supremely wife, without defign or laws?
Am I but what I feem, mere flesh and blood;
A branching channel, with a mazy flood?
The purple stream that through my veffels glides,
Dull and unconfcious flows like common tides;
The pipes through which the circling juices stray
Are not that thinking I, no more than they;
This frame compacted with transcendent skill,
Of moving joints obedient to my will,
Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,
Waxes and waftes; I call it mine, not me,
New matter ftill the mould'ring mass fuftains,
The manfion chang'd the tenant ftill remains ;
And from the fleeting ftream, repair'd by food,
Diftinct as is the fwimmer from the flood.
What am I then? fure of a noble birth.
By parents right, I own as mother, earth;
But claim fuperior lineage by my fire,
Who warm'd the unthinking clod with heav'nly fire,
Effence divine, with lifeless clay allay'd,
By double nature, double instinct fway'd:
With look erect, I dart my longing eye,
Seem wing'd to part and gain my native sky;
I ftrive to mount, but ftrive alas! in vain,
Ty'd to this maffy globe with magic chain.
Now with fwift thought I range from pole to pole,
View worlds around their flaming centres roll:
What steady powers their endless motions guide,
Through the fame trackless paths of boundless void
I trace the blazing comets fiery tale,
And weigh the whirling planets in a scale;
Thefe god-like thoughts, while eager I purfue
Some glitt❜ring trifle offer'd to my view,
A gnat, an infect of the meanest kind,
Erafe the new-born image from my mind:
Some beaftly want, craving, importunate,
Vile as the grinning mastiff at my gate,
Calls off from heav'nly truth this reas'ning me
And tells me, I'm a brute as much as he.
If on fublimer wings of love and praise,
My foul above the starry vault
Lur'd by fome vain conceit, or shameful luft,
I flag, I drop, and flutter in the dust.
The tow'ring lark thus from her lofty strain,
Stoops to an emmet, or a barley grain.
By adverfe gufts of jarring instinct toft,
I rove to one, now to the other coaft;
To blifs unknown my lofty foul aspires,
My lot unequal to my vaft defires.
As' mongit the hinds a child of royal birth -'
Finds his high pedigree by confcious worth;
So man, amongst his fellow brutes expos'd,
See's, he's a king, but 'tis a king depos'd.
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