XVIII.

TO HONORA SNEYD*,

WHOSE HEALTH WAS ALWAYS BEST IN WINTER.

"AND now the youthful, gay, capricious SPRING,
Piercing her showery clouds with crystal light,
And with their hues reflected streaking bright
Her radiant bow, bids all her warblers sing:
The Lark, shrill carolling on soaring wing,

The lonely Thrush, in brake with blossoms white,
That tunes his pipe so loud: while from the sight
Coy bending their dropt heads, young cowslips fling
Rich perfume o'er the fields. It is the prime
Of Hours that Beauty robes:-yet all they gild,
Chear and delight, in this their fragrant time,
For thy dear sake to me less pleasure yield

Than veil'd in sleet and rain, and hoary rime Dun WINTER'S naked hedge, and plashy field."

XIX.

EARLY FONDNESS FOR THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE HOW FORM'D.

"BY Derwent's rapid stream as oft I stray'd
With Infancy's light step and glances wild,
And saw vast rocks on steepy mountains pil'd,
Frown o'er the umbrageous glen; or pleas'd survey'd
The cloudy moon-shine in the shadowy glade,
Romantic nature to the enthusiast Child
Grew dearer far, than when serene she smil'd
In uncontrasted loveliness array'd.

But O, in every scene with sacred sway

Her Graces fire me: from the bloom that spreads Resplendent in the lucid morn of May,

To the green light the little Glow-worm sheds On mossy banks, when mid-night glooms prevail And softest silence broods o'er all the dale."

SEWARD. (VII.)

XX.

WRITTEN ON RISING GROUND NEAR LICHFIELD.

"THE Evening shines in May's luxuriant pride: And all the sunny hills at distance glow,

And all the brooks that through the valley flow Seem liquid gold. O, had my Fate denied Leisure, and power to taste the sweets that glide Through waken'd Minds as the soft seasons go On their still varying progress, for the woe My Heart has felt what balm had been supplied? But where great NATURE smiles, as here she smiles, 'Mid vernal lakes, and gently swelling hills, And glassy lakes, and mazy murmuring rills, And narrow wood-wild lanes,-her spell beguiles The impatient sighs of Grief; and reconciles Poetic Minds to Life with all her ills."

SEWARD, (XV.)

XXI.

PETRARCH TO VAUCLUSE.

"FORTUNATE VALE! exulting hill, dear plain,
Where morn and eve my Soul's fair Idol stray'd,
While all your winds that murmur'd through the glade
Stole her sweet breath;-yet, yet, your paths retain
Prints of her step by fount, whose floods remain
In depth unfathom'd, 'mid the rocks that shade,
With cavern'd arch, their sleep.-Ye streams, that
play'd

Around her limbs in summer's ardent reign,

The soft resplendence of those azúre eyes Ting'd ye with living light.-The envied claim These blest distinctions give, my Lyre, my sighs, My Songs record, and from their Poet's flame Bid thy wild vale, its rocks and streams arise, Associates still of their bright Mistress' fame.

SEWARD. (XXV.)

XXII.

ON THE FUNERAL OF AN AMIABLE YOUNG

PERSON.

"DARK as the silent stream, beneath the night
Thy funeral glides to Life's eternal Home-
Child of its narrow House-how late the bloom,
The facile smile, the soft eye's crystal light

Each Grace of Youth's gay morn that charms our sight
Play'd o'er that Form!-now sunk in earth's cold

gloom

Insensate! ghastly! for the yawning Tomb, Alas! fit inmate. Thus we mourn the blight, Of virgin Beauty, and Endowments rare, In their gay hours of promise. O, when Age Drops, like the o'er-blown, faded Rose, though dear Its long-known worth, no stormy sorrows rage; But swell, when we behold, unsoil'd by time, Youth's broken Lily perisht in its prime."

SEWARD. (XLVI.)