WHILE Summer suns o'er the gay prospect played,
Through Surry's verdant scenes, where Epsom spreads
'Mid intermingling elms her flowery meads,
And Hascomb's hill in towering groves arrayed
Reared its romantic steep, with mind serene
I journied blythe. Full pensive I returned;
For now my breast with hopeless passion burned.
Wet with hoar mists appeared the gaudy scene,
Which late in careless indolence I past;

And autumn all around those hues had cast
Where past delight my recent grief might trace.

Sad change, that nature a congenial gloom

Should wear when most, my cheerless mood to chase, I wished her green attire and wonted bloom.

TO MR. GRAY.

NOT that her blooms are marked with beauty's hue,
My rustic muse her votive chaplet brings ;
Unseen, unheard, O Gray, to thee she sings!
While slowly pacing through the churchyard dew,
At curfue-time beneath the dark-green yew,
Thy pensive genius strikes the moral strings,
Or borne sublime on inspiration's wings,
Hears Cambria's bards devote the dreadful clue
Of Edward's race with murthurs foul defiled:
Can aught my pipe to reach thine ear essay?
No, bard divine! For many a care beguiled
By the sweet magic of thy soothing lay,
For many a raptured thought and vision wild,
To thee this strain of gratitude I pay.

BY ANNA SEWARD.

DECEMBER MORNING.

I LOVE to rise ere gleams of tardy light,
Winter's pale dawn; and as warm fires illume,
And cheerful tapers shine around the room,
Through misty windows bend my musing sight,
Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white,
With shutters closed, peer faintly through the gloom,
That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume,
Rising from their dark pile, an added height
By indistinctness given. Then to decree
The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold
To friendship or the Muse, or seek with glee
Wisdom's rich page! O hours more worth than gold,
By whose blest use we lengthen life, and free
From drear decays of age, outlive the old!

ON THE EXPIRING YEAR.

Lo, the year's Final Day! Nature performs
Its obsequies with darkness, wind and rain;

But man is jocund. Hark, th' exultant strain

From towers and steeples drowns the wintry storms!
No village-spire but to the cots and farms,
Right merrily, its scant and tuneless peal
Rings round. Ah, joy ungrateful, mirth insane!
Wherefore the senseless triumph, ye, who feel
This annual portion of brief life the while
Depart for ever? Brought it no dear hours
Of health and night-rest? none that saw the smile
On lips beloved? O, with as gentle powers
Will the next pass? Ye pause-yet careless hear
Strike these last hours, that knell th' Expiring Year!

TO SPRING.

IN April's gilded morn when south winds blow,
And gently shake the hawthorn's silver crown,
Wafting its scent the forest-glade adown,

The dewy shelter of the bounding doe,

Then, under trees, soft tufts of primrose show
Their palely-yellowing flowers; to the moist sun
Blue harebells peep, while cowslips stand unblown,
Plighted to riper May; and lavish flow,

The lark's loud carols in the wilds of air.

O! not to Nature's glad enthusiast cling

Avarice and pride. Through her now blooming sphere
Charmed as he roves, his thoughts enraptured spring
To Him, who gives frail man's appointed time
These cheering hours of promise and of prime.

ANON.

FROM DODSLEY'S COLLECTION.

YOUNG, fair, and good! ah, why should young, and fair, And good be huddled in untimely grave?

Must so sweet flower so brief a period have, Just bloom and charm, then fade and disappear? Yet ours the loss, who ill, alas! can spare

The bright example which thy virtues gave;

The guerdon thine, whom gracious Heaven did save From longer trial in this vale of care.

Rest then, sweet saint, in peace and honour rest,
While our true tears bedew thy maiden hearse.
Light lie the earth upon thy lovely breast;
And let a grateful heart with grief oppressed,

To thy dear memory consecrate this verse,
Though all too mean for who deserves the best,

COWPER.

TO MRS. UNWIN.

MARY! I want a lyre with other strings;

Such aid from Heaven, as some have feigned they drew !

An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new,

And undebased by praise of meaner things!

That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,

I

may record thy worth, with honour due,

In verse as musical, as thou art true,

Verse, that immortalizes whom it sings!
But thou hast little need. There is a book,
By seraphs writ, with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look ;
A chronicle of actions, just and bright!

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,

And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

H