SLANZAS TO MISS H. B. 1778.
on a sea of trouble tost,
I hop'd the port to gain;
Where woes are in oblivion lost,
Where truth and quiet reign.
But, not the fraud ARABIA yields,
Where lurks oppression's sting:
THEBAIS' desolated fields,
Where fails the limpid spring:
Nor famish'd wastes, nor stormy seas,
Nor shocks, the globe that part,
United, rob the mind of ease,
Like Love's infected dart!
Ah, hapless youth! the thought how vain!
How fatal to thy rest!
That groves were still devoid of pain,
That shepherds still were blest!
Tho' thro' each land, by pilgrim trod,
Thy heart has still been free,
Thee waited here, Love's chastening rod-
Here bend thy stubborn knee!
'Tis not the form CIRCASSIA boasts,
Thy tender homage claims;
The feature of the GRECIAN coasts-
'Tis charms, that lack of names!
Whate'er the animated heart
Thro' timid looks conveys;
More potent than the painter's art,
Or poet's magic lays:
Whate'er of liberal, polish'd, meek,
The female race supply;
Flush in Honoria's blooming cheek,
Or languish in her eye!
Shun then, fond swain! the danger shun!
While yet thy fears have breath;
To linger here's to be undone-
To fly, is worse than death!
Instruct me then, some gracious power!
Her pity to implore;
Be this a favourable hour,
Or beat this heart no more!
Ir a kiss so offend you, dear maid,
And to punish the insult you burn,
Let affront with affront be repaid,
And kiss me ten times in return,
"Twas dreadful all-the scene around
The wearied eye could never bound,
The list'ning ear scarce heard a sound,
Save when reechoed back the ground
The pealing voice of War.
The morning sun had seen the plain
Adorned with Autumn's waving grain;
At evening when he looked again,
Through sulphurous clouds, of crimson stain,
'Twas ruin, wide and far.
The smiling cots no more appeared,
Or dimly seen, where darkly reared
Their mouldering walls, whose falling heard
By watching swains, told them interr'd
Was every hope their home.
The balmy breeze at morning's dawn,
Had wafted sweets from every lawn,
Till War, at evening, bade it fan
The burning homes of houseless man,
On burning wings to roam.
The swain, who scarce an hour
Trod o'er his fields nor feared a foe,
Now skulked his native woods below,
And looked from every bush a blow,
And waited as for death.
Or, if from his retreat he dared,
His flaming home before him glared,
The groans of dying friends he heard,
Or saw, perhaps, the blade prepared
To cut a parent's breath.
But now, the noise of war was o'er,
Or, scarcely heard its distant roar,
And flames that sweeped the vale before,
Were sunk, and pained the eye no more,
Nor groan awaked the gloom.
'Twas drearest horror's deepest shade,
In all its darkest forms arrayed,
Where Nature seemed in ruin laid
Upon the pile that War had made,
In silence like the tomb.
paint the form is easy, but the mind
Is hard in thee this rule revers'd we find; For visible throughout the hideous whole Nature has stamp'd thy crookedness of soul; But that foul form, where no two parts agrée, Who can delineate, while he loathes to see?
SWEET is the balmy breath of Spring,
When butterflies are on the wing;
When songsters warble in the trees,
And health is wafted on the breeze;
Sweet are the flowers that ope at morn,
The violet sweet beneath the thorn;
Sweet is the music of the grove,
But sweeter far the maid I love!
The rose that blushes on her cheek,
The lily white that paints her neck,
Outvie the flowers that Flora yields,
To grace in vernal pride the fields;
The perfume of her honied breath,
Is sweeter than the scented heath;
Than spicy aromatic grove,
Far sweeter is the maid I love!
No tempests in her bosom rave,
Calm as the stilly sleeping wave;,
As soft and gentle as the gale,
That bids the vernal blossoms hail;
The roseate hues that Summer grace,
Are nought compared to Laura's face;
Ye blushing flowers! ye vainly strove,
For sweeter far's the maid I love!
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