Gentle, yet daring; rash, yet mild; Inform'd, yet simple as a child: Like flinty rock to stern reproof, (When surges beat, that, high aloof, Looks proudly o'er the strand); But to the tongue that fain would teach, By mild persuasion's winning speech, Soft as the yielding sand.
To woman's voice he still would melt, To woman's charms he ever knelt, With firm devotion bow'd;
And fervent was the love he felt: A gentle flame within him dwelt, Untold amidst the crowd.- Lady! your confidence, I pray; Know you these portraits?-Lady! say.
TO MISS G——,
ON HER VISITING OXFORD.
BY THE LATE CHARLES WILLIAM RUSSELL, ESQ.
when the moon her orb conceals, The little stars with lustre shine; But when her splendor she reveals, They droop with envy and decline: So, lovely maid, when you appear In native charms, and beauty bright; Though Oxford's nymphs with careless air Affect to smile, they die with spite.
TO THE POET VALGIUS, ON THE DEATH OF HIS SON.
TRANSLATED BY MR. A. S. THELWALL.
Nor always from black clouds the rains descend
On the dank field; nor doth the angry storm For ever vex the troubled Caspian sea; Nor yet the cold Armenian shore, my friend, Thro' every month doth stubborn ice deform,
And unthawed snow; nor Jove's high towering tree
For ever combat with the northern wind;
Nor widow'd ash aye strew its Gargan pride.— Yet dost thou, Valgius, still deplore the fate Of thy lost Mystes; rest thy griefs ne'er find When Vesper rises, or the starry guide Opes for the rapid sun, heaven's roseate gate.
sage who liv'd three ages, did not mourn His lost Antilochus thro' evěry year;
Nor were the Phrygian sisters, or their sire,
For ever for young Troilus forlorn ;
Their grief had end. Thou also dry the tear; No more complain, but let us tune the lyre
And sing the trophies by Augustus won, Who bids the cold Niphates own his might, Who adds the swift Euphrates to his sway, And bids his waves in gentler current run: In narrower bounds the Alani, in affright, Peaceful, bestride the steed, and shun the battle-day.
TRANSLATED BY MR. A. S. THELWALL.
ON no accustom❜d and no feeble wing, A biform'd Poet, will I mount the skies, On this base earth no longer lingering; Superior to all envy, lo! I rise,
And leave your far-fam'd city. Tho' I spring From humble parents, since with favouring eyes You view me, O Mæcenas! I the shore
Of Styx escape, its bounding stream I spurn. The skin grows rough upon my limbs, I soar Blanch'd to a stately bird, and now discern With plumage light my shoulders cover'd o'er, My fingers into glossy feathers turn.
Swifter than Dædalus' too venturous boy, I pass the Bosphorus' resounding strand, A bird of song, o'er stormy Syrtes fly,
And view the frozen Hyperborean land. Colchians, and Dacians, knowing to destroy By semblant fear, the eager Marsian band And far Geloni know me; fierce in war,
The Iberian views me, and who drinks the Rhone. Be from my empty funeral, dirges far,
Banish base grief and the complaining groan : Restrain your clamour, be the funeral car
And needless trophies hence, Fame shall protect her
ON MARY, THE WIFE OF WILLIAM HAYWARD, ESQ.
HERE, stranger! Hayward lies.-Ask you her worth? Go count the sighs which from her death had birth! Seek of her husband, of her children seek, Why changes as they pass each healthful cheek? Seek of the poor, why still upon her grave They pay the kindly tears her pity gave? And faltering they will say,-In age, in youth, Her life was usefulness, her speech was truth; Her heart to all that breathed expanded wide; Her faith to Heaven ascended ;-and she died.
COME, all ye shepherds, come around, My hapless state survey;
Ye woods, ye hills, my grief resound, And echo back the mournful lay.
Myra, the softest sweetest fair, That ever grac'd the plains, No longer now regards my care, No longer listens to my strains.
In vain my eyes, with weeping drown'd, The soul-felt anguish tell;
No pity in that breast is found,
Where pity always lov'd to dwell.
Then shepherds, haste! my last, last bed, My bridal bed prepare;
Hide, hide, thou earth my wretched head, And free me from this black despair.
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