Lo! his furious hand he flings

In a tempest o'er the strings;

He strikes the chords so quick, so loud,

"T is JOVE that scatters lightning from a cloud

"Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure,

Solace of my bleeding heart;
Lyre! O Lyre! my only pleasure,
We will never, never part:
Glory, Commerce, now in vain
Tempt me to the field, the main ;
The Muse's sons are blest, though born
To cold neglect, and penury, and scorn.

"What, though all the world neglect me,
Shall my haughty soul repine?
And shall poverty deject me,

While this hallow'd Lyre is mine?
Heaven

that o'er my helpless head

Many a wrathful vial shed,

Heaven gave this Lyre,— and thus decreed,

Be thou a bruised, but not a broken reed."

1803.

REMONSTRANCE TO WINTER.

AH! why, unfeeling WINTER, why

Still flags thy torpid wing?

Fly, melancholy Season, fly,

And yield the year to SPRING.

Spring, the young harbinger of love,

An exile in disgrace,

Flits o'er the scene, like NOAH's dove,
Nor finds a resting-place.

When on the mountain's azure peak
Alights her fairy form,

Cold blow the winds, and dark and bleak

Around her rolls the storm.

If to the valley she repair

For shelter and defence

Thy wrath pursues the mourner there,
And drives her, weeping, thence.

She seeks the brook, the faithless brook,
Of her unmindful grown,

Feels the chill magic of thy look,

And lingers into stone.

She woos her embryo-flowers in vain
To rear their infant heads;

Deaf to her voice, her flowers remain
Enchanted in their beds.

In vain she bids the trees expand
Their green luxuriant charms;
Bare in the wilderness they stand,

And stretch their withering arms.

Her favorite birds, in feeble notes,
Lament thy long delay;

And strain their little stammering throats
To charm thy blasts away.

Ah! WINTER, calm thy cruel rage,
Release the struggling year;

Thy power is past, decrepit Sage,

Arise and disappear.

The stars that graced thy splendid night

Are lost in warmer rays;

The Sun, rejoicing in his might,
Unrolls celestial days.

Then why, usurping WINTER, why
Still flags thy frozen wing?
Fly, unrelenting tyrant, fly-

And yield the year to SPRING.

SONG.

ROUND LOVE's Elysian bowers
The fairest prospects rise;
There bloom the sweetest flowers,
There shine the purest skies:

And joy and rapture gild awhile

The cloudless heaven of BEAUTY'S smile.

Round LOVE's deserted bowers

Tremendous rocks arise;
Cold mildews blight the flowers,
Tornadoes rend the skies :

And PLEASURE's waning moon goes down
Amid the night of BEAUTY'S frown.

Then, YOUTH, thou fond believer!

The wily Siren shun;

Who trusts the dear Deceiver

Will surely be undone :

When BEAUTY triumphs, ah! beware;

Her smile is hope

her frown despair.

LINES WRITTEN UNDER A DRAWING OF YARDLEY OAK,

CELEBRATED BY COWPER.

See Hayley's Life and Letters of W. Cowper, Esq.

THIS sole survivor of a race

Of giant oaks, where once the wood
Rang with the battle or the chase,
In stern and lonely grandeur stood.

From age to age it slowly spread
Its gradual boughs to sun and wind;
From age to age its noble head
As slowly wither'd and declined.

A thousand years are like a day,
When fled; no longer known than seen;
This tree was doom'd to pass away,

And be as if it ne'er had been ;

But mournful COWPER, wandering nigh,

For rest beneath its shadow came,
When, lo! the voice of days gone by

Ascended from its hollow frame.