WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF MEMORIALS SACRED
TO FRIENDSHIP, BELONGING TO ROBERT BOURNE
ye who mock Affection's sacred name,
Her angel nature and her balmy tear,
Who never triumph'd in a brother's fame,
Nor deem'd it sweet to hold another dear;
Whose names with bigot Ignorance are found,
Beyond her abject sphere afraid to move;
Who never breath'd on Fancy's fairy ground,
Unwarm'd by Science and unknown to love;
Turn from these tablets, to remembrance dear;
For know the natives of a generous breast
Stampt their fair semblance in a vision here,
And Genius guards what holier Friendship blest.
But ye, whose souls a proud alliance claim
With those baptiz'd the family of Heav'n,
Trace on these leaves your consecrated name,
The name that Virtue to her sons hath giv❜n.
Memorials, sacred to the conscious heart!
Ye glow, the pledge of happier days to come, When health's warm colour shall no more desert The check that crimsons at the thought of home.
Ah! when the emerald billows of the west,
Shall bear thee back to Erin's beauteous isle,
The vivid pictures on these leaves imprest
Shall wake no more a stranger's mournful smile.
No more shall wake with cabalistic power
The native scenes to filial duty dear,
Nor troubl'd Fancy in her feverish hour,
Chill the warm heart with many an anxious fear.
These simple lines may then the spell possess,
Lodged in the reliques parted friends revere,
And memory still the manly worth shall bless
That made thee feel thou wast no Exile here,
Es, yes, I own it was a tear:
A tear too shed for thee,
But chide me not, thou tyrant dear,
No more such tears thou❜lt see.
For though it lent some little ease,
Midst griefs I dar'd not speak,
Yet ere another shall displease
My full, fond heart shall break.
Alluding to Mr. Bourne's residence in the family of the Author's friend, Dr. Anderson, for the recovery of his health.
A Muse that pleases, without rule or art,
The child of nature and an honest heart,
That fears on Fancy's wings too far to roam,
Rapt in the sweet concentred bliss of home;
A foreign muse (tho' nothing said or sung,
To me seems foreign, save the heartless tongue)
Thy Drennan sends-his zest for reading flown;
Ev'n tears seem selfish when they're shed alone.
No voice to praise-no darling Sarah near,
No lip of love to catch the falling tear,
No neck inclining to the soft caress,
eye to glisten, and no hand to press,
No mouth to meditate the matron kiss,
While the heart palpitates for nameless bliss,
No sigh for something future, unpossess'd,
No smile, that says-Be with the present bless'd.
If sorrows double, when we feel alone,
And pleasure palls, when only felt by one;
If sympathy still makes the suff'ring less,
And, by dividing, adds to happiness;
If earth meets heav'n but by partaken bliss,
And heav'n grows brighter heav'n when angels kiss
Oh, then, sweet Sarah, hasten to his arms,
Who shares thy joys, will sooth thy soft alarms,
On whom thy trembling confidence may rest,
That fluttering bird which beats within thy breast,
And fears, yet longs, to leave the parent nest.
Oh! come to Him, who in the husband's name,
Has father's, mother's, sister's, brother's claim;
And if 'tis duty that alone can move,
The first of duties is the law of love.
The law that circumscribes both earth and skies,
Forms but a wedding ring of ampler size,
Where emerald stars, and diamond suns combine
To grace a finger of the hand divine:
That law, that ring, my Sarah, makes thee mine.
Oh! may our little ring, within this larger found
Share the same fate, the same immortal round;
And if attachment e'er should lose its force,
Then Nature-break thy fing, and keep the long divorce.
WHILE bending o'er the letter'd page,
I muse on Science, Wisdom, Truth;
I seek the tranquil mind of age,
But feel the glowing soul of youth.
And while with wits deceas'd I live,
Still from the converse rising, ever
I sigh, and wish that heaven would give
One active talker-half as clever.
And though the stoics' colder rules,
Might change my beating heart to stone,
I fly from stoics, wits, and schools,
When love asserts me for his own,
LET Alexander's discontented soul
Sigh for another world's encreased controul,
Ill weaved Ambition has no joys for me,
Nor sordid Avarice am I slave to thee.
I only ask twelve thousand pounds a year,
And Curwen's country-house on Windermere;
A mistress kind, and sensible, and fair,
And many a friend, and not a single care!
I am no glutton,-no,-I never wish
A Sturgeon floating in a golden dish;
At the Piazza satisfied to pay
A guinea for my dinner every day.
What tho' shrewd Erskine at the bar we view,
As famed as Croesus and as wealthy too?
I only ask the cloquence of Fox,
To leap like Ireland and like Belcher box;
To act as Garrick did, or any how
Unlike the heroes of the Buskin now;
To soar like Garnerin, thro' fields of air,
To win, like Villiers, England's richest fair;
Thy age, Methusalem, or, if not thine,
An immortality of love and wine.
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