"And thither let the village-swain repair;
And, light of heart, the village-maiden gay,
To deck with flowers her half-dishevel'd hair,
And celebrate the merry morn of May.
There let the shepherd's pipe the livelong day
Fill all the grove with love's bewitching woe;
And when mild Evening comes in mantle grey,
Let not the blooming band make haste to go;
No ghost, nor spell, my long and last abode shall

know.

"For though I fly to 'scape from Fortune's rage,
And bear the scars of envy, spite, and scorn,
Yet with mankind no horrid war I wage,
Yet with no impious spleen my breast is torn:
For virtue lost, and ruin'd man, I mourn.

O man! creation's pride, Heaven's darling child,
Whom Nature's best, divinest gifts adorn,
Why from thy home are truth and joy exil'd,
And all thy favorite haunts with blood and tears
defil'd?

"Along yon glittering sky what glory streams!
What majesty attends Night's lovely queen!
Fair laugh our valleys in the vernal beams;
And mountains rise, and oceans roll between,
And all conspire to beautify the scene.
But, in the mental world, what chaos drear;
What forms of mournful, lothesome, furious mien !
O when shall that eternal morn appear,

"Late as I roam'd, intent on Nature's charms, I reach'd at eve this wilderness profound; And, leaning where yon.oak expands her arms,

clear!

"O Thou, at whose creative smile, yon heaven,
In all the pomp of beauty, life, and light,
Rose from th' abyss; when dark Confusion driven
Down, down the bottomless profound of night,
Fled, where he ever flies thy piercing sight!
O glance on these sad shades one pitying ray,
To blast the fury of oppressive might,
Melt the hard heart to love and mercy's sway,
And cheer the wandering soul, and light him on the
way!"

Silence ensued: and Edwin rais'd his eyes
In tears, for grief lay heavy at his heart.
"And is it thus in courtly life," he cries,
"That man to man acts a betrayer's part?
And dares he thus the gifts of Heaven pervert,
Each social instinct, and sublime desire?
Hail, Poverty! if honor, wealth, and art,
If what the great pursue, and learn'd admire,

Thus dissipate and quench the soul's ethereal fire!"

He said, and turn'd away; nor did the sage
O'erhear, in silent orisons employ'd.
The youth, his rising sorrow to assuage,
Home as he hied, the evening scene enjoy'd:
For now no cloud obscures the starry void;
The yellow moonlight sleeps on all the hills;
Nor is the mind with startling sounds annoy'd;
A soothing murmur the lone region fills,

Of groves, and dying gales, and melancholy rills.

But he from day to day more anxious grew,
The voice still seem'd to vibrate on his ear,
Nor durst he hope the hermit's tale untrue;
For man he seem'd to love, and Heaven to fear;
And none speaks false, where there is none to hear.

"But let untender thoughts afar be driven;
Nor venture to arraign the dread decree.
For know, to man, as candidate for Heaven,
The voice of the Eternal said, Be free:
And this divine prerogative to thee
Does virtue, happiness, and Heaven convey;
For virtue is the child of liberty,

And happiness of virtue; nor can they

When all were great and free! man's sole employ
To deck the bosom of his parent earth;
Or toward his bower the murmuring stream decoy,
To aid the flow'ret's long-expected birth,

And lull the bed of peace, and crown the board of mirth.

44

Pure in his pleasures, happy in his loves,
His eye still smiling, and his heart content.
Then, hand in hand, health, sport, and labor went.
Nature supplied the wish she taught to crave.
None prowl'd for prey, none watch'd to circumvent.
To all an equal lot Heaven's bounty gave:
No vassal fear'd his lord, no tyrant fear'd his slave.

"But ah! th' historic Muse has never dar'd
To pierce those hallow'd bowers: 'tis Fancy's beam
Pour'd on the vision of the enraptur'd bard,
That paints the charms of that delicious theme.
Then hail sweet Fancy's ray! and hail the dream
That weans the weary soul from guilt and woe!
Careless what others of my choice may deem,
I long, where Love and Fancy lead, to go
And meditate on Heaven, enough of Earth I know."

"I cannot blame thy choice," the sage replied, "For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways. And yet, even there, if left without a guide, The young adventurer unsafely plays. Eyes dazzled long by fiction's gaudy rays In modest truth no light nor beauty find. And who, my child, would trust the meteor-blaze, That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind, More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shin'd?

"Fancy enervates, while it soothes, the heart,
And, while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight:
To joy each heightening charm it can impart,
But wraps the hour of woe in tenfold night.
And often, where no real ills affright,
Its visionary fiends, an endless train,
Assail with equal or superior might,
And through the throbbing heart, and dizzy brain,
And shivering nerves, shoot stings of more than
mortal pain.

“And yet, alas! the real ills of life
Claim the full vigor of a mind prepar'd,
Prepar'd for patient, long, laborious strife,
Its guide experience, and truth its guard.
We fare on Earth as other men have far'd.
Were they successful? Let not us despair.
Was disappointment oft their sole reward?
Yet shall their tale instruct, if it declare
How they have borne the load ourselves are doom'd
to bear.

What charms th' historic Muse adorn, from spoils,
And blood, and tyrants, when she wings her flight,
To hail the patriot prince, whose pious toils,
Sacred to science, liberty, and right,
And peace, through every age divinely bright,
Shall shine the boast and wonder of mankind!
Sees yonder Sun, from his meridian height,
A lovelier scene, than virtue thus enshrin'd
In power, and man with man for mutual aid com

bin'd?

"Hail, sacred Polity, by Freedom rear'd!
Hail, sacred Freedom, when by law restrain'd!
Without you, what were man? A grovelling herd
In darkness, wretchedness, and want, enchain'd.
Sublim'd by you, the Greek and Roman reign'd
In arts unrival'd: O, to latest days,

In Albion may your influence, unprofan'd,
To godlike worth the generous bosom raise,

"But now let other themes our care engage.
For lo, with modest yet majestic grace,
To curb Imagination's lawless rage,

And from within the cherish'd heart to brace,
Philosophy appears! The gloomy race
By indolence and moping Fancy bred,
Fear, Discontent, Solicitude, give place,

And Hope and Courage brighten in their stead,
While on the kindling soul her vital beams are shed.

Then waken from long lethargy to life

The seeds of happiness, and powers of thought;
Then jarring appetites forego their strife,
A strife by ignorance to madness wrought.
Pleasure by savage man is dearly bought
With fell revenge, lust that defies control,
With gluttony and death. The mind untaught
Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl,
As Phoebus to the world, is science to the soul.

And Reason now through number, time and space,
Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye,
And learns, from facts compar'd, the laws to trace,
Whose long progression leads to Deity.
Can mortal strength presume to soar so high?
Can mortal sight, so oft bedimm'd with tears,
Such glory bear?-for lo! the shadows fly
From Nature's face; confusion disappears,
And order charms the eye, and harmony the ears!

"In the deep windings of the grove, no more
The hag obscene, and grisly phantom, dwell;
Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar
Of winds, is heard the angry spirit's yell;
No wizard mutters the tremendous spell,
Nor sinks convulsive in prophetic swoon;
Nor bids the noise of drums and trumpets swell,
To ease of fancied pangs the laboring Moon,
Or chase the shade that blots the blazing orb of noon.

"Many a long-lingering year, in lonely isle,
Stunn'd with th' eternal turbulence of waves,
Lo, with dim eyes, that never learn'd to smile,
And trembling hands, the famish'd native craves
Of Heaven his wretched fare; shivering in caves,
Or scorch'd on rocks, he pines from day to day;
But Science gives the word; and lo, he braves
The surge and tempest, lighted by her ray,
And to a happier land wafis merrily away!

"And even where Nature loads the teeming plain
With the full pomp of vegetable store,
Her bounty, unimprov'd, is deadly bane;
Dark woods and rankling wilds, from shore to shore,
Stretch their enormous gloom; which to explore
Even Fancy trembles, in her sprightliest mood;
For there, each eyeball gleams with lust of gore,
Nestles each murderous and each monstrous brood,
Plague lurks in every shade, and steams from every
flood.

Enraptur'd by the hermit's strain, the youth
Proceeds the path of Science to explore.
And now, expanded to the beams of truth,
New energies and charms unknown before,
His mind discloses: Fancy now no more
Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies;
But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power,
Aloft from cause to cause exults to rise,
Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies.

Nor love of novelty alone inspires,
Their laws and nice dependencies to scan;
For, mindful of the aids that life requires,
And of the services man owes to man,
He meditates new arts on Nature's plan;
The cold desponding breast of sloth to warm,
The flame of industry and genius fan,
And emulation's noble rage alarm,
And the long hours of toil and solitude to charm.

But she, who set on fire his infant heart,
And all his dreams, and all his wanderings, shar'd
And bless'd, the Muse, and her celestial art,
Still claim'd the enthusiast's fond and first regard.
From Nature's beauties variously compar'd
And variously combin'd, he learns to frame
Those forms of bright perfection, which the bard,
While boundless hopes and boundless views inflame,
Enamour'd, consecrates to never-dying fame.

Of late, with cumbersome, though pompous show,
Edwin would oft his flowery rhyme deface,
Through ardor to adorn; but Nature now
To his experienc'd eye a modest grace
Presents, where ornament the second place
Holds, to intrinsic worth and just design
Subservient still. Simplicity apace
Tempers his rage: he owns her charm divine,
And clears th' ambiguous phrase, and lops th' un-
wieldy line.

Fain would I sing (much yet unsung remains)
What sweet delirium o'er his bosom stole,
When the great shepherd of the Mantuan plain
His deep majestic melody 'gan roll:

Fain would I sing what transport storm'd his soul,
How the red current throbb'd his veins along,
When, like Pelides, bold beyond control,
Without art graceful, without effort strong,
Homer rais'd high to Heaven the loud, the impetu-
ous song.

And how his lyre, though rude her first essays,
Now skill'd to soothe, to triumph, to complain,
Warbling at will through each harmonious maze,
Was taught to modulate the artful strain,

I fain would sing :—but ah! I strive in vain.
Sighs from a breaking heart my voice confound,
With trembling step, to join yon weeping train,
I haste, where gleams funereal glare around,
And mix'd with shrieks of woe, the knells of death
resound.

Adieu, ye lays, that Fancy's flowers adorn,
The soft amusement of the vacant mind!
He sleeps in dust, and all the Muses mourn,
He, whom each virtue fir'd, each grace refin'd,
Friend, teacher, pattern, darling of mankind!
He sleeps in dust. Ah! how shall I pursue
My theme! To heart-consuming grief resign'd,
Here on his recent grave I fix my view,

And pour my bitter tears. Ye flowery lays, adieu!

Art thou, my GREGORY, for ever fled!
And am I left to unavailing woe!
When fortune's storms assail this weary head,
Where cares long since have shed untimely snow!
Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go!
No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers:
Thy placid eyes with smiles no longer glow,
My hopes to cherish, and allay my fears.
"Tis meet that I should mourn: flow forth afresh
my tears