But soon the pageant fades away!
"Tis Nature only bears perpetual sway.
We pierce the counterfeit delight,

Fatigued with splendour's irksome beams;
Fancy again demands the sight

Of native groves and wonted streams;

Pants for the scenes that charm'd her youthful eyes, Where Truth maintains her court, and banishes Disguise.

Then hither oft, ye senators! retire;
With Nature here high converse hold;
For who, like Stamford, her delights admire,
Like Stamford shall with scorn behold
The unequal bribes of pageantry and gold;
Beneath the British oak's majestic shade
Shall see fair Truth, immortal maid!
Friendship in artless guise array'd,

Honour and moral beauty shine

With more attractive charms, with radiance more divine.

Yes, here alone did highest Heaven ordain

The lasting magazine of charms,

Whatever wins, whatever warms,

Whatever fancy seeks to share,

The great, the various, and the fair,
For ever should remain !

Her impulse nothing may restrain.

Or whence the joy mid columns, towers,
Midst all the city's artful trim,

To rear some breathless vapid flowers,
Or shrubs fuliginously grim?

From rooms of silken foliage vain,
To trace the dun far-distant grove,
Where, smit with undissembled pain,
The woodlark mourns her absent love,
Borne to the dusty town from native air,
To mimic rural life, and soothe some vapour'd fair?

But how must faithless Art prevail,
Should all who taste our joy sincere,
To virtue, truth, or science, dear,
Forego a court's alluring pale,

For dimpled brook and leafy grove,

For that rich luxury of thought they love!

Ah, no! from these the public sphere requires

Example for its giddy bands;

From these impartial Heaven demands

To spread the flame itself inspires;

To sift Opinion's mingled mass,

Impress a nation's taste, and bid the sterling pass.

Happy, thrice happy they,

Whose graceful deeds have exemplary shone

Round the gay precincts of a throne

With mild, effective beams!

Who bands of fair ideas bring,

By solemn grot or shady spring,

To join their pleasing dreams!

Theirs is the rural bliss without alloy;

They only that deserve, enjoy.

What though nor fabled Dryad haunt their grove,

Nor Naiad near their fountains rove?

Yet all embodied to the mental sight,

A train of smiling Virtues bright

Shall there the wise retreat allow,

Shall twine triumphant palms to deck the wanderer's

brow.

And though, by faithless friends alarm'd,
Art has with Nature waged presumptuous war,
By Seymour's winning influence charm'd,
In whom their gifts united shine,
No longer shall their councils jar.
"Tis hers to mediate the peace;

Near Percy Lodge, with awe-struck mien,
The rebel seeks her lawful queen,
And havoc and contention cease.
I see the rival powers combine,
And aid each other's fair design;

Nature exalt the mound where Art shall build,
Art shape the gay alcove, while Nature paints the
field.

Begin, ye songsters of the grove!
O warble forth your noblest lay;
Where Somerset vouchsafes to rove,
Ye leverets! freely sport and play.
-Peace to the strepent horn!

Let no harsh dissonance disturb the morn;
No sounds inelegant and rude

Her sacred solitudes profane,
Unless her candour not exclude

The lowly shepherd's votive strain,

Who tunes his reed amidst his rural cheer,

Fearful, yet not averse, that Somerset should hear.

TO A FRIEND,

On some slight Occasion estranged from him.

HEALTH to my friend, and many a cheerful day! Around his seat may peaceful shades abide! Smooth flow the minutes, fraught with smiles, away, And till they crown our union gently glide!

Ah me! too swiftly fleets our vernal bloom!

Lost to our wonted friendship, lost to joy! Soon may thy breast the cordial wish resume,

Ere wintry doubt its tender warmth destroy!

Say, were it ours, by Fortune's wild command,
By chance to meet beneath the torrid zone,
Wouldst thou reject thy Damon's plighted hand?
Wouldst thou with scorn thy once-loved friend
disown?

Life is that stranger land, that alien clime:
Shall kindred souls forego their social claim?
Launch'd in the vast abyss of space and time,
Shall dark suspicion quench the generous flame?

Myriads of souls', that knew one parent mould,
See sadly sever'd by the laws of Chance!
Myriads, in Time's perennial list enroll'd,

Forbid by Fate to change one transient glance!

But we have met-where ills of every form,

Where passions rage, and hurricanes descend; Say, shall we nurse the rage, assist the storm, And guide them to the bosom-of a friend?

Yes, we have met-through rapine, fraud, and

wrong:

Might our joint aid the paths of peace explore! Why leave thy friend amid the boisterous throng, Ere death divide us, and we part no more?

For, O! pale Sickness warns thy friend away;
For me no more the vernal roses bloom!

I see stern Fate his ebon wand display,

And point the wither'd regions of the tomb.

Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start,
Sad as thou follow'st my untimely bier;
'Fool that I was-if friends so soon must part,-
To let suspicion intermix a fear!'