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Of virtuous, love-sick youths. You too shall
reign,

Celestial Venus, though with chaster rites,
Addrest with vows from purer votaries heard.

ON RURAL SPORTS.

THE Sun wakes jocund-all of life, who breathe
In air, or earth, and lawn, and thicket rove,
Who swim the surface, or the deep beneath,
Swell the full chorus of delight and love.
But what are ye, who cheer the bay of bounds'
Whose levell'd thunder frightens Morn's repose'
Who drag the net, whose hook insidious wounds
A writhing reptile, type of mightier woes?

I see ye come, and havock loose the reins,

A general groan the general anguish speaks, The stately stag falls butcher'd on the plains, The dew of death bangs clammy on his cheeks. Ah! see the pheasant fluttering in the brake, Green, azure, gold, but undistinguish'd gore! Yet spare the tenants of the silver lake!

-I call in vain-they gasp upon the shore. A yet ignobler band is guarded round

With dogs of war-the spurning bull their

prize;

And now he bellows, humbled to the ground;

And now they sprawl in howlings to the skies.
You too must feel their missile weapon's power,
Whose clarion charms the midnight's sullen
air;

Thou the morn's harbinger, must mourn the hour
Vigil to fasts, and penitence, and prayer'.
Must fatal wars of human avarice wage

For milder conflicts, love their palm design'd?
Now sheath'd in steel, must rival reason's rage
Deal mutual death, and emulate mankind?
Are these your sovereign joys, creation's lords?
Is death a banquet for a godlike soul?
Have rigid hearts no sympathising chords
For concord, order, for th' harmonious whole?
Nor plead necessity, thou man of blood!

Heaven tempers power with mercy-Heaven
revere !

Yet slay the wolf for safety, lamb for food;

But shorten misery's pangs, and drop a tear!
Ah! rather turn, and breath this evening gale'
Uninjur'd and uninjuring nature's peace.
Come, draw best nectar from the foaming pail,
Come, pen the fold, and count the stock's in-
crease!

See pasturing heifers with the bull, who wields
Yet budding horns, and wounds alone the soil!
Or see the panting spaniel try the fields

While bursting coveys mock his wanton toil !
Now feel the steed with youth's elastic force
Spontaneous bound, yet bear thy kind con-
trol;

Nor mangle all his sinews in the course,

And fainting, staggering,lash him to the goal!

'Shrove Tuesday.

Now sweetly pensive, bending o'er the stream,
Mark the gay floating myriads, nor molest
Their sports, their slumbers, but inglorious dream
Of evil fled and all creation blest?

Or else, beneath thy porch, in social joy

Sit and approve thy infant's virtuous haste,
Humanity's sweet tones while all employ

To lure the wing'd domestics to repast!
There smiling see a fop in swelling state,
The turkey strut with valour's red pretence,
And duck row on with waddling honest gait,
And goose mistake solemnity for sense!
While one with front erect in simple pride

Now deal the copious barley, waft it wide,
Full firmly treads, his consort waits his call,
That each may taste the bounty meant for all.
Yon bashful songsters with retorted eye
Pursue the grain, yet wheel contracted flight,
While he, the bolder sparrow, scorns to fly,
A son of freedom claiming nature's right.
Liberal to him; yet still the wafted grain,

Choicest for those of modest worth, dispense, And blessing Heaven that wakes their grateful strain,

Let Heaven's best joy be thine, Benevolence. While flocks soft bleatings, echoing high and clear,

The neigh of steeds, responsive o'er the heath, Deep lowings sweeter melt upon thy ear

Than screams of terrour and the groans of death.

Yet sounds of woe delight a giant brood:

Fly then mankind, ye young, ye helpless old! For not their fury, a consuming flood,

Distinguishes the shepherd, drowns the fold.
But loosen once thy gripe, avenging law!

Eager on man, a noble chase, they start;
Now from a brother's side the dagger draw,
Now sheath it deeper in a virgin's heart.
See as they reach ambition's purple fruits
Their reeking hands in nation's carnage died!
No longer bathing in the blood of brutes,

They swim to empire in a human tide.
But see him, see the fiend that others stung,
With scorpion conscience lash himself the

last!

See, festering in the bosom where they sprung,
The fury passions that laid nature waste!
Behold the self-tormentor drag his chains,
And weary Heaven with many a fruitless
groan !

By pining fasts, by voluntary pains,

Revenging nature's cause, he pleads his own. Yet prostrate, suppliant to the throne above,

He calls down Heaven in thunders to pursue Heaven's fancied foes-O God of peace and love, The voice of thunder is no voice from you! Mistaken mortal! 'tis that God's decree

To spare thy own, nor shed another's blood: Heaven breathes benevolence, to all, to thee; Each being's bliss consummates general good.

ODE TO CAPTIVITY,

WRITTEN IN THE LAST WAR.

OSTERN Captivity! from Albion's land
Far far, avert the terrours of thy rod !
O wave not o'er her fields thy flaming brand!
O crush not Freedom, fairest child of God!→→
Bring not from thy Gallic shore
The galling fetters, groaning oar!
Bring not hither Virtue's bane,
Thy sister Superstition's train!

O spare from sanguine rites the silver floods ! Nor haunt with shapes obscene our unpolluted woods!

Is yet too weak, rapacious power, thy throne?

While the chain'd continent thy vassal waits, The Rhine, the Danube, and the sounding Rhone, Proclaim thy triumphs through an hundred

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In wisdom guides the thunder of the state.
That thunder shook on Afric's shore,2
The howling wild where lions roar;
In western worlds its awful powers
Sunk astonish'd Bourbon's towers;
That thunder sounding o'er the Celtic main,
Roll'd to Lutetia's walls along the affrighted
Seine.

Daughters of Albion! strew his paths with flowers,
O wake for him the lute's harmonious chord !
His name be echoed in your festal bowers,
Who guards Britannia from a foreign lord!
Happy fair, who seated far

From haughty conquerors, barbarous war,
Hare heard alone in tragic songs

Of cities storm'd and virgins' wrongs,

"Ye gales!" they cried, "ye cruel eastern gales!

Adverse to Troy, conspiring with the foe,
That eager stretch the victor's swelling sails,
To what unfriendly regions will ye blow?
Shall we serve on Doric plains?
Or where in Pithia Pyrrhus reigns?
Shall Echo catch our captive tales?
Joyless in the sprightly vales
Apidanus thy beauteous current laves,
Say, shall we sit and dream of Simois' fairer
waves?

"Shall Delos, sacred Delos, hear our woes?
Where when Latona's offspring sprung to birth,
The palm spontaneous, and the laurel rose,
O Dian, Dian, on thy hallowed earth;
With Delian maids, a spotless band,
At virtue's altar shall we stand
And hail thy name with choral joy
Invok'd in vain for falling Troy?

Thy shafts victorious shall our songs proclaim, When not an arrow fled to spare thy votaries shame.

"To Athens, art's fair empire, shall we rove? There for some haughty mistress ply the loom, With daring fancy paint avenging Jove, His forked lightnings flaming through the gloom,

To blast the bold Titanian race: Or deaf to nature, must we trace In mournful shades our hapless war? What art, dread Pallas, to thy car, Shall yoke th' immortal steeds? what colours tell By thine, by Pyrrhus' lance, how lofty Ilion fell? "Yes, cruel gods, our bleeding country falls,

Her chiefs are slain-see brothers, sires expire! Ah see, exulting o'er her prostrate walls, The victor's fury, and devouring fire! Asia's haughty genius broke, Bows the neck to Europe's yoke, Chains are all our portion now, No festal wreaths shall bind our brow, Nor Hymen's torches light the bridal day: O Death,and black Despair, behold your destin'd prey!"

There felt the daughters, parents, consorts groan,
And wept historic woes, unpractis'd in your own! IMITATION FROM OSSLAN'S POEMS.
Have you not heard how Sion's daughters mourn'd
Their prostate land?-how Greece her victims
tore

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LATELY PUBLISHED BY THE TITLE OF FINGAL, &c.
BROWN Autumn nods upon the mountain's head,
The dark mist gathers; howling winds assail
The blighted desert; on its mineral bed
Dark rolls the river through the sullen vale.
On the hill's dejected scene

The blasted ash alone is seen, [sleeps;
That marks the grave where Connal
Gather'd into mould'ring heaps
From the whirlwind's giddy round,
Its leaves bestrew the hallowed ground.
Across the musing hunter's lonesome way
Flit melancholy ghosts, that chill the dawn of day,

An imitation of the first chorus in the Hecuba of Euripides.

Connal, thou slumber'st there, the great, the

good!

[trace > Thy long-fam'd ancestors what tongue can Firm, as the oak on rocky heights, they stood; Planted as firm on glory's ample base.

Rooted in their native clime,
Brav'd alike devouring time,
Full of honours, full of age,
That lofty oak the winter's rage
Reut from the promontory's brow,

And death has laid the mighty low.
The mountains mourn their consecrated tree;
His country Connal mourns-what son shall
rival thee?

Here was the din of arms, and here o'erthrown
The valiant!--mournful are thy wars, Fingal ;
The caverns echo'd to the dying groan,
The fatal fields beheld the victor fall;

Tall amidst the host, as hills

Above their vales and subject rills,
His arm, a tempest lowering high,
His sword, a beam of summers sky,
His eyes, a fiery furnace, glare,

His voice that shook th' astonish'd war, Was thunder's sound: he smote the trembling foes,

As sportive infant's staff the bearded thistle mows.
Onward to meet this hero, like a storm,

A cloudy storm, the mighty Dargo came;
As mountain caves, where dusky meteors form,
His hollow eye-balls flash'd a livid flame.

And now they join'd, and now they wield
Their clashing steel-resounds the field:
Crimora heard the loud alarms,
Rinval's daughter, bright in arms,
Her hands the bow victorious bear,
Luxuriant wav'd her auburn hair;
Connal, her life, her love, in beauty's pride,
She follow'd to the war, and fought by Connal's

side.

In wild despair, at Connal's foe she drew

The fatal string, impatient flew the dart; Ah hapless maid !-with erring course it flew; The shaft stood trembling in her lover's heart: He fell so falls by thunder's shock From ocean's cliffs the rifted rock, That falls and ploughs the groaning strand He fell by love's unwilling hand, Hapless maid! from eve to day, Connal, my love; the breathless clay My love, she calls-now rolls her frantic eyes-Now bends them sad to earth-she sinks, she faints, she dies.

Together rest in Earth's parental womb,

Her fairest offspring; mournful in the vale I sit, while, issuing from the moss-grown tomb, Your once-lov'd voices seem to swell the gale.Pensive Memory wakes her powers, Oft recals your smiling hours Of fleeting life, that wont to move On downy wings of youth and love; The smiling hours no more return; -All is hush'd-your silent urn The mountain covers with its awful shade, Far from the haunts of men in pathless desert laid.

ODE TO YOUTH.

YOUTH, ah stay, prolong delight, Close thy pinions stretch'd for flight! Youth, disdaining silver hairs, Autumn's frowns and Winter's cares, Dwell'st thou but in dimple sleek,

In vernal smiles and Summer's cheek?
On Spring's ambrosial lap thy hands unfold,
They blossom fresh with hope, and all they touch
is gold.

Graver years come sailing by:
Hark! they call me as they fly;
Quit, they cry, for nobler themes,
Statesman, quit thy boyish dreams!
Tune to crowds thy pliant voice,

Or flatter thrones, the nobler choice!
Deserting virtue, yet assume her state;
Thy smiles, that dwell with love, ah! wed them
now to hate.

Or in victory's purple plain
Triumph thou on hills of slain!
While the virgin rends her hair,
Childless sires demand their heir,
Timid orphans kneel and weep:

Or, where the unsunn'd treasures sleep,
Sit brooding o'er thy cave in grim repose.
There mock at human joys, there mock at hu-

man woes.

Years away! too dear I prize

Fancy's haunts, her vales, her skies;
Come, ye gales that swell the flowers,
Wake my soul's expanding powers;
Come, by streams embow'r'd in wood,
Celestial forms, the fair, the good!
With moral charins associate vernal joys!
Pure nature's pleasures these-the rest are
fashion's toys.

Come, while years reprove in vain,
Youth, with me, and rapture reign!
Sculpture, painting, meet my eyes,
Glowing still with young surprise!
Never to the virgin's lute

This ear be deaf, this voice be mute! Come, beauty, cause of anguish, heal its smart, -Now temperate measures beat, unalter'd else my heart.

Still my soul, for ever young,
Speak thyself divinely sprung!
Wing'd for Heaven, embracing Earth,
Link'd to all of mortal birth,
Brute or man, in social chain

Still link'd to all, who suffer pain.

Pursue the eternal law !-one power above Connects, pervades the whole-that power divine is love.

TO THE THAMES.

NEARER to my grove, O Thames! Lead along thy sultry streams, Summer fires the stagnant air, Come and cool thy bosom there! Trees shall shelter, Zephyrs play, Odours court thy smiling stay;

There the lily lifts her head,
Fairest child of Nature's bed.

Oh! Thames, my promise all was vain:
Autumnal storms, autumnal rain

Have spoil'd that fragrance, stript those shades,
Hapless flower! that lily fades.-
What? if chance, sweet evening ray,
Or western gale of vernal day,
Momentary bloom renews,
Heavy with unfertile dews

It bends again, and seems to cry,
"Gale and sunshine, come not nigh!
Why reclaim from winter's power
This wither'd stalk, no more a flower!"
Such a flower, my youthful prime,
Chill'd by rigour, sapp'd by time,
Shrinks beneath the clouded storm:
What? if Beauty's beaming form,
And Cambrian virgin's vocal air
Expand to smiles my brow of care:
That beam withdrawn, that melting sound,
The dews of death hang heavier round,
No more to spring, to bloom, to be,
I bow to fate and Heaven's decree.

Come then, Cambrian virgin, come,
With all thy music seek my tomb,
With all thy grace, thy modest state,
With all thy virtues, known too late!
Come, a little moment spare
From pious rites and filial çare!
Give my tomb-no heart-felt sigh,
No tear convulsing pity's eye!
Gifts oft too endearing name
For you to grant, for me to claim;
But bring the song-whose healing sounds
Were balm to all my festering wounds.
Bring the lyre-by music's power
My soul entranc'd shall wait the hour,
The dread majestic hour of doom,
When through the grave, and through the
Heaven shall burst in floods of day:

Dazzled with so fierce a ray,

My aching eyes shall turn to view

Its milder beams reflect from you.

TO MISS K

[gloom,

GENTLE Kitty, take the lyre
Thy magic hands alone inspire!
But wake not once such swelling chords
As rouse ambition's stormy lords,
Nor airs that jocund tabors play
To dancing youth in shades of May,
Nor songs that shake old Picton's towers,
When feast and music blend their powers!
But notes of mildest accent call,
Of plaintive touch and dying fall;
Notes, to which thy hand, thy tongue,
Thy every tender power is strung.-
Cambrian maid, repeat that strain !
Sooth my widow'd bosom's pain!
Its passions own thy melting tones;
Sighs succeed to bursting groans;
Soft and softer still they flow,
Breathing more of love than woe;
Glistening in my eye appears
A tenderer dew than bitter tears;
Springing hope despair beguiles,
And sadness softens into smiles.

I quit thy lyre-but still the train
Of sweet sensations warms my brain.
What? though social joy and love
Forget to haunt my sullen grove:
Though there my soul, a stagnant flood,
Nor flows its own, or others good,
Emblem of yon faded flower,
That, chill'd by frost, expands no more:
The dreary scene yet sometimes closes
When sleep inspires, on beds of roses,
Such dear delusions, fairy charms
As fancy dreams in virtue's arms.
For see, a gracious form is near !
She comes to dry my falling tear.
One pious hand in pity spread
Supports my else unshelter'd head;
The other waves to chase away
The spectres haunting all my day:
She calls above, below, around
Sweet fragrance breathes, sweet voices sound-
Such a balm to wounded minds,
Gentle Kitty, slumber finds;

Such a change is misery's due-
-Who wakes to grief should dream of you.

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AH! bow to music, bow my lays
To beauty's noblest art!

To reach the bosom mine the praise,
But thine to melt the heart.
'Tis mine to close affliction's wounds,
To brighten pleasure's eye:
But thine, by sweet dissolving sounds,
To make it bliss to die.

My notes but kindle cold desire,

Ah! what you feel for me!
Diviner passions thine inspire,

Ah! what I feel for thee!

Associate then thy voice, thy touch,
O wed to mine thy powers!
Be such at least, nor blush at such
Connubial union our's!

P

TO MISS K
WHY, Kitty, with that tender air,
Those eyes to earth inclin'd,
Those timid blushes, why despair

Of empire o'er mankind?

Ah! know, that beauty's surest arms
Are candour, softness, ease,
Your sweet distrust of pleasing charms
Is half the charm to please.-
Respect your own harmonious art!
For love securest wounds,
Securest takes th' imprison'd heart
Entranc'd by magic sounds!

If flowers of fiction's growth you call
This wreath that truth bestows;
Survey around your attick wall
Each pencill'd form' that glows.

1 Drawings from antique statues.

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YOUR bosom's sweet treasures thus ever disclose!
For believe my ingenuous confession,
The veil meant to hide them but only bestows
A softness transcending expression.
"Good Heaven!" cries Kitty, "what language
I hear!

Have I trespass'd on chastity's laws?
Is my tucker's clear muslin indecently clear?
Is it no sattin apron, but gauze ?"
Ah no!-not the least swelling charm is descried
Thro' the tucker, too bashfully decent;
And your apron hides all that short aprons can
hide,

From the fashion of Eve to the present. The veil, too transparent to hinder the sight, Is what modesty throws on your mind: That veil only shades, with a tenderer light, All the feminine graces behind.

TO MISS K- P—

Si un arbre avoit du sentiment, il se plairoit à voir celui qui le cultive se reposer sous son ombrage, respirer le parfum de ses fleurs, gouter la douceur de ses fruits: Je suis cet arbre, cultivé par vous, & la Nature m' a donné une ame. MARMONTEL.

AMID thy native mountains, Cambrian fair,
Were some lone plant supported by thy care,
Sav'd from the blast, from winter's chilling powers,
In vernal suns, in vernal shades and showers,
By thee reviving: did the favoured tree
Exist, and blossom and mature by thee:
To that selected plant did Heaven dispense,
With vegetable life, a nobler sense:
Would it not bless thy virtues, gentle maid?
Would it not woo thy beauties to its shade?
Bid all its buds in rich luxuriance shoot,
To crown thy summer with autumnal fruit,
Spread all its leaves, a pillow to thy rest,
Give all its flowers to languish on thy breast,
Reject the tendrils of th' uxorious vine,
And stretch its longing arms to circle thine?
Yes; in creation's intellectual reign,
Where life, sense, reason, with progressive chain,
Dividing, blending, forn th' harmonious whole:
-That plant am I, distinguish'd by a soul.

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Of isles, concentering Nature's charms,
Lapt in peaceful Ocean's arms;

Of that Hesperian world, which lies
Beneath the smile of southern skies,
Where Zephyr waves unflagging wings,
Where Albion's summers, Latian springs
Join thy autumns, smiling France,
And lead along th' eternal dance!

These enchanting scenes, and all
That wake to form at fancy's call,
And all the sportive pencil traces,
Are feeble types of living graces.
Of moral charms, that mental throne
Unclouded beauty calls her own.
Where all the Sun's meridian blaze
Is twilight gloom to virtue's ra s.
There with richer blended sweets
Wedded Spring her Autumn meets;
There Fernandes' brighter shore,
There a purer Chili's ore,

Fruits and flowers are there combin'd
In fairer Tinian-Kitty's mind.

THE COMPLAINT OF CAMBRIA.

TO MISS K P—, SETTING TO MUSIC, AND SINGING ENGLISH VERSES.

DONE INTO ENGLISH FROM THE WELCH ORIGINAL

DEGENERATE maid, no longer ours!
Can Saxon ditties suit thy lyre?

Accents untun'd, that breathe no powers
To melt the soul, or kindle martial fire?
It ill becomes thee to combine
Such hostile airs with notes divine,
In Cambrian shades, the Druids' hallow'd bounds,
Whose infant.voice has lisp'd the liquid Celtic
sounds.

Revere thy Cambria's flowing tongue!
Though high-born Hoel's lips are dumb,
Cadwallo's harp no more is strung,
And silence sits on soft Lluellyn's tomb :

Yet songs of British bards remain
That, wedded to thy vocal strain,
Would swell melodious on the mountain breeze,
And roll on Milford's wave to distant echoing

seas.

O sing thy sires in genuine strains!
When Rome's resistless arm prevail'd,
When Edward delug'd all my plains',
And all the music of my mountains fail'd;
When all her flames rebellion spread,
Firmly they stood-O sing the dead!
The theme majestic to the lyre belongs,
To Picton's lofty walls, and Cambrian virgins
songs.

Edward L. put to death all the Welch bards.

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