There patient show'd us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend sincere ;
There taught us how to live, and (Oh, too high
The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die.
Thou hill! whose brow the antique structures grace,
Rear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so lov'd, whene'er thy bow'r appears,
O'er my dim eye-balls glance the sudden tears;
How sweet were once thy prospects, fresh and fair
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy ev'ning breeze!
His image thy forsaken bow'rs restore,
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy gloom's allay'd,
Thy ev'ning breezes, and thy noon-day shade.
From other ills, however fortune frown'd,
Some refuge in the Muse's art I found;
Reluctant now I touch the trembling string,
Bereft of him who taught me how to sing;
And these sad accents, murmur'd o'er his urn,
Betray that absence they attempt to mourn.
O! must I then (now fresh my bosom bleeds;
And Craggs, in death, to Addison succeeds),
The verse begun to one lost friend prolong,
And weep a second in th' unfinish'd song!
These works divine, which, on his death-bed laid,
To thee, O Craggs! th' expiring Sage convey'd,
Great, but ill-omen'd monument of fame,
Nor he surviv'd to give, nor thou to claim;
Swift after him thy social spirit flies,
And close to his, how soon! thy coffin lies.
Blest pair! whose union future bards shall tell,
In future tongues: each other's boast! farewell!
Farewell! whom join'd in fame, in friendship tried,
No chance could sever, nor the grave divide. ·
TO THE MEMORY OF A VERY PROMISING
Written after witnessing her last moments.
I CANNOT Weep, yet I can feel
The pangs that rend a parent's breast;
But, ah! what sighs or tears can heal
Thy griefs, and wake the slumb'rer's rest?
What art thou, spirit undefin'd,
That passest with man's breath away; That giv'st him feeling, sense, and mind, And leav'st him cold, unconscious clay?
A moment gone, I look'd, and lo!
Sensation throbb'd through all her frame; Those beamless eyes were rais'd in woe, That bosom's motion went and came.
The next, a nameless change was wrought,
Death nipt in twain life's brittle thread,
And, in an instant, feeling, thought,
Sensation, motion-all were fled!
Those lips shall never more repeat
The welcome lesson conn'd with care;
Or breathe at even, in accents sweet,
To Heaven the well-remember'd pray'r!
Those little hands shall ne'er essay
To ply the mimic task again,
Well pleas'd, forgetting mirth and play,
A mother's promis'd gift to gain !
-no more to move; That cheek is wan-no more to bloom, Or dimple in the smile of love,
That speaks a parent's welcome home.
And thou with years and suff'rings bow'd,
Say, dost thou least this loss deplore?
Ah! though thy wailings are not loud,
I fear thy secret grief is more.
Youth's griefs are loud, but are not long;
But thine with life itself shall last;
And age will feel each sorrow strong,
When all its morning joys are past.
'Twas thine her infant mind to mould,
And leave the copy all thou art;
And sure the wide world does not hold
A warmer or a purer heart!
I cannot weep, yet I can feel
The pangs that rend a parent's breast; But, ah! what sorrowing can unseal
Those eyes, and wake the slumb'rer's rest?
HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born, Or of th' Eternal coeternal beam,
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the heav'ns thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to th' Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flow'ry brooks beneath,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,-
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even and morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with an universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,
And Wisdom, at one entrance, quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind, through all her pow'rs
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
HENRY THE FOURTH'S SOLILOQUY ON
How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness!
Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull God, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brain
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
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