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In vain shall Nature call for fleep,
We'll Love's eternal vigils keep :
Thus, thus for ever let us lie,
Diffolving in excefs of joy,
Till fate fhall with a fingle dart

Transfix the pair it cannot part.

Thus join'd, we 'll fleet like Venus' doves,
And feek the bleft Elyfian groves ;
Where Spring in rofy triumph reigns
Perpetual o'er the joyous plains:
There, lovers of heroic name,
Revive their long-extinguish'd flame,
And o'er the fragrant vale advance
In fhining pomp to form the dance,
Or fing of Love and gay Desire,
Refponfive to the warbling lyre;
Reclining foft in blissful bowers,
Purpled freet with fpringing flowers;
And cover'd with a filken fhade,
Of laurel mix'd with myrtle made:
Where, flaunting in immortal bloom,
The mufk-rofe fcents the verdant gloom;
Through which the whifpering Zephyrs fly
Softer than a virgin's figh.

When we approach thofe bleft retreats,
Th' affembly strait will leave their feats,
Admiring much the matchlefs pair,
So fond the youth, the nymph fo fair!
Daughters and miftreffes to Jove,
By Homer fam'd of old for love;

In homage to the British Grace,

Will give pre-eminence of place.
Helen herself will foon agree

To rife, and yield her rank to thee.

AN EPISTLE

то

THOMAS LAM BARD, ESQ.

"Omnia me tua delectant; fed maximè, maxima cùm "fides in amicitiâ, confilium, gravitas, conftantia; 46 tum lepos, humanitas, literæ.”

CICERO, Ep. xxvii. Lib. xi.

LOW though I am to wake the fleeping lyre,

SLOW

Yet should the Muse some happy song infpire,
Fit for a friend to give, and worthy thee,

That favourite verse to Lambard I decree :
Such may the Mufe infpire, and make it prove
A pledge and monument of lasting love!
Meantime intent the fairest plan to find,
To form the manners, and improve the mind;
Me the fam'd wits of Rome and Athens please,
By Orrery's indulgence wrapt in ease ;

Whom all the rival Mufes ftrive to grace
With wreaths familiar to his letter'd race.

Now Truth's bright charms employ my serious thought,
In flowing eloquence by Tully taught:

Then

Then from the fhades of Tufculum I rove,
And studious wander in the Grecian grove;
While wonder and delight the foul engage
To found the depths of Plato's facred page;
Where Science in attractive fable lies,

And, veil'd, the more invites her lover's eyes.
Transported thence, the flowery heights I gain
Of Pindus, and admire the warbling train,
Whose wings the Muse in better ages prun'd,
And their sweet harps to moral airs attun'd.
As night is tedious while, in love betray'd,
The wakeful youth expects the faithless maid
As weary'd hinds accufe the lingering fun,
And heirs impatient with for twenty-one :
So dull to Horace did the moments glide,
Till his free Mufe her fprightly force employ'd
To combat vice, and follies to expofe,
In eafy numbers near ally'd to prose :

Guilt blush'd and trembled when fhe heard him fing,
He fmil'd reproof, and tickled with his fting.
With fuch a graceful negligence expreft,
Wit, thus apply'd, will ever ftand the test:
But he, who blindly led by whimfy strays,
And from grofs images would merit praise,
When Nature fets the nobleft ftores in view,
Affects to polish copper in Peru :

So while the feas on barren fands are caft,
The faltnefs of their waves offends the tafte:

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But when to heaven exhal'd, in fruitful rain
In fragrant dews they fall, to cheer the swain,
Revive the fainting flowers, and fwell the meager grain.,
Be this their care, who, ftudious of renown,
Toil up th' Aonian steep to reach the crown;
Suffice it me, that (having spent my prime
In picking epithets, and yoking rhyme)
To fteadier rule my thoughts I now compofe,
And prize ideas clad in honest prose.
Old Dryden, emulous of Cæfar's praife,
Cover'd his baldness with immortal bays;
And Death perhaps, to fpoil poetic fport,
Unkindly cut an Alexandrine fhort :
His ear had a more lafting itch than mine,
For the fmooth cadence of a golden line:
Should luft of verfe prevail, and urge the man
To run the trilling race the boy began,
Mellow'd with fixty winters, you might fee
My circle end in fecond infancy.

I might erc long an awkward humour have,
To wear my bells and coral to the grave,
Or round my room alternate take a course,
Now mount my hobby, then the Mufes' horf:
Let others wither gay, but I'd appear

With fage decorum in my cafy chair;
Grave as Libanius, flumbering o'er the laws,
Whilft gold and party zeal decide the cause.
A nobler task our riper age affords
Than fcanning fyllables, and weighing words.

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To make his hours in even measures flow,

Nor think fome fleet too fast, and fome too flow;
Stili equal in himfelf, and free to taite

The Now, without repining at the Past ;
Nor the vain prefcience of the spleen t' employ,
To pall the flavour of a promis'd joy;
To live tenacious of the golden mean,
In all events of various fate ferene ;
With virtue fteel'd, and fready to furvey
Age, death, difcafe, or want, without dismay :
Thefe arts, my Lambard ufeful in their end,
Make man to others and himself a friend.

Happiest of mortals he, who, timely wife,
In the calm walks of Truth his bloom enjoys;
With books and patrimonial plenty bleft,
Health in his veins, and quict in his breaft!
Him no vain hopes attract, no fear appals,
Nor the gay fervitude of courts enthrals,
Unknowing how to mafk concerted guile
With a falfe cringe, or undermining fmile;
His manners pure, from affectation free,
And prudence fhines through clear fimplicity.
Though no rich labours of the Perfian loom,
Nor the nice fculptor's art, adorn his room,
Sleep unprovok'd will foftly feal his eyes,
And innocence the want of down fupplies;
Health tempers all his cups, and at his board
Reigns the cheap luxury the fields afford:
Like the great Trojan, mantled in a cloud,
Himfelf unfeen he fees the labouring croud,

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