"For sure, if aught can agravate our woe, "'Tis the feign'd pity of a prosp'rous foe." Thus pray'd the nymph

address'd

and strait the Pow'rs

Accord the weeping suppliant's sad request.
Then, strange to tell! if rural folks say true,
To harden'd Rock the stiff'ning damsel grew;
No more her shapeless features can be known,
Stone is her body, and her limbs are stone;
The growing rock invades her beauteous face;
And quickly petrifies each living grace:
The stone, her stature nor her shape retains,
The Nymph is vanish'd, but the Rock remains.
No vestige now of human form appears,

No cheek for blushes, and no eyes for tears:

Yet strange the marvels Poets can impart !

Unchang'd, unchill'd, remain❜d the glowing heart; Its vital spirits destin'd still to keep,

It scorn'd to mingle with the marble heap.

When babbling Fame the wondrous tidings bore,
Grief seiz'd the soul of perjur'd POLYDORE;
And now the falsehood of his soul appears,
And now his broken vows assail his ears.
Appall'd, his smitten fancy seems to view
The nymph so lovely, and the friend so true;
For since her absence, all the virgin train
His admiration sought to win in vain.

Though not to keep him ev'n IANTHE knew,
From vanity alone his falsehood grew :
O let the youthful heart, thus warn'd, beware,
Of vanity, how deep, how wide the snare;

That half the mischiefs youth and beauty know,
From VANITY's exhaustless fountain flow.

Now deep remorse deprives his soul of rest,
And deep compunction wounds his guilty breast:
Then to the fatal spot in haste he flew,

Eager some vestige of the maid to view;

The shapeless Rock he mark'd, but found no trace Of lost IANTHE's form, IANTHE's face,

He fix'd his streaming eyes upon the stone,

"And take, sweet maid," he cried, "my parting

groan;

"Since we are doom'd thus terribly to part,
"No other nymph shall ever share my heart;
"Thus only I'm absolv'd" he rashly cried,

-

Then plung'd a deadly poniard in his side!
Fainting, the steel he grasp'd, and as he fell
The weapon pierc'd the Rock he lov'd so well;
The steel assail'd the only living part,

And stabb'd the vital, vulnerable heart.

And though the rocky mass was pale before,
Behold it ting'd with ruddy streams of gore!
The life-blood issuing from the wounded stone,
Blends with the crimson current of his own;
From POLYDORE's fresh wound it flow'd in part,
But chief emitted from IANTHE's heart.
And though revolving ages since have past,
The meeting torrents undiminish'd last ;
Still gushes out the sanguine stream amain,
The standing wonder of the stranger swain.

Now once a year, so rustic records tell,
When o'er the heath resounds the midnight bell;

On eve of Midsummer, that foe to sleep,

What time young maids their annual vigils keep,
The tell-tale shrub *, fresh gather'd to declare
The swains who false, from those who constant are;
When ghosts in clanking chains the church-yard walk,
And to the wond'ring ear of fancy talk:

When the scar'd maid steals trembling through the grove,

To kiss the grave of him who died for love:

When, with long watchings, Care, at length oppress'd,
Steals broken pauses of uncertain rest;

Nay, Grief short snatches of repose can take,
And nothing but Despair is quite awake :
Then, at that hour, so still, so full of fear,
When all things horrible to thought appear,
Is perjur'd POLYDORE observ'd to rove

A ghastly spectre through the gloomy grove:
Then to the Rock, the Bleeding Rock, repair,
Where, sadly sighing, it dissolves to air.

Still when the hours of solemn rites return,
The village train in sad procession mourn:
Pluck ev'ry weed which might the spot disgrace,
And plant the fairest field-flow'rs in their place.
Around no noxious plant, or flow'ret grows,
But the first daffodil, and earliest rose :
The snow-drop spreads its whitest bosom. here,
And golden cowslips grace the vernal year:
Here the pale primrose takes a fairer hue,
And ev'ry violet boasts a brighter blue.

* Midsummer-men, consulted as oracular by village maids.

Here builds the wood-lark, here the faithful dove
Laments his lost, or wooes his living love.
Secure from harm is ev'ry hallow'd nest,
The spot is sacred where true lovers rest.
To guard the Rock from each malignant sprite,
A troop of guardian spirits watch by night;
Aloft in air each takes his little stand,

The neighbouring hill is hence call'd Fairy Land.*

* By contraction, Failand, a hill well known in Somersetshire; not far from this is The Bleeding Rock, from which constantly issues a crimson current. A desire to account for this appearance gave rise to a whimsical conversation, which produced these slight

verses.

ODE

FROM H. M. AT BRISTOL, TO DRAGON,

MR. GARRICK'S HOUSE-DOG, AT HAMPTON.

I.

DRAGON! Since lyrics are the mode,
To thee I dedicate my Ode,

And reason good I plead :

Are those who cannot write, to blame
To draw their hopes of future fame,
From those who cannot read?

II.

O could I, like that nameless wight *,
Find the choice minute when to write,
The mollia tempora fandi!

Like his, my muse should learn to whistle
A true Heroical Epistle,

In strains which never can die.

III.

Father of lyrics, tuneful HORACE!

Can thy great shade do nothing for us
To mend the British lyre?

Our luckless Bards have broke the strings,
Seiz'd the scar'd muses, pluck'd their wings,
And put out all their fire. +

* See the admirable Epistle to Sir WILLIAM CHAMBERS. † A profusion of Odes had appeared about this time, which strikingly violated all the rules of Lyrical composition.