PLEASURES of RETIREMENT.

An ODE.

Welcome ye fhades! ye bowery thickets hail.

THOMSON'S SEASONS,

Shook from the evening's fragrant wings,

When dews impearl the grove,

And round the lift'ning valley rings

The languid voice of love;
Laid on a daify fprinkled green,
Befide a plaintive ftream,

A meek ey'd youth of ferious mien
Indulg'd this folemn theme.

Ye cliffs in favage grandeur pil'd
High o'er the darkening dale!
Ye groves! along whofe windings wild
Soft fleals the murmuring gale!

• Where oft lone melancholy flrays,
By wilder'd fancy led,

What time the wan moon's yellow rays
• Stream thro' the checquer'd shade:

To you, ye wafles, whofe artless_charms,

Ne'er drew ambition's eye,

Scap'd the tumultuous world's alarms,

To your retreats I fly.

• Deep

Deep in your moft fequefter'd bower
Let me at laft recline,

Where folitude, meek modeft power,
Leans on her ivy'd fhrine*.

How fhall I woo the matchlefs fair,
Thy envy'd fmile how win;

Thy fmile, that smooths the brow of care,.

And fills each storm within!

Oh! wilt thou to thy favourite grove,

Thy ardent votary bring,

And blefs his hours, and bid them move,

• Serene on filent wing!

There, while to thee glad nature pours

Her gently warbling fong,

And zephyr from the wafte of flowers

Wafts fweet perfume along;

Let no rude found invade from far,
No vagrant foot be nigh,

No ray from grandeur's gilded car

Flash on thy ftartl'd eye.

To a mind intent upon its own improvement, folitude has more incomparable charms, than can poffibly be found in the gay circles of a ball room, or the rows of a theatre.. DR. JOHNSON

For me, no more the path invites,
Ambition loves to tread;

No more I climb life's panting heights,
By guileful hope misled;

• Leaps my

fond fluttering heart no more

To joy's enlivening lays;

Soon are the glittering moments o'er ;

ELOISA TO ABELARD.

By ALEXANDER POPE, Esq.

ABELARD and ELOISA flourished in the twelfth century. They were two of the moft diftinguished perfons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate paffion. After a long course of calamities, they retired each to a feveral convent, and confecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this feparation, that a letter of ABELARD'S to a friend, which contained the hiftory of his misfortune, fell into the hands of ELOISA. This awakening all her tenderness, occafioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which gives fo lively a picture of the ftruggles of grace and nature, virtue and pafhion.

'N thefe deep folitudes and awful cells,

IN

Where heav'nly-penfive contemplation dwells,
And ever-mufing melancholy reigns;

What means this tumult in a veflal's veins;
Why rove my thoughts beyond this laft retreat?"
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love!-from Abelard it came,
And Eloifa yet muft kifs the name.

Dear fatal name! reft ever unreveal'd,
Nor pass these lips in holy filence feal'd :
Hide it, my beart, within that clofe difguife,
Where, mix'd with God's, his lov'd idea lies:
O write it not, my hand-the name appears.
Already written-wash it out, my tears!

I

In vain loft Eloifa weeps and prays,

Her heart ftill dictates, and her hand obeys.
Relentless wall! whofe darkfome round contains
Repentant fighs, and voluntary pains:

Ye rugged rocks! which holy knees have worn ;
Ye grots and caverns fhagg'd with horrid thorn!
Shrines! where their vigils pale-ey'd virgins keep,
And pitying faints, whofe ftatues learn to weep!
Tho' cold like you, unmov'd and filent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to flone.
All is not Heav'n's while Abelard has part,
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor pray'rs nor fafts its stubborn pulse restrain,
Nor tears for ages taught to flow in vain.

Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes..
Oh name for ever fad! for ever dear!
Still breath'd in fighs, ftill ufher'd with a tear.
I tremble too, where'er my own I find,
Some dire misfortune follows close behind..
Line after line by gufhing eyes o'erflow,
Led through a fad variety of woe;

Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom,
Loft in a convent's folitary gloom!

There flern religion quench'd th' unwilling flame,
There died the best of paffions, love and fame.
Yet write, oh write me all, that I may join
riefs to thy griefs, and echo fighs to thine,

Nor