For plenty there a residence has found, Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor! Oh! take me to your hospitable dome! Should I reveal the sources of my grief, If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast, Your hands would not with-hold the kind relief, And tears of pity would not be represt. Heaven sends misfortunes-why should we repine? A little farm was my paternal lot; Then, like the lark, I sprightly hail'd the morn; But ah! oppression forc'd me from my cot, My cattle died, and blighted was my corn. My daughter-once the comfort of my age! My tender wife-sweet soother of my care! And left the world to wretchedness and me. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span, Oh! give relief-and Heaven will bless your store. ODE TO SPRING. [MRS. BARBAULD.] SWEET daughter of a rough and stormy sire, And swelling buds are crown'd; From the green islands of eternal youth, (Crown'd with fresh blooms, and ever-springing shade) Turn, hither turn thy step, O thou, whose powerful voice More sweet than softest touch of Doric reed, Or Lydian flute, can sooth the madding winds, Breathe thy own tender calm. Thee, best belov'd! the virgin train await, With songs and festal rites, and joy to rove Thy blooming wilds among, And vales and dewy lawns, With untir'd feet; and cull thy earliest sweets That prompts their whisper'd sigh. Unlock thy copious stores; those tender showers, And silent dews that swell The milky ear's green stem, And feed the flowering osier's early shoots; With warm and pleasant breath Salute the blowing flowers. Now let me sit beneath the whitening thorn, And mark thy spreading tints steal o'er the dale; And watch with patient eye Thy fair unfolding charms. O Nymph approach! while yet the temperate sun With bashful forehead, thro' the cool moist air Throws his young maiden beams, And with chaste kisses wooes The earth's fair bosom; while the streaming veil Of lucid clouds with kind and frequent shade Protects thy modest blooms From his severer blaze. Sweet is thy reign, but short; the red dog-star Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell; For O, not all that Autumn's lap contains, Can aught for thee atone, Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights ODE TO CONTENT. [IBID.] THOU, the Nymph with placid eye! Receive my temperate vow: Not all the storms that shake the pole O come, in simplest vest array'd, And chaste subdued delight. |