We'll ask no long protracted treat, Nor grudge our sons with envious eyes Thus, hand in hand, thro' life we'll go; Its chequer'd paths of joy and woe With cautious steps we'll tread; Quit its vain scenes without a tear, Without a trouble or a fear, And mingle with the dead. While Conscience, like a faithful friend, THE PASSIONS. COLLIN S. WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire, With woeful measures, wan Despair, But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, And Hope enchanted smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair. And longer had she sung-but, with a frown, Revenge impatient rose, He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down, And, with a withering look, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe. And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And tho' sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity at his side Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien; While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd, Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd, Hate. With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd, Pale Melancholy sat retir'd, And from her wild sequester'd seat, In notes by distance inade more sweet, Pour'd thro' the mellow horn her pensive soul: Bubbling runnels join'd the sound; Thro' glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay, Love of peace, and lonely musing, But, O, how alter'd was its sprightlier tone! Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, Blew an aspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known; The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste-ey'd queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear, And Sport leap'd up, and seiz'd his beechen spear, Last came Joy's ecstatic trial. He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand address'd, But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, As if he would the charming air repay, O Music, sphere-descended maid, Where is thy native simple heart, DESPONDENCY. BURNS. OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I sit me down and sigh: O life! thou art a galling load, Too justly I may fear! Still caring, despairing, Must be my bitter doom; My woes here shall close ne'er, |