In an hearse she rode reclin'd,
Drawn by fcreech-owls flow and blind :
Close to her, with printless feet,
Crept Stillness, in a winding sheet.
Next to her deaf Silence was feen,
Treading on tip-toes over the green;
Softly, lightly, gently fhe trips,
Still holding her fingers feal'd to her lips.
You could not fee a fight,
You could not hear a sound, But what confefs'd the night, And horror deepen'd round.
Beneath a myrtle's melancholy fhade,
Sophron the wife was laid :
And to the anfw'ring wood these founds convey'd :
While others toil within the town,
And to Fortune fmile or frown,
Fond of trifles, fond of toys,
And married to that woman, Noise;
Sacred Wisdom be my care,
And fairest Virtue, Wisdom's heir.
His fpeculations thus the fage begun,
When, lo! the neighbouring bell
In folemn found ftruck one:--
He ftarts---and recollects---he was engag'd to Nell.
Then
Then up he sprang nimble and light,
And rapp'd at fair Ele'nor's door
He laid afide virtue that night,
;
And next morn por'd in Plato for more.
On the fudden Death of a CLERGYMAN.
ODE
IV.
IF
F, like th' Orphean lyre, my fong could charm,
And light to life the afhes in the urn,
Fate of his iron dart I would difarm,
Sudden as thy decease should'st thou return,
Recall'd with mandates of defpotic founds,
And arbitrary grief, that will not hear of bounds.
But, ah! fuch wishes, artless muse, forbear ;
'Tis impotence of frantic love,
Th' enthufiaftic flight of wild despair,
To hope the Thracian's magic power to prove.
Alas! thy flender vein,
Nor mighty is to move, nor forgetive to feign,
Impatient of a rein,
Thou canst not in due bounds the struggling measures keep,
---But thou, alas! canft weep--
Thou canft---and o'er the melancholy bier
Canft lend the fad folemnity a tear.
Hail! to that wretched corfe, untenanted and cold,
And hail the peaceful shade loos'd from its irksome hold.
Now
Now let me fay thou'rt free,
For fure thou paid'ft an heavy tax for life,
While combating for thee,
Nature and mortality
Maintain❜d a daily ftrife.
High, on a slender thread thy vital lamp was plac'd,
Upon the mountain's bleakeft brow,
To give a nobler light fuperior was it rais'd,
But more expos'd by eminence it blaz'd;
For not a whistling wind that blew,
Nor the drop-defcending dew,
Nor a bat that idly flew,
But half extinguish'd its fair flame---but now
See---hear the storms tempeftuous sweep---
Precipitate it falls---it falls---falls lifeless in the deep.
Ceafe, ceafe, ye weeping youth,
Sincerity's foft fighs, and all the tears of truth.
And you, his kindred throng, forbear
Marble memorials to prepare,
And sculptur'd in your breasts his busto wear.
"Twas thus when Ifrael's legiflator dy'd,
No fragile mortal honours were fupply'd,
But even a grave denied.
Better than what the pencil's daub can give,
Better than all that Phidias ever wrought,
Is this---that what he taught shall live,
And what he liv'd for ever fhall be taught.
On the Fifth of December, being the Birth-day of a beautiful young Lady.
I.
AIL, eldest of the monthly train,
Sire of the winter drear,
H
December, in whose iron reign
Expires the chequer'd Year.
Hush all the bluft'ring blasts that blow,
And proudly plum'd in filver snow,
Smile gladly on this bleft of Days.
The livery'd clouds shall on thee wait,
And Phœbus fhine in all his ftate
With more than fummer rays.
II.
Tho' jocund June may justly boast
Long days and happy hours,
Tho' August be Pomona's hoft,
And May be crown'd with flow'rs;
Tell June, his fire and crimfon dies,
By Harriot's blush and Harriot's eyes,
Eclips'd and vanquifh'd, fade away:
Tell Auguft, thou canft let him fee
A richer, riper fruit than he,
A sweeter flow'r than May.
The PRETTY CHAMBERMAID:
In Imitation of Ne fit Ancillæ tibi amor pudori, &c. of Horace.
I.
CO
YOLIN, oh! cease thy friend to blame,
Who entertains a fervile flame.
Chide not---believe me, 'tis no more
Than great Achilles did before,
Who nobler, prouder far than he is,
Ador'd his chambermaid Brifeis.
II.
The thund'ring Ajax Venus lays
In love's inextricable maze:
His flave Temeffa makes him yield,
Now miftrefs of the sevenfold shield.
Atrides with his captive play'd,
Who always fhar'd the bed she made.
III:
'Twas at the ten years fiege, when all
The Trojans fell in Hector's fall,
When Helen rul'd the day and night,
And made them love, and made them fight:
D
|