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Or turn to nobler, greater tasks thy care,
To me thy sympathetic gifts impart ;
Teach me in Friendship's grief to bear a share,
And justly boast the generous feeling heart.
Teach me to soothe the helpless orphan's grief,
With timely aid the widow's woe assuage,
To Misery's moving cry to yield relief,

And be the sure resource of drooping age. So when the genial spring of life shall fade, And sinking nature owns the dread decay, Some soul congenial then may lend its aid, And gild the close of life's eventful day.

$140. Extract from a Poem on his own approaching Death, by MICHAEL BRUCE. Now spring returns; but not to me returns The vernal joy my better years have known: Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns, And all the joys of life with health are flown.

Starting and shiv'ring in th' inconstant wind,
Meagre and pale, the ghost of what I was,
Beneath some blasted tree I lie reclin'd,
And count the silent moments as they pass:
The winged moments, whose unstaying speed
No art can stop, or in their course arrest ;
Whose flight shall shortly count me with the
dead,

And lay me down in peace with them that

rest.

Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate;
And morning dreams, as poets tell, are true:
Led by pale ghosts, I enter death's dark gate,
And bid the realms of light and life adieu!
I hear the helpless wail, the shriek of woe;
I see the muddy wave, the dreary shore,
The sluggish streams that slowly creep below,

Which mortals visit, and return no more. Farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains!

Enough for me the churchyard's lonely mound,

Where Melancholy with still Silence reigns, And the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground.

There let me wander at the close of eve,

When sleep sits dewy on the laborer's eyes, The world and all its busy follies leave, And talk with wisdom where my Daphnis lies.

There let me sleep, forgotten, in the clay, When death shall shut these weary aching

eyes,

Rest in the hopes of an eternal day,
Till the long night is gone, and the last

morn arise.

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Ah! let the gay, the roseate morning hail,
When, in the various blooms of light array'd,
She bids fresh beauty live along the vale,
And rapture tremble in the vocal shade:
Her choral melodies benignly rise;
Sweet is the lucid morning's op'ning flow'r,

Yet dearer to my soul the shadowy hour,
At which her blossoms close, her music dies:
For then mild nature, while she droops her
head,

Wakes the soft tear 'tis luxury to shed.

§ 142. Sonnet to Expression.

MISS WILLIAMS. EXPRESSION, child of soul! I love to trace Thy strong enchantments, when the poet's lyre,

The painter's pencil, catch the vivid fire,
And beauty wakes for thee each touching grace!
But from my frighted gaze thy form avert,
When horror chills thy tear, thy ardent sigh,
When phrensy rolls in thy impassion'd eye,
Or guilt lives fearful at thy troubled heart;
Nor ever let my shudd'ring fancy hear
Of him the Muses lov'd, when hope forsook
The wasting groan, or view the pallid look
His spirit, vainly to the Muses dear-
For charm'd with heavenly song, this bleeding
breast

Mourns it could sharpen ill, and give despair

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But most for this, pale orb! thy light is dear, | By Pella's Bard, a magic name,
For this, benignant orb ! I hail thee most,
That while I pour the unavailing tear,
And mourn that hope to me, in youth is lost!
Thy light can visionary thoughts impart,
And lead the Muse to soothe a suff'ring heart.

$145. On the Recovery of a Lady of Quality from the Small-Pox. SAVAGB.

LONGalov'd fair had bless'd her consort's sight With amorous pride, and undisturb'd delight; Till Death, grown envious, with repugnant aim ⚫ Frown'd at their joys, and urg'd a tyrant's claim. He summons each disease!-the noxious crew, Writhing in dire distortions, strike his view! From various plagues, which various natures know,

Forth rushes beauty's fear'd and fervent foe. Fierce to the fair the missile mischief flies, The sanguine streams in raging ferments rise! It drives, ignipotent, through every vein, Hangs on the heart, and burns around the

brain!

Now a chill damp the charmer's lustre dims:
Sad o'er her eyes the livid languor swims!
Her eyes, that with a glance could joy inspire,
Like setting stars, scarce shoot a glimmering

fire.

Here stands her consort, sore with anguish press'd,

Grief in his eye, and terror in his breast.
The Paphian Graces, smit with anxious care,
In silent sorrow weep the waning fair.
Eight suns, successive, roll their fire away,
And eight slow nights see their deep shades
decay.

While these revolve, though mute each Muse appears,

Each speaking eye drops eloquence in tears.
On the ninth noon great Phoebus listening bends,
On the ninth noon each voice in prayer ascends
Great God of light, of song, and physic's art,
Restore the languid fair, new soul impart!
Her beauty, wit, and virtue claim thy care,
And thine own bounty's almost rivall'd there.
Each paus'd: the god assents. Would death

advance ?

Phœbus unseen arrests that threatening lance!
Down from his orb a vivid influence streams,
And quickening earth imbibes salubrious beams;
Each balmy plant increase of virtue knows,
And art inspir'd with all her patron glows.
The charmer's opening eye kind hope reveals,
Kind hope her consort's breast enlivening feels;
Each grace revives, each Muse resumes the lyre,
Each beauty brightens with relumin'd fire:
As health's auspicious pow'rs gay life display,
Death, sullen at the sight, stalks slow away.

§ 146. Ode to Pity. COLLINS.
O THOU, the friend of man assign'd,
With balmy hands his wounds to bind,
And charm his frantic woe;
When first Distress, with dagger keen,
Broke forth to waste his destin'd scene,
His wild unsated foe!

By all the griefs his thought could frame,
Receive my humble rite:
Long, Pity, let the nations view
Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
And eyes of dewy light!

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side,

Deserted stream, and mute?
Wild Arun* too has heard thy strains,
And Echo, 'midst any native plains,
Been sooth'd by Pity's lute.

There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head:

To him thy cell was shown:
And while he sung the female heart,
With youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art,
The turtles mix'd their own.
E'en now my thoughts, relenting maid,
Come, Pity, come, by fancy's aid,

Its southern site, its truth complete
Thy temple's pride design:
Shall raise a wild enthusiast heat,

In all who view the shrine.

There Picture's toil shall well relate
How chance or hard involving fate,

O'er mortal bliss prevail :

The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand,
And sighing prompt her tender hand,
With each disastrous tale.
There let me oft, retir'd by day,
In dreams of passion melt away,

Allow'd with thee to dwell:"
There waste the mournful lamp of night,
Till, Virgin, thou again delight
To hear a British shell!

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With all its shadowy shapes is shown;
THOU, to whom the world unknown
Who seest appall'd th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between :
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic fear!
I see, I see thee near.

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know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye! For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear! Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly; Danger, whose limbs of giant mould What mortal eye can fix'd behold? Who stalks his round, a hideous form, Howling amidst the midnight storm, Or throws him on the rigid steep Of some loose hanging rock to sleep; And with him thousand phantoms join'd, Who prompt to deeds accurst the mind: And those, the fiends, who near allied, O'er nature's wounds and wrecks preside; While Vengeance, in the lurid air, Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare : On whom that ravening brood of fate, Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait : Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, And look not madly wild, like thee?

* A river in Sussex.

EPODE.

In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, The grief-full Muse address'd her infant tongue,

The maids and matrons, on her awful voice,
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.
Yet he, the Bard who first invok'd thy name,
Disdain'd in Marathon its pow'r to feel:
For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame,
But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's
steel.

But who is he, whom later garlands grace,
Who left a while o'er Hybla's dews to rove,
With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,
Where thousand furies shar'd the baleful
grove?

Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous Queent Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard, When once alone it broke the silent scene, And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd.

O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart, Thy withering pow'r inspir'd each mournful line;

Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part, Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine.

ANTISTROPHE.

Thou, who such weary length hast past, Where wilt thou rest, mad nymph, at last? Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell, Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell? Or in some hollow'd seat,

Gainst which the big waves beat, Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought!

Dark pow'r, with shuddering meek submitted thought,

Be mine, to read the visions old,
Which thy awakening bards have told,
And, lest thou meet my blasted view
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.

Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd,
In that thrice-hollow'd eve abroad;
When ghosts, as cottage maids believe,
Their pebbled beds permitted leave,
And goblins haunt from fire, or fen,
Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!
O thou, whose spirit most possess'd
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotion spoke!
Hither again thy fury deal,
Teach me but once like him to feel;
His cypress wreath my meed decree;
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!

$148. Ode to Simplicity. COLLINS.

O THOU, by Nature taught,

To breathe her genuine thought,

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O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call! By all the honey'd store

On Hybla's thymy shore,

By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,
By her whose love-lorn woe.

In evening musings slow,
Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:
By old Cephisus deep,

Who spread his wavy sweep

In warbled wand'rings round thy green retreat, On whose enamell'd side,

No

When holy Freedom died,

equal haunt allur'd thy future feet.
O sister meek of Truth,
To my admiring youth

Thy sober aid and native charms infuse!
The flow'rs that sweetest breathe,
Though beauty cull'd the wreath,

Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.
While Rome could none esteem,
But virtue's patriot theme,

You lov'd her hills, and led her laureate band;
But staid to sing alone

To one distinguish'd throne,

And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land. No more, in hall or bow'r,

The passions own thy pow'r.

Love, only Love her forceless numbers mean;
For thou hast left her shrine,
Nor olive more, nor vine,

Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.
Though taste, though genius bless.

To some divine excess,

Faint's the cold work till thou inspire the whole;

What each, what all supply,

May court, may charm our eye,

Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul! Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task,
I only seek to find thy temperate vale;
Where oft my reed might sound
To maids and shepherds round,
And all thy sons, O`Nature, learn my tale.
§ 149. Ode on the Poetical Character.
COLLINS.

As one, if, not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted Bard,
(Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest Elfin queen has bless'd,)
One, only one unrivall'd fair t
May hope the magic girdle wear,

In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong: At solemn tournay hung on high,

Who first on mountains wild,

In Fancy, loveliest child,

Thy babe and Pleasure's nurs'd the pow'rs of song!

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The wish of each love-darting eye!
Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,

As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand, Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin fame,

Florimel. See Spenser, Leg 4.

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It left unblest her loath'd dishonor'd side: Happy, her hopeless fair, if never

Her baffled hand with vain endeavour Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied! Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,

To whom, prepar'd and bath'd in heaven,
The cest of amplest pow'r is given,
To few the godlike gift assigns,
To gird their blest prophetic loins,

And Heaven and Fancy, kindred pow'rs, Have now o'erturn'd th' inspiring bow'rs, Or curtain'd close such scene from every future

view.

$150. Ode. Written in the year 1746. COLLINS.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest!

And gaze her vision wild, and feel unmix'd her When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,

flame!

The band, as fairy legends say,

Was wove on that creating day

When he, who call'd with thought to birth
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
And dress'd with springs, and forests tall,
And pour'd the main engirting all,
Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, sate with her alone,
And plac'd her on his sapphire throne,
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
Now sublimest triumph swelling,
Now on love and mercy dwelling;
And she from out the veiling cloud
Breath'd her magic notes aloud:

And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,
And all thy subject life was born!
The dangerous passions kept aloof,
Far from the sainted growing woof:
But near it sat ecstatic Wonder,
Listening the deep applauding thunder:
And Truth, in sunny vest array'd,
By whose the tarsel's eyes were made;
All the shadowy tribes of mind,
In braided dance their murmurs join'd,
And all the bright uncounted pow'rs,
Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flow'rs.
Where is the Bard whose soul can now
Its high presuming hopes avow?
Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
This hallow'd work for him design'd?
High on some cliff to heaven up-pil'd,
Of rude access, of prospect wild,
Where tangled round the jealous steep,
Strange shades o'erbrow the valleys deep,
And holy Genii guard the rock,

Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock;
While on its rich ambitious head
An Eden, like his own, lies spread,
I view that oak, the fancied glades among,
By which as Milton lay, his evening ear,
From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew,
Nigh spher'd in heaven its native strains could
hear:

On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung:

Thither oft, his glory greeting,

From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue; In vain such bliss to one alone Of all the sons of soul was known,

Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By Fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

§ 151. Ode to Mercy. COLLINS.

STROPHE.

O THOU, who sitt'st a smiling bride By Valor's arm'd and awful side,

Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best adorn'd: Who oft with songs, divine to hear,

Winn'st from his fatal grasp the spear,

And hid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!

Thou who, amidst the deathful field,
By godlike chiefs alone beheld,

Oft with thy bosom bare art found,
Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground:
See, Mercy, see, with pure and loaded hands,
Before thy shrine my country's genius stands,
And decks thy altar still, though pierc'd with
many a wound!

ANTISTROPHE.

When he whom e'en our joys provoke, The fiend of Nature, join'd his yoke, And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey; Thy form, from out thy sweet abode, O'ertook him on his blasted road,

And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage

away.

I see recoil'd his sable steeds,

That bore him swift to savage deeds; Thy tender melting eyes they own, O Maid, for all thy love to Britain shown, Where Justice bars her iron tow'r, To thee we build a roseate bow'r, Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne.

§ 152. Ode to Liberty. COLLINS.

STROPHE.

WHO shall awake the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life

The youths whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,

At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view!
What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,
Shall sing the sword in myrtles drest,

At Wisdom's shrine a while its flame conceal-
ing,

(What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?)
Till she her brightest lightnings round reveal-
ing,
[wound!
It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted
O goddess, in that feeling hour,
When most its sounds would court thy ears,
Let not my shell's misguided pow'r
E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.
No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,
How Rome, before thy face,
With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,
Push'd by a wild and artless race,
From off its wide ambitious base,
When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke,
And all the blended work of strength and
With many a rude repeated stroke, grace,
And many a barbarous yell, to thousand frag-
ments broke.

EPODE.

Yet, e'en where'er the least appear'd,
Th' admiring world thy hand rever'd;
Still, 'midst the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her strength were found:
They saw, by what escap'd the storm,
How wondrous rose her perfect form;
How in the great, the labor'd whole,
Each mighty master pour'd his soul;
For sunny Florence, seat of art,
Beneath her vines preserv'd a part,
Till they, whom science lov'd to name,
(O who could fear it?) quench'd her flame;
And, lo, an humbler relic laid

In jealous Pisa's olive shade;
See small Marino joins the theme,
Though least, not last in thy esteem.
Strike, louder strike th' ennobling strings
To those whose merchant sons were kings;
To him who, deck'd with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride:
Hail, port of glory, wealth, and pleasure,
Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure;

Nor e'er her former pride relate
To sad Liguria's bleeding state.
Ah, no! more pleas'd thy haunts I seek
On wild Helvetia's mountains bleak,
(Where, when the favor'd of thy choice,
The daring archer, heard thy voice;
Forth from his eyrie rous'd in dread,
The ravening eagle northward fied :)
Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,
With those to whom thy stork is dear;
Those whom the rod of Álva bruis'd;
Whose crown a British queen refus'd!
The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,
One holier name alone remains:
The perfect spell shall then avail,
Hail, Nymph, adorn'd by Britain, hail!

ANTISTROPHE.

Beyond the measure vast of thought,
The works the wizard time has wrought,
The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,
Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strandt,
No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary,
He pass'd with unwet feet through all our
land.

To the blown Baltic then, they say,
The wild waves found another way,
Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains
rounding;

Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise,
A wide wild storm e'en nature's self confound-

ing,

Withering her giant sons, with strange un-
couth surprise,

This pillar'd earth, so firm and wide,
By winds and inward labors torn,
In thunders dread was push'd aside,

And down the shouldering billows borne.
And see like gems her laughing train,
The little isles on every side-

Monat, once hid from those who search'd the
main,

Where thousand elfin shapes abide,

And Wight, who checks the western tideFor thee consenting heaven has each bestow'd

A fair attendant on her sovereign pride;

To thee this blest divorce she ow'd,
For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last

abode.

The Dutch: among whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties.

↑ This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalists too have endeavoured to support the probability of the fact, by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it.

There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a Mermaid, becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordinary beauty, took the opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness, occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This, however, was so misconstrued by the sea-lady, that, in revenge for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island, by covering it with a mist, so that all who attempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and own the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs.

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