Again the daisies peep, the violets blow; Again the tenants of the leafy grove, Forgot the patt❜ring hail, the driving snow, And see, my DELIA, see o'er yonder stream, Where on the sunny bank the lambkins play; Alike attracted to th' enliv'ning gleam, The stranger-swallows take their wonted way. Welcome, ye gentle tribe, your sports pursue, No tempest on my shed its fury pours, My frugal hearth no noxious blast supplies; Go, wand'rers, go, repair your sooty bow'rs, Think, on no hostile roof my chimnies rise. Again I'll listen to your grave debates, I'll think I hear your various maxims told, Your numbers, leaders, politics, and states, Your limits settled, and your tribes enroll'd. I'll think I hear you tell of distant lands, What insect-nations rise from Egypt's mud, What painted swarms subsist on Lybia's sands, What mild Euphrates yields, and Ganges' flood. Thrice happy race! whom Nature's call invites While we are doom'd to bear the restless change Of shifting seasons, vapours dank, or dry, Forbid, like you, to milder climes to range, When wintry clouds deform the troubled sky. But know the period to your joys assign'd! Know ruin hovers o'er this earthly ball; Certain as fate, and sudden as the wind, Its secret adamantine props shall fall. Yet, when your short-liv'd summers shine no more, My patient mind, sworn foe to vice's way, Sustain'd on lighter wings than yours, shall soar To fairer realms beneath a brighter ray; To plains etherial, and Elysian bowers, Where wintry storms no rude access obtain, Where blasts no light'ning, and no thunder low'rs, But spring and joy unchang'd for ever reign. JULIA; OR, THE VICTIM OF LOVE. A Pastoral Ballad. BY PETER PINDAR, ESQ. SHE is dead who gave life to the groves, And covers our valley with gloom! She who led all the Pleasures and Loves, Now joins the pale band of the Tomb. She whose beauty commanded the heart, Sunk, the innocent victim of art, Yet silent was she on the Swain Whose cruelty doom'd her to mourn; In secret her soul would complain, In secret her anguish would burn. Tho' faint was the blush on her cheek, And deep in her bosom the thorn; A smile 'midst her sorrows would break, She would sit near yon willow and sigh, Sweet ZEPHYR, bring health," she would cry; And oft she would drink of the brook, On her Dog she look'd down with a tear, When thy Mistress, who loves thee, is dead. |