CATHARINA. TO MRS. STAPLETON, (NOW MRS. COURTNAY.) SHE came-she is gone-we have metAnd meet perhaps never again; The sun of that moment is set, And seems to have risen in vain, The last evening ramble we made, Our progress was often delay'd By the nightingale warbling nigh. We paused under many a tree, And much she was charm'd with a tone Less sweet to Maria and me, Who so lately had witness'd her own. My numbers that day she had sung, As only her musical tongue Could infuse into numbers of mine. The longer I heard, I esteem'd The work of my fancy the more, Though the pleasures of London exceed Than aught that the city can show. So it is, when the mind is endued Since then in the rural recess The scene of her sensible choice! To inhabit a mansion remote From the clatter of street-pacing steeds, And by Philomel's annual note To measure the life that she leads. With her book, and her voice, and her lyre, To wing all her moments at home, And with scenes that new rapture inspire, She will have just the life she prefers, And ours would be pleasant as hers, Might we view her enjoying it here. CATHARINA: SECOND PART. On her Marriage to George Courtnay, Esq. 1792. BELIEVE it or not, as you chuse, I did but express a desire To see Catharina at home, At the side of my friend George's fire, Such prophecy some may despise, Maria* would leave us, I knew, * Lady Throckmorton. And therefore I wish'd as I did, Since therefore I seem to incur |