Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

ODE.

WHY, Damon, with the forward day,
Dost thou thy little spot survey,
From tree to tree, with doubtful cheer,
Pursue the progress of the year?

What winds arise, what rains descend,
When thou before that year shall end?

What do thy noon-tide walks avail,
To clear the leaf, and pick the snail;
Then, wantonly, to death decree

An insect of more use than thee?

Thou and the worm are brother kind,
As low, as earthly, and as blind!

Vain wretch! canst thou expect to see
The downy peach make court to thee?
Or that thy sense shall ever meet
The bean-flow'rs deep-embosom'd sweet,
Exhaling with the evening blast?
Thy ev'nings then will all be past.

Thy narrow pride, thy fancy'd green,
O vanity, in little seen!

All must be left when death appears,
In spite of wishes, groans, and tears:

Nor one-of all thy plants that grow,
Save Rosemary, with thee will go !
Dr. Sewell.

SONG OF THE FAIRIES TO THE
SEA NYMPHS.

HASTEN from your coral caves,
Ev'ry nymph that sportive laves
In the green sea's oozy wells,

And gilds the fins, and spots the shells!
Hasten, and our morrice join,

Ere the gaudy morning shine!

Rising from the foamy wave,
Instantly your aid we crave :
Come, and trip, like our gay band,
Traceless on the amber sand.

Haste, or we must hence away,
Yet an hour and all is day!

At your bidding, from our feet
Shall the ocean monsters fleet;
Sea-nettle and sting-fish glide
Back upon the refluent tide.

Haste, the dawn has streak'd the cloud,
Hark, the village cock has crow'd!

See the clouds of night retire,

Hesper gleams with languid fire;
Quickly then our revel join,

The blush of morn is on the brine.

Loit'rers! we must hence away,
Yonder breaks the orb of day.

Miss Seward.

TO IANTHE.

BELOV'D, each anxious fear repel;

Think not that aught our hearts can sever;
Heaven knows I love thee passing well;
And knows I less can love thee never.

My soul a transient flame shall scorn :

To thee I've sworn no short-liv'd duty, Like theirs whose passions, beauty born, Still sickens and expires with beauty.

Sorrow and pain those locks may rend
That round thy brows so graceful cluster;
Dark hues may with thy lilies blend,
And dim thine eye's expressive lustre.

Alas! 'tis true that I may see

Their rugged hands thy graces ruin, And sad indeed my soul will be,

With sighs their fatal progress viewing!

But thou no alter'd love shall find,
Though every outward charm be flying:
More bright will shine thy angel-mind,
The powers of pain and grief defying!

Davenport.

SONG.

RING on! ring on, ye merry bells,

And be to others sounds of gladnessAlas! your silver sweetness swells

And wakes my slumb'ring heart to madness.

Ring on! ring on, for since your chimes
Shall never now my wedding hallow,
O! be the voice of other times,

And rouse their joys, like spectres sallow.

Ah! ring such pensive peals as when

In these tall groves I wander'd sighing, And listen'd to the best of men,

Who now in yonder grave is lying!

Ah! ring such peals as may recal

Those happy hours, now gone for ever, And whilst the bitter tear-drops fall,

At once

my soul and reason sever!

Anna Maria Porter.

THE EXILE.

YE hills of my country, soft fading in blue,
The seats of my childhood, for ever adieu !
Yet not for a brighter, your skies I resign,
When my wandering footsteps revisit the Rhine :
But sacred to me is the roar of the wave,

That mingles its tide with the blood of the brave;
Where the blasts of the trumpets for battle combine,
And the heart was laid low that gave rapture to mine.

Ye scenes of remembrance that sorrow beguil'd,
Your uplands I leave for the desolate wild;
For nature is nought to the eye of despair

But the image of hopes that have vanish'd in air:
Again, ye fair blossoms of flower and of tree,
Ye shall bloom to the morn, tho' bloom not for me;
Again your lone wood-paths that wind by the stream,
Be the haunt of the lover-to hope-and to dream.

ye

But never to me shall the summer renew

The bow'rs where the days of my happiness flew;
Where my soul found her partner, and thought to bestow
The colours of heaven on the dwellings of woe!
Too faithful recorders of times that are past,
The Eden of love that was ever to last!

Once more may soft accents your wild echoes fill,
And the young and the happy be worshippers still.

« ForrigeFortsett »