Lead her aloft to blooming bowers,
And beds of amaranthine flowers,
And golden skies, and glittering streams,
That paint the paradise of dreams.

Venus! present a lover near,
And gently whisper in her ear
His woes, who, lonely and forlorn,

Counts the slow clock from night till morn.

Ah! let no portion of my pain,
Save just a tender trace, remain;
Asleep consenting to be kind,

And wake with Daphnis in her mind.

TO A YOUNG LADY.

MARIA, bright with beauty's glow,
In conscious gaiety you go

The pride of all the park :
Attracted groups in silence gaze,
And soft behind you hear the praise
And whisper of the spark.

In fancy's airy chariot whirl'd,
You make the circle of the world,
And dance a dizzy round:
The maids and kindling youths behold
Your triumph o'er the envious old,
The queen of Beauty crown'd.

Where'er the beams of fortune blaze,
Or fashion's whispering zephyr plays,

The insect tribe attends;

Gay-glittering through a summer's day,
The silken myriads melt away
Before a sun descends.

Divorc'd from elegant delight,
The vulgar Venus holds her night
An alien to the skies;

Her bosom breathes no finer fire,
No radiance of divine desire
Illumes responsive eyes.

Gods! shall a sordid son of earth
Enfold a form of heavenly birth,
And ravish joys divine;

An angel bless unconscious arms?
The circle of surrendered charms
Unhallowed hands entwine?

The absent day; the broken dream;
The vision wild; the sudden scream;
Tears that unbidden flow!-

Ah! let no sense of griefs profound
That beauteous bosom ever wound
With unavailing woe!

The wild enchanter youth beguiles,
And fancy's fairy landscape smiles
With more than Nature's bloom;
The spring of Eden paints your bowers,
Unsetting suns your promis'd hours
With golden light illume.

A hand, advancing, strikes the bell!
That sound dissolves the magic spell,

And all the charm is gone! The visionary landscape flies : At once the' aërial music dies; In wilds you walk alone.

Howe'er the wind of Fortune blows,
Or sadly-severing Fate dispose
Our everlasting doom;
Impressions never felt before,
And transports to return no more,
Will haunt me to the tomb!

My God! the pangs of nature past,
Will e'er a kind remembrance last
Of pleasures sadly sweet?
Can love assume a calmer name?
My eyes with friendship's angel-flame.
An angel's beauty meet?

Ah! should that first of finer forms Require, through life's impending storms, A sympathy of soul;

The loved Maria of the mind

Will send me, on the wings of wind,
To Indus or the Pole.

TO A MAN OF LETTERS.

Lo, winter's hoar dominion past!
Arrested in his eastern blast

The fiend of nature flies;
Breathing the spring, the zephyrs play,
And re-inthron'd the lord of day

Resumes the golden skies.

Attendant on the genial hours,
The voluntary shades and flowers
For rural lovers spring;

Wild choirs unseen in concert join,
And round Apollo's rustic shrine
The sylvan Muses sing.

The finest vernal bloom that blows,
The sweetest voice the forest knows,
Arise to vanish soon;

The rose unfolds her robe of light,
And Philomela gives her night
To Richmond and to June.

With bounded ray, and transient grace,
Thus, Varro, holds the human race
Their place and hour assign'd;
Loud let the venal trumpet sound,
Responsive never will rebound
The echo of mankind.

Yon forms divine that deck the sphere,
The radiant rulers of the year,

Confess a nobler haud;
Thron'd in the majesty of morn,
Behold the king of day adorn
The skies, the sea, the land.

Nor did the' Almighty raise the sky,
Nor hang the' eternal lamps on high
On one abode to shine;

The circle of a thousand suns
Extends, while nature's period runs
The theatre divine.

Thus some, whom smiling nature hails
To sacred springs, and chosen vales,
And streams of old renown;
By noble toils and worthy scars,
Shall win their mansion mid the stars,
And wear the' immortal crown.

Bright in the firmament of fame
The lights of ancient ages flame
With never setting ray,

On worlds unfound from history torn,
O'er ages deep in time unborn,
To pour the human day.

Won from neglected wastes of time,
Apollo hails his fairest clime,
The provinces of mind;
An Egypt', with eternal towers,
See Montesquieu redeem the hours,
From Lewis, to mankind.

No tame remission genius knows;
No interval of dark repose,

To quench the' ethereal flame;
From Thebes to Troy the victor hies,
And Homer with his hero vies

In varied paths to fame.

The orb which rul'd thy natal night,
And usher'd in a greater light

1 The finest provinces of Egypt, gained from a neglected waste.