TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON. AN INVITATION INTO THE COUNTRY. I. THE fwallows in their torpid state The keeneft frost that binds the stream Are neither felt nor feared by them III. But man, all feeling and awake, The gloomy scene surveys; With present ills his heart must ake, Old winter, halting o'er the mead, Bids me and Mary mourn; But lovely spring peeps o'er his head, And whispers your return. 296 TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON. V. Then April, with her sister May, Shall chafe him from the bowers, And, if a tear, that speaks regret A glimpse of joy, that we have met, CATHARINA. ADDRESSED TO MISS STAPLETON. (NOW MRS. COURTNEY.) SHE came-she is gone-we have met― And meet perhaps never again; The fun of that moment is fet, And feems to have rifen in vain. Catharina has fled like a dream- The laft evening ramble we made, Our progress was often delayed By the nightingale warbling nigh. We paused under many a tree, And much she was charmed with a tone Lefs fweet to Maria and me, Who had witneffed fo lately her own. My numbers that day fhe had fung, And gave them a grace As only her musical tongue fo divine, Could infufe into numbers of mine. The longer I heard, I esteemed The work of my fancy the more, And ev❜n to myself never seemed So tuneful a poet before. Though the pleasures of London exceed For the close woven arches of limes Than all that the city can show. So it is, when the mind is endued 'Tis nature alone that we love. Since then in the rural recefs May it ftill be her lot to poffefs The scene of her fenfible choice! |