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The moralist, with musing eyes,

Loves there his pensive steps to measure: "How vain is human pride!" he cries; "How soon is lost each earthly treasure!

"To snatch the fleeting bubble, joy,
How weak is ev'ry fond endeavour!
We rush to seize the glitt'ring toy;
It bursts, it vanishes for ever!

"How soon our pleasures pass away!

How soon our bliss must yield to sorrow! The friend, with whom we smile to-day, May wither in his shroud to-morrow!"

AMARILLIS;

FROM THE

D

PASTOR FIDO.

[Published in 1806.]

UNQUE addio, care selve,
Care mie selve, addio.

Ricevete questi ultimi sospiri,

Fin che sciolta da ferro ingiusto, e crudo,

Torni la mia fredd' ombra

A le vostr' ombre amate.
Che nel penoso inferno
Non può gir innocente,
Nè può star tra beati
Disperata e dolente.

i'moro, e senza colpa,

E senza frutto; e senza te, cor mio:

Mi moro, oime, MIRTILLO.)

Dear woods, your sacred haunts I leave :

Adieu! my parting sighs receive!

Adieu! dear native woods, adieu !

Which I no more am doom'd to view,

From ev'ry joy remov'd;
Till from the cold and cruel urn
My melancholy shade shall turn

To seek your shades belov'd.
For, free from guilt I cannot go
To join the wailing ghosts below,
Nor can despair and bleeding love
Find refuge with the blest above.

In youth and innocence I die;

The cold grave-stone must be my pillow;
From life, from love, from hope I fly;
Adieu! a long adieu! MIRTILLO!

CLONAR AND TLAMIN.

IMITATED FROM A LITTLE POEM IN MACPHERSON'S NOTES ON OSSIAN.

[Published in 1806.]

"The loves of Clonar and Tlamin were rendered famous in the north by a fragment of a lyric poem, still preserved, which is ascribed to Ossian. It is a dialogue between Clonar and Tlamin. She begins with a soliloquy, which he overhears."

TLAMIN.

ON of CONGLAS of IMOR! thou first in the battle!

SON

Oh CLONAR, young hunter of dun-sided roes!

Where the wings of the wind through the tall branches rattle,

Oh, where does my hero on rushes repose?

By the oak of the valley, my love, have I found thee, Where swift from the hill pour thy loud-rolling streams; The beard of the thistle flies sportively round thee,

And dark o'er thy face pass the thoughts of thy dreams. Thy dreams are of scenes where the war-tempest rages: TLAMIN'S youthful warrior no dangers appal:

Even now, in idea, my hero engages,

On Erin's green plains, in the wars of Fingal.

Half hid, by the grove of the hill, I retire:

Ye blue mists of Lutha! why rise ye between? Why hide the young warrior whose soul is all fire, Oh why hide her love from the eyes of TLAMIN?

CLONAR.

As the vision that flies with the beams of the morning,
While fix'd on the mind its bright images prove,
So fled the young sunbeam these valleys adorning ;
Why flies my TLAMIN from the sight of her love?

TLAMIN.

Oh CLONAR! my heart will to joy be a stranger,
Till thou on our mountains again shalt be seen;
Then why wilt thou rush to the regions of danger,
Far, far from the love of the mournful TLAMIN?

CLONAR.

The signals of war are from Selma resounding!
With morning we rise on the dark-rolling wave:
Towards green-valleyed Erin our vessels are bounding;
I rush to renown, to the fields of the brave!

Yet around me when war's hottest thunders shall rattle,
Thy form to my soul ever present shall be;

And should death's icy hand check my progress in battle, The last sigh of CLONAR shall rise but for thee.

FOLDATH IN THE CAVERN OF MOMA.

FROM THE SAME.

[Published in 1806.]

FOLDATH (addressing the spirits of his fathers).

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ANSWER.

Thou to Ullin's plains shalt go:
There shall rage the battle loud:
O'er the fall'n thy fame shall grow,
Like the gath'ring thunder-cloud.

There thy blood-stain'd sword shall gleam,
Till, around while danger roars,
Cloncath, the reflected beam,

Come from Moruth's sounding shores.

DREAMS.

FROM PETRONIUS ARBITER.

[Published in 1806.]

Somnia, quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris, &c.

D

REAMS, which, beneath the hov'ring shades of night,
Sport with the ever-restless minds of men,
Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain
Creates its own. For when the chains of sleep
Have bound the weary, and the lighten'd mind
Unshackled plays, the actions of the light
Become renew'd in darkness. Then the chief,
Who shakes the world with war, who joys alone
In blazing cities, and in wasted plains,

O'erthrown battalions sees, and dying kings,

And fields o'erflow'd with blood. The lawyer dreams
Of causes, of tribunals, judges, fees.

The trembling miser hides his ill-gain'd gold,

And oft with joy a buried treasure finds.

The eager hunter with his clam'rous dogs

Makes rocks and woods resound. The sailor brings
His vessel safe to port, or sees it whelm'd

Beneath the foaming waves. The anxious maid
Writes to her lover, or beholds him near.
The dog in dreams pursues the tim'rous hare.
The wretch, whom Fortune's iron hand has scourg'd,
Finds in his slumbers all his woes reviv'd.

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PINDAR ON THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

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[Published in 1806.]

Ακτις αελίου πολύσκοπε, κτλ.

LL-ENLIGHT'NING, all-beholding,
All-transcending star of day!
Why, thy sacred orb enfolding,
Why does darkness veil thy ray?

On thy life-diffusing splendour

These portentous shades that rise,
Vain the strength of mortals render,
Vain the labours of the wise.

Late thy wheels, through ether burning,
Roll'd in unexampled light:
Mortals mourn thy change, returning
In the sable garb of night.

Hear, oh Phoebus! we implore thee,
By Olympian Jove divine;
Phoebus Thebans kneel before thee,
Still on Thebes propitious shine.
On thy darken'd course attending,
Dost thou signs of sorrow bring?
Shall the summer rains descending,
Blast the promise of the spring?
Or shall War, in evil season,

Spread unbounded ruin round ?
Or the baleful hand of Treason
Our domestic joys confound?

By the bursting torrent's power,
Shall our rip'ning fields be lost?
Shall the air with snow-storms lower,
Or the soil be bound in frost?

Or shall ocean's waves stupendous,
Unresisted, unconfin'd,

Once again, with roar tremendous,

Hurl destruction on mankind?

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