15 He, with a hundred arts refin'd, Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind : To him each rival shall submit, Make but his riches equal to his wit. Then shall thy form the marble grace, (Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face : 20 His house, embosom'd in the grove, Sacred to social life and social love, Shall glitter o'er the pendent green, Where Thames reflects the visionary scene: Thither, the silver-sounding lyres 25 Shall call the smiling loves, and young desires; There, ev'ry grace and muse shall throng, Exalt the dance, or animate the song; There youths and nymphs, in consort gay, Shall hail the rising, close the parting day. With me, alas! those joys are o'er ; For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more. Adieu! fond hope of mutual fire, 30 The still believing, still-renew'd desire; Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl, And all the kind deceivers of the soul! 35 But why? ah tell me, ah too dear! Steals down my cheek, th' involuntary tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free, Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? 40 Thee, drest in fancy's airy beam, Absent I follow through th' extended dream; Now Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms, And now you burst (ah cruel!) from my arms; And swiftly shoot along the Mall, Or softly glide by the canal, Now shown by Cinthia's silver ray, And now, on rolling waters snatch'd away. PART OF THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK. A FRAGMENT. LEST you should think that verse shall die, Taught on the wings of truth to fly Tho' daring Milton sits sublime, In Spenser native muses play; Nor yet shall Waller yield to time, Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay Sages and chiefs long since had birth And These, new heav'ns and systems fram'd. 5 10 Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled! END OF THE THIRD VOLUME. Strahan and Preston, Printers-Street, London. 15 |