The wooing of the am'rous air,
The ring-dove's plaintive pipe was there;
And ev'n the master, mad with joy,
With music hail'd his darling boy.
Invention, when of tender age,
Would love his mother's various page,
And kindling with her native lore
Rove along the whiten'd shore;
And oft, at deep of gloomy night,
Would watch pale Cynthia's sparkling light,
Dancing o'er the liquid way,
And scatter'd round in many a ray.
Or when his father's steeds would lave
Their burning hoofs in ocean's wave,
Would make their radiance fade away,
And Ev'ning, clad in palmer's gray,
Submit to Cynthia's car behind,
And solemnize the moaning wind!
Then would the youth attempt to climb
The cloud-capt mountain's swell sublime,
And view the black-brow'd clouds above,
Or trace the sable bird of Jove,
Where brooding Night's departed gloom
Was open'd by the low'ring plume;
Then would be lay his infant head
On the slop'd mountain's rocky bed.
Hark to the torrent's cavern'd roar,
Or the wind blust'ring on the shore,
Or the sprite's sullen skriek below,
Or the calm sigh of gentler woe :
Oft would he think, in wizzard dream,
He saw the Genius of the stream,
Whose eddying waters play on high,
And spread with mists the sable sky,
Borne by his own mad surge adown,
From the rough mountain's crested crown,.
Till shrieking in his moody woe,
He plunges in the gulph below.
Oft would he seek the charnel gloom,
And dew the hapless lover's tomb,
Who, robb'd of ev'ry kind relief,
In wild extravagance of grief,
Impell'd, alas! by stern despair,
And the harsh treatment of the fair,
Plung'd the fell dagger in his breast;
Yet there, alas! he finds no rest;
His sad ghost walks his pensive round,
And feels his sorrow has no bound!'
But then his mother leads the boy
To scenes of pleasure, shades of joy ;
To verdant meadows, gay alcoves,
And plains the tender poet loves ;
But verdant meadows, gay alcoves,
Nor plains the tender poet loves,
Could give his heart such joy sincere
As the soft sigh, and stealing tear.
From these, Invention oft would stray
To abbies hoar, and castles gray,
Where Superstition justly bled,
Or banners way'd o'er warriors dead;
Here would he loiter, here would find
The noblest sympathy of mind;
Here, where the shades of widows mourn,.
Bind the pale ozier o'er the sacred urn:
But when to riper years he grew,
His soul confess'd a nobler flame;
Sage Newton well his influence knew,
And he with Inspiration came,
To lead the step of sapient Locke to fame.
Sweet Mulla's bard, with fancy fraught,
Caught native spirit from his pow'r,
Lapt in Imagination's fairy bow'r,
And mighty Milton pierc'd the vast sublime of thought.
Then let the sons of Britain try
Invention's vary'd field again,
While Judgment lifts the genius high,
And Fancy paints, with piercing eye,
A new creation in her wond'rous reign!
Oh! may we learn sublimer lays,
Nor rob the ancient author's bays:
May Imitation's servile chain,
Confine the free-born soul in vain,
And native Liberty no more depart,
But fire the poet's thought, or warm the patriot's
PARENT of sorrow, Melancholy pale,
And Pity, withering in thy vestal bloom,
And musing sage, with sullen eye,
And all the rainbow vested pow'rs that ply
Th' ethereal pencil on the cloud of morn,
Languid, oppress'd, forlorn,
Forth from your dim, mysterious mansions come,
And o'er yon holy tomb,
Where the dead sparks of awful genius lie,
Pour the full tear of woe, and heave th' emphatic sigh!
They come-lo! Melancholy pale,
And Pity, with'ring in her vestal bloom,
And musing sage, with sullen eye,
And all the rainbow-vested pow'rs that ply
Th' ethereal pencil on the clouds of morn,
Lament their second Titian's doom,
And, plucking from each bud the latent thorn, Ambrosian garlands weave, and look, and pause, and
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