BEAUTIES

OF THE

BOTANIC GARDEN.

GENIUS OF THE GROVES.

STAY

TAY your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts
infold

The legion-fiends of glory, or of gold!
Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part,
While cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!
For you no dryads dress the roseate bower,
For you no nymphs their sparkling vases pour;
Unmarkt by you, light graces swim the green,
And hovering cupids aim their shafts unseen.
But THOU! whose mind the well-attempered ray
Of taste and virtue lights with purer day;

Whose finer sense each soft vibration owns
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones:
So the fair flower expands its lucid form
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm;—
For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath,
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe;
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly
Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye;
On twinkling fins my pearly nations play,
Or win with sinuous train their trackless way;
My plumy pairs, in gay embroidery drest,
Form, with ingenious bill, the pensile nest;
To love's sweet notes attune the listening dell,
And echo sounds her soft symphonious shell.
And, if with thee some hapless maid should stray,
Disasterous love companion of her way,

Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade,

Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade;
There, as meek evening wakes her temperate breeze,
And moon-beams glimmer through the trembling
trees,

The rills, that gurgle round, shall sooth her ear,
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear;

There, as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
Sings to the night from her accustomed thorn;
While at sweet intervals each falling note
Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot;
The sister-woe shall calm her aching breast,
And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest.—
Winds of the north! restrain your icy gales,
Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales!
Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering clouds, revolve!
Disperse, ye lightnings! and, ye mists, dissolve!
-Hither, emerging from yon orient skies,
BOTANIC GODDESS! bend thy radiant eyes;
O'er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign,
Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train;

O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse,
And with thy silver sandals print the dews;
In noon's bright blaze thy vermil vest unfold,
And wave thy emerald banner starr'd with gold.
Thus spoke the GENIUS, as he stept along,
And bade these lawns to peace and truth belong;
Down the steep slopes he led, with modest skill,
The willing pathway, and the truant rill,
Stretcht o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound,
Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground,