;

So flourish'd Combe, and flourish'd long
With lords of bounteous soul
Her walls still echoed to the song,
And mirth still drain'd her bowl.

And still her courts with footsteps meek
The fainting traveller prest,
Still misery flush'd her faded cheek
At Harvey's genial feast.-

Lov'd seat, how oft, in childish ease,

Along thy woods I stray'd,

Now vent'rous climb'd embow'ring trees, Now sported in their shade.

Along thy hills the chase I led

With echoing hounds and horns, And left for thee my downy bed,

Unplanted yet with thorns.

Now, languid with the noontide beams,
Explor'd thy precious springs
That proudly flow, like Susa's streams,
To temper cups for kings.

But soon, inspir'd with nobler powers,
I sought thy awful grove;
There frequent sooth'd my evening hours,
That best deceiver, love.

Each smiling joy was there, that springs
In life's delicious prime;
There young ambition plum'd his wings,
And mock'd the flight of time.-
There patriot passions fir'd my breast
With freedom's glowing themes,
And virtue's image rose confest

In bright Platonic dreams.-

Ah me! my dreams of harmless youth
No more thy walks invade,
The charm is broke by sober truth,
Thy fairy visions fade.-

No more unstain'd with fear or guilt
Such hours of rapture smile,
Each airy fabric fancy built
Is vanish'd as thy pile!-

ON LADY POMFRET'S

PRESENTING THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD WITH HER COLLECTION OF STATUES.

Illustrious nations! Their's was empire's seat,
Their's virtue, freedom, each enchanting grace;
Sculpture with them to bright perfection rose,
Sculpture, whose bold Promethean hand inform'd
The stubborn mass with life-in fretted gold
Or yielding marble, to the raptur'd eye
Display'd the shining conclave of the skies,
And chiefs and sages gave the passions form,
And virtue shape corporeal: taught by her
The obedient brass dissolv'd;

In love's soft fires thy winning charms she stole, Thou mild retreating Medicean fair.

She mark'd the flowing Dryads lighter step,
The panting bosom, garments flowing loose,
And wanton tresses waving to the wind.-
Again by Pomfret's generous care, these stores
Of ancient fame revisit learning's seats,
Their old abode. O reverence learning's seats,
Ye beauteous arts! for know, by learning's
smiles

Ye grew immortal-Know, however fair
Sculpture and Painting, fairer Poetry,
Your eldest sister, from the Aonian mount,
Imagination's fruitful realm, supply'd
The rich material of your lovely soil.
Her fairy forms, poetic fancy first
Peopled the hills, and vales, and fabled groves
With shapes celestial, and by fountain side
Saw fauns with wanton satyrs lead the dance
With meek-ey'd naïads; saw your Cyprian
Ascending from the ocean's wave; [queen
Poetic fancy in Maonian song
Pictur'd immortal Jove, ere Phidias' hands
Sublime with all his thunders form'd the god.
Here then uniting with your kindred art,
Majestic Grecian sculpture deign to dwell,
Here shadss of Academe again invite,
Athenian philosophic shades, and here
Ye Roman forms, a nobler Tyber flows.

Come, Pomfret, come, of rich munificence
Partake the fame, though candid blushes rise,
And modest virtues shun the blaze of day.
Pomfret, not all thy honours, splendid train,
Not the bright coronet that binds thy brow,
Not all thy lovely offspring, radiant queens
On beauty's throne, shall consecrate thy praise
Like science, boasting in thy genial beam
Increasing stores: in these embowering shades
Stands the fair tablet of eternal fame ;
There memory's adamantine pen records
Her sons; but each illustrious female's name
In golden characters engrav'd, defies
Envy and Time, superior to their rage.-
Pomfret shall live, the generous Pomfret join'd
With Caroline, and martial Edward's queen,
And great Eliza, regal names, like thee
Smiling on arts and learning's sons they reign'd.-
And see where Westmorland adorns the train
Of learning's princely patrons! Lo, 1 see
A new pantheon rise as that of old
Famous, nor founded by ignobler hands;
Though thine, Agrippa, sway'd the helm of
I see enshrin'd majestic awful forms, [Rome:
Chiefs, legislators, patriots, beauties, gods.
Not him by superstitious fears ador'd
With barbarous sacrifice and frantic zeal,
Yet not uncelebrated nor unsung, for oft
Thou, slumb'ring Cupid, with inverted torch
Betokening mildest fires, shall hear the sighs

reign,

Celestial Venus, though with chaster rites, Addrest with vows from purer votaries heard.

ON RURAL SPORTS.

THE Sun wakes jocund-all of life, who breathe In air, or earth, and lawn, and thicket rove, Who swim the surface, or the deep beneath,

Swell the full chorus of delight and love. But what are ye, who cheer the bay of hounds' Whose levell'd thunder frightens Morn's repose' Who drag the net, whose hook insidious wounds A writhing reptile, type of mightier woes?

I see ye come, and havock loose the reins,

A general groan the general anguish speaks, The stately stag falls butcher'd on the plains, The dew of death hangs clammy on his cheeks. Ah! see the pheasant fluttering in the brake, Green, azure, gold, but undistinguish'd gore! Yet spare the tenants of the silver lake!

-I call in vain-they gasp upon the shore. A yet ignobler band is guarded round

With dogs of war-the spurning bull their prize;

And now he bellows, humbled to the ground;

And now they sprawl in howlings to the skies. You too must feel their missile weapon's power, Whose clarion charms the midnight's sullen air;

Thou the morn's harbinger, must mourn the hour Vigil to fasts, and penitence, and prayer'. Must fatal wars of human avarice wage

For milder conflicts, love their palm design'd? Now sheath'd in steel, must rival reason's rage Deal mutual death, and emulate mankind? Are these your sovereign joys, creation's lords? Is death a banquet for a godlike soul? Have rigid hearts no sympathising chords For concord, order, for th' harmonious whole? Nor plead necessity, thou man of blood!

Heaven tempers power with mercy-Heaven revere !

Yet slay the wolf for safety, lamb for food;

But shorten misery's pangs, and drop a tear! Ah! rather turn, and breath this evening gale' Uninjur'd and uninjuring nature's peace. Come, draw best nectar from the foaming pail, Come, pen the fold, and count the stock's increase!

See pasturing heifers with the bull, who wields
Yet budding borns, and wounds alone the soil!
Or see the panting spaniel try the fields
While bursting coveys mock his wanton toil !
Now feel the steed with youth's elastic force
Spontaneous bound, yet bear thy kind con-
trol;

Nor mangle all his sinews in the course,
And fainting, staggering, lash him to the goal!

'Shrove Tuesday.

Mark the gay floating myriads, nor molest Their sports, their slumbers, but inglorious dream Of evil filed and all creation blest?

Or else, beneath thy porch, in social joy

Sit and approve thy infant's virtuous haste,
Humanity's sweet tones while all employ

To lure the wing'd domestics to repast!
There smiling see a fop in swelling state,
The turkey strut with valour's red pretence,
And duck row on with waddling honest gait,
And goose mistake solemnity for sense!
While one with front erect in simple pride

Full firmly treads, his consort waits his call,
Now deal the copious barley, waft it wide,
That each may taste the bounty meant for all.
Yon bashful songsters with retorted eye

Pursue the grain, yet wheel contracted flight, While he, the bolder sparrow, scorns to fly,

A son of freedom claiming nature's right. Liberal to him; yet still the wafted grain,

Choicest for those of modest worth, dispense, And blessing Heaven that wakes their grateful strain,

Let Heaven's best joy be thine, Benevolence. While flocks soft bleatings, echoing high and clear,

The neigh of steeds, responsive o'er the heath, Deep lowings sweeter melt upon thy ear

Than screams of terrour and the groans of death.

Yet sounds of woe delight a giant brood:

Fly then mankind, ye young, ye helpless old! For not their fury, a consuming flood,

Distinguishes the shepherd, drowns the fold. But loosen once thy gripe, avenging law!

Eager on man, a noble chase, they start; Now from a brother's side the dagger draw, Now sheath it deeper in a virgin's heart. See as they reach ambition's purple fruits Their reeking hands in nation's carnage died! No longer bathing in the blood of brutes,

They swim to empire in a human tide. But see him, see the fiend that others stung, With scorpion conscience lash himself the

last!

See, festering in the bosom where they sprung,
The fury passions that laid nature waste!
Behold the self-tormentor drag his chains,
And weary Heaven with many a fruitless
groan !

By pining fasts, by voluntary pains,

Revenging nature's cause, he pleads his own. Yet prostrate, suppliant to the throne above,

He calls down Heaven in thunders to pursue Heaven's fancied foes-O God of peace and love, The voice of thunder is no voice from you! Mistaken mortal! 'tis that God's decree To spare thy own, nor shed another's blood: Heaven breathes benevolence, to all, to thee; Each being's bliss consummates general good.

ODE TO CAPTIVITY.

WRITTEN IN THE LAST WAR.

O STERN Captivity! from Albion's land
Far, far, avert the terrours of thy rod !
O wave not o'er her fields thy flaming brand!
O crush not Freedom, fairest child of God!-
Bring not from thy Gallic shore
The galling fetters, groaning oar!
Bring not hither Virtue's bane,
Thy sister Superstition's train!

O spare from sanguine rites the silver floods! Nor haunt with shapes obscene our unpolluted woods!

Is yet too weak, rapacious power, thy throne? While the chain'd continent thy vassal waits, The Rhine, the Danube, and the sounding Rhone, Proclaim thy triumphs through an hundred

states.

See Valentia's smiling vales

Courted for thee by ocean's gales! Through yawning vaults 1 on Tagus' streams,

Thine revenge's dagger gleams: Thy fury bursts on Rome's devoted head, In vain the Scipios liv'd, the Decii, Cato bled! Be these thy bounds-whose laws with monarchs

reign,

To this fair isle how impotent thy hate! Where Pitt, so righteous Heaven and George

ordain,

In wisdom guides the thunder of the state.
That thunder shook on Afric's shore,2
The howling wild where lions roar;
In western worlds its awful powers
Sunk astonish'd Bourbon's towers;
That thunder sounding o'er the Celtic main,
Roll'd to Lutetia's walls along the affrighted
Seine.

Daughters of Albion! strew his paths with flowers,
O wake for him the lute's harmonious chord !
Ilis name be echoed in your festal bowers,
Who guards Britannia from a foreign lord!'
Happy fair, who seated far

From haughty conquerors, barbarous war,
Have heard alone in tragic songs
Of cities storm'd and virgins' wrongs,
There felt the daughters, parents, consorts groan,
And wept historic woes, unpractis'd in your own!
Have you not heard how Sion's daughters mourn'd
Their prostate land?-how Greece her victims
tore

From flaming altars ?--captive queens they turn'd From Troy reluctant-on the sea-beat shore

Their eyes to Heaven were roll'd in vain,

Their eyes--for not the victor's chain
Indulg'd thy privilege, Despair!

Their hands to rend their flowing hair;
Behind them Troy a smoking ruin lies,
Before lie unknown seas, and black incumbent
skies.

"Ye gales!" they cried, "ye cruel eastern gales!

Adverse to Troy, conspiring with the foe, That eager stretch the victor's swelling sails, To what unfriendly regions will ye blow? Shall we serve on Doric plains ? Or where in Pithia Pyrrhus reigns? Shall Echo catch our captive tales? Joyless in the sprightly vales Apidanus thy beauteous current laves, Say, shall we sit and dream of Simois' fairer waves?

"Shall Delos, sacred Delos, hear our woes?

Where when Latona's offspring sprung to birth,
The palm spontaneous, and the laurel rose,
O Dian, Dian, on thy hallowed earth;

With Delian maids, a spotless band,
At virtue's altar shall we stand
And hail thy name with choral joy
Invok'd in vain for falling Troy?

Thy shafts victorious shall our songs proclaim, When not an arrow fled to spare thy votaries shame.

"To Athens, art's fair empire, shall we rove? There for some haughty mistress ply the loom, With daring fancy paint avenging Jove, His forked lightnings flaming through the gloom,

To blast the bold Titanian race: Or deaf to nature, must we trace In mournful shades our hapless war? What art, dread Pallas, to thy car, Shall yoke th' immortal steeds? what colours tell By thine, by Pyrrhus' lance, how lofty Ilion fell? "Yes, cruel gods, our bleeding country falls,

Her chiefs are slain-see brothers, sires expire! Ah see, exulting o'er her prostrate walls, The victor's fury, and devouring fire! Asia's haughty genius broke, Bows the neck to Europe's yoke, " Chains are all our portion now,

No festal wreaths shall bind our brow,

Nor Hymen's torches light the bridal day: O Death, and black Despair, behold your destin'd prey!"

IMITATION FROM OSSIAN'S POEMS. LATELY PUBLISHED BY THE TITLE OF FINGAL, &c. BROWN Autumn nods upon the mountain's head,

The dark mist gathers; howling winds assail
The blighted desert; on its mineral bed
Dark rolls the river through the sullen vale,
On the hill's dejected scene

The blasted ash alone is seen, [sleeps;
That marks the grave where Connal
Gather'd into mould'ring heaps

From the whirlwind's giddy round,

Its leaves bestrew the hallowed ground. Across the musing hunter's lonesome way Flit melancholy ghosts, that chill the dawn of day.

* An imitation of the first chorus in the Heguba of Euripides.

There the lily lifts her head, Fairest child of Nature's bed.

Oh! Thames, my promise all was vain:
Autumnal storms, autumnal rain

Have spoil'd that fragrance, stript those shades,
Hapless flower! that lily fades.-
What? if chance, sweet evening ray,
Or western gale of vernal day,
Momentary bloom renews,
Heavy with unfertile dews

It bends again, and seems to cry,
"Gale and sunshine, come not nigk!
Why reclaim from winter's power
This wither'd stalk, no more a flower!"
Such a flower, my youthful prime,
Chill'd by rigour, sapp'd by time,
Shrinks beneath the clouded storm:
What? if Beauty's beaming form,
And Cambrian virgin's vocal air
Expand to smiles my brow of care:
That beam withdrawn, that melting sound,
The dews of death hang heavier round,
No more to spring, to bloom, to be,
I bow to fate and Heaven's decree.

Come then, Cambrian virgin, come,
With all thy music seek my tomb,
With all thy grace, thy modest state,
With all thy virtues, known too late!
Come, a little moment spare
From pious rites and filial care!
Give my tomb-no heart-felt sigh,
No tear convulsing pity's eye!
Gifts oft too endearing name
For you to grant, for me to claim;
But bring the song-whose healing sounds
Were balm to all my festering wounds,
Bring the lyre-by music's power
My soul entranc'd shall wait the hour,
The dread majestic hour of doom,
When through the grave, and through the
Heaven shall burst in floods of day:

Dazzled with so fierce a ray,

My aching eyes shall turn to view

Its milder beams reflect from you.

TO MISS KR

[gloom,

GENTLE Kitty, take the lyre Thy magic hands alone inspire! But wake not once such swelling chords As rouse ambition's stormy lords, Nor airs that jocund tabors play To dancing youth in shades of May, Nor songs that shake old Picton's towers, When feast and music blend their powers! But notes of mildest accent call, Of plaintive touch and dying fall; Notes, to which thy hand, thy tongue, Thy every tender power is strung.— Cambrian maid, repeat that strain! Sooth my widow'd bosom's pain! Its passions own thy melting tones; Sighs succeed to bursting groans; Soft and softer still they flow, Breathing more of love than woe; Glistening in my eye appears A tenderer dew than bitter tears; Springing hope despair beguiles, And sadness softens into smiles.

I quit thy lyre-but still the train Of sweet sensations warms my brain. What? though social joy and love Forget to haunt my sullen grove: Though there my soul, a stagnant flood, Nor flows its own, or others good, Emblem of yon faded flower, That, chill'd by frost, expands no more: The dreary scene yet sometimes closes When sleep inspires, on beds of roses, Such dear delusions, fairy charms As fancy dreams in virtue's arms. For see, a gracious form is near ! She comes to dry my falling tear. One pious hand in pity spread Supports my else unshelter'd head; The other waves to chase away The spectres haunting all my day: She calls above, below, around Sweet fragrance breathes, sweet voices soundSuch a balm to wounded minds, Gentle Kitty, slumber finds;

Such a change is misery's due

-Who wakes to grief should dream of you.

P

' Drawings from antique statue?,