YOUR bosom's sweet treasures thus ever disclose! The veil meant to hide them but only bestows Have I trespass'd on chastity's laws? Ah no!-not the least swelling charm is descried And your apron hides all that short aprons can hide, From the fashion of Eve to the present. The veil, too transparent to hinder the sight, Is what modesty throws on your mind: That veil only shades, with a tenderer light, All the feminine graces behind. TO MISS K P Si un arbre avoit du sentiment, il se plairoit à voir celui qui le cultive se reposer sous son ombrage, respirer le parfum de ses fleurs, gouter la douceur de ses fruits: Je suis cet arbre, cultivé par vous, & la Nature m' a donné une ame. MARMONTEL. AMID thy native mountains, Cambrian fair, Would it not bless thy virtues, gentle maid? TO MISS K- P WITH ANSON'S VOYAGE RAPTUR'D traveller, cease the tales Of Tinian's lawns, Fernandes' vales; Of isles, concentering Nature's charms, These enchanting scenes, and all Fruits and flowers are there combin'd THE COMPLAINT OF CAMBRIA. TO MISS K -P, SETTING TO MUSIC, AND SINGING ENGLISH VERSES. DONE INTO ENGLISH FROM THE WELCH ORIGINAL, DEGENERATE maid, no longer ours! Can Saxon ditties suit thy lyre? Accents untun'd, that breathe no powers In Cambrian shades, the Druids' hallow'd bounds, Whose infant voice has lisp'd the liquid Celtic sounds. Such hostile airs with notes divine, Revere thy Cambria's flowing tongue! Yet songs of British bards remain seas. O sing thy sires in genuine strains! Edward I, put to death all the Welch bards. ON THE SUBJECT OF THE MONUMENT IN ARCADIA. O you, that dwell where shepherds reign, Arcadian youths, Arcadian maids, To pastoral pipe who danc'd the plain, Why pensive now beneath the shades? "Approach her virgin tomb," they cry, "Behold the verse inscrib'd above, 'Once too in Arcady was I, Behold what dreams are life and love!" ON THE SAME. SWEET Arcady, where shepherds reign, It swells the breeze, it fills the grove; HITCHIN CONVENT. A TALE. WHERE Hitch's gentle current glides, But Harry's wide reforming hand That sacred order wounded; He spoke-from forth their hallow'd walls The friars fled confounded. Then wicked laymen ent'ring in, Those cloisters fair prophan'd; Now riot loud usurps the seat Where bright devotion reign'd. Ev'n to the chapel's sacred roof, Resounds the flute, and sprightly dance, Yet fame reports, that monkish shades To haunt the mansions once their own, One night, more prying than the rest, And enter'd where on beds of down He stopp'd, he gaz'd, to wild conceits He took the aunt for prioress, It hap'd that R ―'s capuchin, Accosting then the youthful fair, His raptur'd accents broke; "Hail halcyon days! Hail holy nun! Reviews these walls again. "For ever blest the power that checkt Restor❜d again the church's lands. "To monks indeed, from Edward's days, Yet sister nuns may answer too The founder's good donation. "Ah! well thy virgin vows are heard: For man were never given Those charms, reserv'd to nobler ends, Thou spotless spouse of Heaven! "Yet speak what cause from morning mass Thy ling'ring steps delays: Haste to the deep-mouth'd organ's peal To join thy vocal praise. "Awake thy abbess sisters all; At Mary's holy shrine, With bended knees and suppliant eyes Approach, thou nun divine!”— "No Nun am I," recov'ring cried The nymph; "No nun, I say, Nor nun will be, unless this fright Should turn my locks to grey. ""Tis true, at church I seldom fail When aunt or uncle leads; Yet never rise by four o'clock To tell my morning beads. "No mortal lover yet, I vow, My virgin heart has fixt, But yet I bear the creatures talk "To Heav'n my eyes are often cast Yet deign sometimes to view on Earth "Ah me! I fear in borrow'd shape Thou com'st, a base deceiver; "For once my hand, at masquerade, "He told me vows no more were made To senseless stone and wood, But adoration paid alone To saints of flesh and blood, "That rosy cheeks, and radiant eyes, "That maids, by whose obdurate pride Of leading apes in Hell. 68 6 Respect the first command,' (he cried,) "It's sacred laws fulfil, And well observe the precept given "Thus spoke, ah yet I hear him speak! She ceas'd-the monk in shades of night And superstition's clouds dissolv'd TO A YOUNG LADY, A VERY GOOD ACTRESS. POWERFUL is beauty, when to mortal seats From Heaven descends the heaven-created good, When fancy's glance the fairy phantom meets, Nymph of the shade, or Naiad of the flood. So blooms Celena, daughter of the skies, Queen of the joys romantic rapture dreams, Her cheeks are summer's damask rose, her eyes Steal their quick lustre from the morning's beams. Her airy neck the shining tresses shade; Shifts the bright Iris of a thousand hues. Or wears the pastoral Rachel's ancient mien; And now, as glow gay-flushing eastern charms, He sighs like David's son for Sheba's queen. To Change the China trader speeds his pace, Nor heeds the chilly North's unripening dames; 'Tis her's with twinkling eyes, and lengthen'd face, And pigmy foot, to wake forgotten flames. She oft, in likeness of th' Egyptian Crone, Too well inform'd, relates to wand'ring swains Their amorous plaints preferr'd to her alone: Her own relentless breast too well explains. See, at the manor's hospitable board Enters a sire, by infant age rever'd; Other than ale and jocund puns inspire. Of graces, young desires, and dimpled smiles. Now o'er the portal of an antique hall A Grecian form the raptur'd patriot awes, The hoary bust and brow severe recall Lycurgus, founder of majestic laws. I see the lips as breathing life, he cries, The vision fades-succeeds a flood of light. Nor music floating on the magic air. The myrtle wand this arm imperial bears, Reluctant ghosts and stubborn elves obey: I ceas'd; the virgin came in native grace, As once in Andover's autumnal grove, TO AN ACCOMPLISHED LADY. IN THE MANNER OF WALLER. O NYMPH! than blest Pandora honour'd more, What gods to grace thee lavish all their store! READING JULIA WITH TEARS, DURING A HARD FROST WHAT, though descending as the dews of morn, For heart-expanding joys and smiling fates. To call the Muse to Thames' frozen glades, A flower yourself, the fairest of the feast. In wonder's silent prayer he blesses you: Your infants there reflecting round the board, Maternal graces while his eye approves; One tear to rapture give!-then sit ador'd The gentle mother of the smiles and loves. 'See Milton's Paradise Lost, Book v. from line 303. TO LADY F ON HER MARRIAGE. THOUGH to Hymen's gay season belong O listen, fair Stella, to truth. To the soft serenade at your bower, To his vigils in midnight's still hour. Dipt the pencil to picture your praise, With morning's gay opening rays: A Naiad new sprung from the flood, Smiling days hung with tempests and night; O! welcome, in nature's own dress, To redeem fortune's wrongs on mankind. To gild the wan aspect of sorrow, To cheer the meek eyes of the poor. When your virtues shall mix with the skies, And enlighten posterity's days. Every virtue deriv'd to your blood SONG. No gandy Rubens ever dare With flaunting genius, rosy loves, In bashful night the bashful fair. VERSES WRITTEN AFTER PASSING THROUGH FINDON, SUSSEX, 1768. ADDRESSED TO THE REV. MR. WOODDESON, OF KINGSTON UPON THAMES. WOODDESON! these eyes have seen thy natal earth; Thy Findon, sloping from the southern downs, Have blest the roof ennobled by thy birth, And tufted valley, where no ocean frowns. Thou wert not born to plough the neighbouring main, Or plant thy greatness near ambition's throne, Or count unnumber'd fleeces on thy plain: -The Muses lov'd and nurs'd thee for their own! And twin'd thy temples here with wreaths of worth, [morn, And fenc'd thy childhood from the blights of And taught enchanting song, and sent thee forth To stretch the blessing to an age unborn: Best blessing!-what is pride's unwieldy state? What awkward wealth from Indian oceans given? What monarchs nodding under empires' weight, If science smile not with a ray from Heaven? Witness yon ruins, Arundel's high tower, And Bramber, now the bird of night's resort! Your proud possessors reign'd in barbarous power; The war their business, and the chase their sport; 'Till there a minstrel, to the feast preferr'd, With Cambrian harp, in Gothic numbers charm'd, Enlighten'd chiefs grew virtuous as they heard -The sun of science in its morning warm'd. How glorious, when it blaz'd in Milton's light, And Shakespear's flame, to full meridian day! Yet smile, fair beam! though sloping from that height, Gild our mild evening with a setting ray. TO A LADY. THE simple swain, where Zembla's snows 'The author of these poems had been educated under this gentleman, for whom he ever retained the most affectionate regard. Mr. Wooddeson was, in truth, one of those amiable beings whom none could know without loving.-To the abilities of an excellent scholar was united a mind so candid, so patient, so replete with universal benevolence, that it glowed in every action. His life was an honour to himself, to religion, to human nature. He preserved to his death such a simplicity of manners as is rarely to be met with.-He judged of the world by the standard of his own virtuous heart; and few men who had seen such length of days ever left it so Hittle acquainted with it. Not once conceives that Sun to rise As weak my thoughts respecting thee: STANZAS. Where more is meant than meets the ear. THE bird of midnight swell'd her throat, To sorrow's deeply-warbled note, She stay'd to hear the mourner sing; TO A YOUNG LADY, WHO OBJECTED TO SUP WITH A PARTY OF BOTH O FAR from Caroline, so soft a maid, From harmless smiles that wait on gentle youth. |