At every season let my ear
Thy solemn whispers, Fancy, hear.
O warm, enthusiastic maid,
Without thy powerful, vital aid,
That breathes an energy divine,
That gives a soul to every line,
Ne'er may I strive with lips profane,
To utter an unhallow'd strain;

Nor dare to touch the sacred string,
Save when with smiles thou bid'st me sing.
O hear our prayer, O hither come,
From thy lamented Shakspeare's tomb,
On which thou lov'st to sit at eve,
Musing o'er thy darling's grave:
O queen of numbers, once again
Animate some chosen swain,
Who fill'd with inexhausted fire,
May boldly smite the sounding lyre,
Who with some new, unequall'd song,
May rise above the rhyming throng;
O'er all our listening passions reign,
O'erwhelm our souls with joy and pain:
With terror shake, with pity move,
Rouse with revenge, or melt with love.
O deign to' attend his evening walk,
With him in groves and grottos talk;
Teach him to scorn with frigid art,
Feebly to touch the' enraptur❜d heart;
Like lightning, let his mighty verse
The bosom's inmost foldings pierce;
With native beauties win applause,
Beyond cold critic's studied laws:
O let each Muse's fame increase,
O bid Britannia rival Greece!

2

ODE TO EVENING.

HAIL! meek-ey'd maiden, clad in sober grey,

Whose soft approach the weary woodman loves;
As homeward bent to kiss his prattling babes,
Jocund he whistles through the twilight groves.
When Phoebus sinks behind the gilded hills,
You lightly o'er the misty meadows walk;
The drooping daisies bathe in honey dews,
And nurse the nodding violet's slender stalk.
The panting dryads, that in day's fierce heat
To inmost bowers, and cooling caverns ran;
Return to trip in wanton ev'ning-dance,
Old Silvan too returns, and laughing Pan.

To the deep wood the clamorous rooks repair,
Light skims the swallow o'er the watery scene;
And from the sheep-cote, and fresh-furrow'd field,
Stout ploughmen meet, to wrestle on the green.
The swain, that artless sings on yonder rock,
His supping sheep, and lengthening shadow spies;
Pleas'd with the cool, the calm, refreshful hour,
And with hoarse humming of unnumber'd flies.
Now every passion sleeps; desponding Love,
And pining Envy, ever-restless Pride;
An holy calm creeps o'er my peaceful soul,
Anger, and mad Ambition's storms subside.

O modest Evening! oft let me appear
A wandering votary in thy pensive train;
Listening to every wildly-warbling throat
That fills with farewell sweet thy darkening plain.

IN

JOHN LOGAN.

ODE TO SLEEP.

N vain I court till dawning light,
The coy divinity of night;

Restless, from side to side I turn,
Arise, ye musings of the morn!

Oh, Sleep! though banish'd from those eyes,
In visions fair to Delia rise;

And o'er a dearer form diffuse

Thy healing balm, thy lenient dews.

Blest be her night as infant's rest,
Lull'd on the fond maternal breast,
Who, sweetly-playful, smiles in sleep,
Nor knows that he is born to weep.
Remove the terrors of the night,
The phantom-forms of wild affright,
The shrieks from precipice or flood,
And starting scene that swims with blood.

Lead her aloft to blooming bowers,
And beds of amaranthine flowers,

And golden skies, and glittering streams,
That paint the paradise of dreams.

Venus! present a lover near,

And gently whisper in her ear

His woes, who, lonely and forlorn,

Counts the slow clock from night till morn.

Ah! let no portion of my pain,

Save just a tender trace, remain ;

Asleep consenting to be kind,

And wake with Daphnis in her mind.

JOHN SCOTT.

ODE.

Written in Winter.

WHILE in the sky black clouds impend,

And fogs arise, and rains descend, And one brown prospect opens round Of leafless trees and furrow'd ground; Save where unmelted spots of snow Upon the shaded hill-side show;

While chill winds blow, and torrents roll, The scene disgusts the sight, depresses all the soul. Yet worse what polar climates shareVast regions, dreary, bleak, and bare!There, on an icy mountain's height, Seen only by the moon's pale light, Stern Winter rears his giant form, His robe a mist, his voice a storm: His frown the shivering nations fly, And hid for half the year in smoky caverns lie. Yet there the lamp's perpetual blaze Can pierce the gloom with cheering rays;

Yet there the heroic tale or song

Can urge the lingering hours along;

Yet there their hands with timely care

The kajak and the dart prepare,

On summer seas to work their way,

And wage the wat'ry war, and make the seals their prey.

Too Delicate! reproach no more
The seasons of thy native shore-

There soon shall Spring descend the sky,
With smiling brow and placid eye;
A primrose-wreath surrounds her hair,
Her green robe floats upon the air;
And, scatter'd from her liberal hand,

Fair blossoms deck the trees, fair flowers adorn the land.

* A Greenland fishing-boat.

SIR JOHN HENRY MOORE, BART.

ABSENCE.-AN ELEGY.

THE gairish sunbeams slowly fade away,
The dew-drop hangs upon the moisten'd rose,
Soft twilight thinly spreads her mantle grey,
And brings to patient poverty repose.
But not on me the night's still shades bestow
Peace or repose; while, banish'd from thy sight,
I brood in silence o'er my secret woe,

And count the day's slow hours, and live-long night. But thou, for whose dear sake unheard I grieve, Say, does my Delia deign one thought on me? That gentle softness sure could ne'er deceive

The faithful heart, that throbs alone for thee.No, my soul's treasure, thou art good as fair! Forget, forgive thy lover's frantic fear; Who doats, adores thee,-yet, with jealous care, Starts! and beholds some happier rival near. O, dearer far than fortune, fame, or friends, Dearer than life, than health, than liberty; Reflect, that on thy will alone depends All of my future bliss or misery.

Believe these heartfelt sighs, these speaking tears, Pity the pangs of maddening jealousy;

And think, ah think! who never felt these fears Has never lov'd-or never lov'd like me.

But oh! my Delia, will thy tender care

Dispel each doubt that clouds my anxious mind? Say, will my Delia's lips again declare, That she is ever constant, ever kind?

Yes, yes, they will:-Ev'n now, with kind concern, She chides the slow-pac'd loitering hours away, And gently blames her lover's slow return,

And looks, and waits, and wonders at his stay.