HARK, hark, 'tis a voice from the tomb,

Come, Lucy, it cries, come away, The grave

of thy Colin has room To reft thee beside his cold clay. I come, my dear shepherd, I come,

I
Ye friends and companions adieu :
I haste to my Colin's dark home,

'To die on his bosom so true.

All mournful the midnight bell rung,

When LUCY, fad LUCY, arose; And forth to the green turf she sprung,

Where Colin's pale alhes repose. All wet with the night's chilling dew,

Her bosom embrac'd the cold ground, While stormy winds over her blew,

And night-ravens croak'd all-around.

* How long, my lov'd COLIN,” she cry'd,

“ How long must thy Lucy complain? “ How long shall the grave my love hide ?

• How long ere it join us again? “ For thee thy fond shepherdess liv'd,

• With thee o’er the world would she fly; • For thee has she sorrow'd and griev'd;

• For thee would she lie down and die.

« Alas!

66

" Alas! what avails it how dear

Thy Lucy was once to her swain! 6. Her face like the lily so fair,

“ And: eyes that gave light to the plain. “ The shepherd that lov'd her is

gone; 6. That face and those eyes charm no more';. “ And Lucy forgot, and alone,

“ To death shall her Colin deplore.”'

While thus she lay funk in despair,

And mourn'd to the echoes around, Inflam'd all at once grew the air,

And thunder shook dreadful the ground. " I hear the kind call, and obey,

« Oh, Colin receive me,” she cried,. Then breathing a groan o'er his clay,

She hung on his tomb-stone, and died..

SONGS. EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.

3

- ,
Do,

O, study more--discard that Siren, Ease,
Whose fatal charms are murd'rous while they

please.
Wit's fcanty streams will fret their channel dry,
“ If Learning's spring withhold the fresh supply.
“ Turn leaf by leaf gigantick volumes o'er,
" Nor blush to know what antients wrote before.

Why not, sometimes, regale admiring friends “ With Greek and Latin sprinklings, odds and ends ? “ Exert your talents; read, and read to write! “ As Horace says, mix profit with delight."

'Tis rare advice: but I am ilow to mend,
Though ever thankful to my partial friend:
Full of strange fears—for hopes are banish'd all-
I list' no more to Phæbus' facred call,
Smit with the Muse, 'tis true, I fought her charms;
But came no champion, clad in cumb’rous arms,
To pull each rival monarch from his throne,
And swear no lady Clio like my own.
All unambitious of superior praise,
My fond amusement ask'd a sprig of bays,
Some little fame for ftringing harmless verse,
And e'en that little fame has prov'd a curse;
Hitch'd into rhime, and dragg'd through muddy prose,
By butcher criticks, worth's confed'rate foes.

If then the Muse no more shall strive to please,
Lulld in the happy lethargy of ease;.
If, unadvent'rous, she forbear to fing,
Nor take one thought to plume her ruffled wing;
'Tis that she hates, howe'er by nature vain,
The fcurril nonsense of a venal train..
When defp'rate robbers, illuing from the waste,
Make such rude inroads on the land of taste,
Genius grows fick beneath the Gothick rage,
Or seeks her laurels from some worthier age.

a

As for Myself, I own the present charge;
Lazy and lounging, I confess at large :
Yet Ease, perhaps, may loose her silken chainsy,
And the next hour become an hour of pains.
We write, we read, we act, we think, by fits,
And follow all things as the humour hits ;
For of all pleasures, which the world can bring,
Variety-O! dear variety's the thing!
Our learned Coke, from whom we scribblers draw
All the wife Dictums of poetick law,
Lays down this truth, from whence my maxim follows,
(See Horace, Ode Dec. Sext.-the case Apollo's)
“ The God of Verse disclaims a plodding wretch,
« Nor keeps his bow for ever on the stretch.”

1

However great my thirst of honest fame,
I bow with rev’rence to each letter'd name;
To worth, where'er it be, with joy submit,
But own no curft monopolies of wit.

Nor

Nor think, my friend, if I but rarely quote,
And little reading shines through what I've wrote,
That I bid peace to ev'ry learned shelf,
Because I dare form judgments for myself.
-Oh! were it mine, with happy kill to look
Up to the one, the UNIVERSAL Book !
Open to all-to him, to me, to you,
-For NATURE's open to the general view
Then would I scorn the ancients' vaunted store,
And boast my thefts, where they but robb'd before,

Mean while with them, while Græcian sounds impart Th'eternal passions of the human heart, Bursting the bonds of ease and lazy rest, I feel the flame mount active in my breast; Or when, with joy, I turn the Roman page, I live, in fancy, in th’ AUGUSTAN age! Till some dull Bavius' or a Mævius' name, Damn'd by the Muse to everlasting fame, Forbids the mind in foreign climes to roam, And brings me back to our own fools at home,

EPISTLE