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You, only you, can move the God's defire:
Oh crown fo constant and so pure a fire!
Let foft compassion touch your gentle mind;
Think, 'tis Vertumnus begs you to be kind!
So may no frost, when early buds appear,
Destroy the promise of the youthful year;
Nor winds, when first your florid orchard blows,
Shake the light bloffoms from their blasted boughs!
This when the various God had urg'd in vain,
He strait assum'd his native form again;
Such, and fo bright an aspect now he bears,
As when thro' clouds th' emerging fun appears,
And thence exerting his refulgent ray,
Dispells the darkness, and reveals the day.
Force he prepar'd, but check'd the rash design;
For when, appearing in a form divine,
The nymph surveys him, and beholds the grace
Of charming features, and a youthful face,
In her foft breast confenting passions move,
And the warm maid confess'd a mutual love.

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VERSES

To the MEMORY of an

UNFORTUNATE LADY.

W

HAT beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yon-
der glade ?

'Tis she! but why that bleeding bosom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why

Why bade ye else, ye pow'rs! her foul afpire
Above the vulgar flight of low defire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of Kings and Heroes glows!
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull fullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life that burn a length of years,
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern Kings a lazy state they keep,
And close confin'd in their own palace fleep.

From these, perhaps (e're nature bade her die)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,
And fep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the foul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deferter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks, now fading at the blast of death:
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,

And these love-darting eyes must roll no more.

Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall:
On all the line a fudden vengeance waits,
And frequent herses shall besiege your gates.
There pafssengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way)
Lo these were they, whose fouls the furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others good, or melt at others woe.

What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade !)
Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier;
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What tho' no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the publick show?

What

What tho' no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
What tho' no facred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first rofes of the year shall blow;
While angels with their filver wings o'ershade
The ground, now facred by thy reliques made.
So peaceful refts, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov'd how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee;
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung; Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.. Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays... Then from his clofing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart, Life's idle bufiness at one gafp be o'er,

The mufe forgot, and thou belov'd no more!