ODE.

NIGHTINGALE! beft poet of the grove,
That plaintive rain can ne'er belong to
thee,

Bleft in the full poffeffion of thy love:
O lend that strain, fweet Nightingale! to me...
'Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate :
I love a maid who all my bofom charms,
Yet lofe my days without this lovely mate;
Inhuman Fortune keeps her from my arms.
You, happy Bards! by Nature's fimple laws
Lead your foft lives, fuftain'd by Nature's fare;
You dwell wherever raving Faney draws,
And love and fong is all your pleafing care.
But we, vain flaves of intereft and of pride,
Dare not be bleft, left envious tongues fhould
blame;

And hence, in vain, I languifh for my bride:
O mourn with me, fweet Bird! my haples fame.

ODE

IN THE MASK OF ALFRED.

1.

Warofe from out the azure main,

THEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,

This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels fung this ftrain;
Rule, Britannia! rule the waves;
Britons never will be flaves.'

II.

The nations, not fo bleft as thee,
Muft, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou fhall flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule,'

III.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign ftroke;
As the loud blaft that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Rule,' &'c.

IV.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er fhall tame: All their attempts to bend thee down, Will but aroufe thy generous flame, But work their woe, and thy renown. Rule,' &c.

V.

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities fhall with commerce shine :
All thine fhall be the fubject main,
And every fhore it circles thine.
• Rule,' &c.

VI.

The Mufes, ftill with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coaft repair:

Bleft Ifle! with matchlefs beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.

Rule, Britannia! rule the waves;
Britons never will be flaves.'

II.

The fhepherd mark'd his treacherous art,
And, foftly fighing, thus reply'd;
'Tis true, you have fubdu'd my heart,
But shall not triumph o'er my pride.

III.

The flave in private only bears
Your bondage who his love conceals,
But when his paffion he declares,
You drag him at your chariot-wheels.

H

SONG.

ARD is the fate of him who loves,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,

But to the fympathetic groves,
But to the lonely liftening plain.
Oh! when the bleffes next your fhade,
Oh! when her footsteps next are seen

In flowery tracts along the mead,
In fresher mazes o'er the green,
Ye gentle Spirits of the vale!
To whom the tears of love are dear,
From dying lilies waft a gale,
And figh my forrows in her ear.
O tell her what the cannot blame,
Tho' fear my tongue must ever bind;
O! tell her that my virtuous flame
Is as her spotlefs foul refin'd.
Not her own guardian angel eyes
With chafter tenderness his care,
Nor purer her own withes rife,
Nor holier her own fighs in prayer.
But if, at firft, her virgin fear
Should ftart at Love's fufpected name,
With that of Friendship footh her ear-
True love and friendship are the fame.

Fo

SONG.

་་་་

OR ever, Fortune! wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between, and bid us part?
Bid us figh on from day to day,
And with, aud with the foul away,
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?
But bufy, bufy still art thou,
To bind the loveless joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune! hear my prayer,
And I abfolve thy future care;
All other bleflings I refign,
Make but the dear Amanda mine.

To feel the generous paffions rife,

Grow good by gazing, mild by fighs;
Each happy moment to improve,
And fill the perfect ear with love.

Come, thou delight of heaven and earth!
To whom all creatures owe their birth;
Oh come, fweet fmiling! tender, come!
And yet prevent our final doom:
For long the furious God of war
Has cruih'd us with his iron car,
Has rag'd along out ruin'd plains,
Has foil'd them with his cruel stains,
Has funk our youth in endless fleep,
And made the widow'd virgin weep.
Now let him feel thy wonted charms;
Oh! take him to thy twining arms!
And, while thy bofom heaves on his,
While deep he prints the humid kifs,
Ah! then his formy heart controul,
And figh thyfelf into his foul.

Intended to have been inferted in the fourth A&t of}
Supbonifbe.

NOME, gentle Venus! and affuage
warring world, a bleeding age;
For Nature liyes beneath thy ray,
The wintry tempels hafte away,
A lucid calm invests the fea,
Thy native deep is full of thee;
The flowering earth, where'er you fly,
Is all o'er fpring, all fun the fky;
A genial fpirit warms the breeze;
Unfeen among the blooming trees,
The feather'd lovers tune their throat,
The defert growls a foften'd note;
Glad o'er the meads, the cattle bound,
And love and harmony go round.

But chief into the human heart
You ftrike the dear delicious dart ;
You teach us pleafing pangs to knową
Te languish in luxurious wee;

H

AN

HYMN ON SOLITUDE,

AIL mildly pleafing Solitude!

Companion of the wife and good, But from whofe holy, piercing eye, The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh how I love with thee to walk, And listen to thy whifper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thoufand fhapes you wear with ease, And fill in every shape you please. Now wrapt in fore myfterious dream, A lone philofopher you feem; Now quick from hill to vale you fly, And now you fweep the vaulted sky; A fhepherd next, you haunt the plain, And warble forth your oaten ftrain. A lover now, with all the grace Of that fweet paffion in your face: Then, calm'd to friendship, you affume The gentle-looking Harford's bloom, As, with her Mufidora, fhe (Her Mundora fond of thee) Amid the long-withdrawing vale, Awakes the rival'd nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of Morn, Just as the dew-bent rofe is born; And while meridian fervours Lear, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat; But chief, when evening fcenes decay, And the faint landfcape fwims away, Thine is the doubtful foft decline, And that beft hour of mufing thine.

Defcending angels bless thy train, The virtues of the fage and fwain; Plain Innocence, in white array'd, Before thee lifts her fearless head:

Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine!
About thee sports sweet Liberty;
And rapt Urania fings to thee.

Oh! let me pierce thy fecret cell,
And in thy deep receffes dwell.

Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,

I juft may caft my careless eyes
Where London's fpiry turrets rife,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then fhield me in the woods again.