When anguish'd care of sullen brow

Minstrel came,

Already to thy lips was rais'd the bowl, When filial Pity stood thee by,

'Tis hard on Bagshot Heath to try
Unclosed to keep the weary eye;
But ah! Oblivion's nod to get
In rattling coach is harder yet.
Slumbrous God of half-shut eye!
Who lovest with limbs supine to lie;
Soother sweet of toil and care
Listen, listen to my prayer;
And to thy votary dispense
Thy soporific influence!

What tho' around thy drowsy head
The seven-fold cap of night be spread,
Yet lift that drowsy head awhile
And yawn propitiously a smile;
In drizzly rains poppean dews

90

Curst road! whose execrable way Was darkly shadow'd out in Milton's lay,

When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads

Took the first survey of their new abodes;

Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce
Dared through the realms of Night to
pierce,

What time the Bloodhound lured by
Human scent

Thro' all Confusion's quagmires floundering went.

Nor cheering pipe, nor Bird's shrill note
Around thy dreary paths shall float;
Their boding songs shall scritch-owls pour
To fright the guilty shepherds sore,
Led by the wandering fires astray
Thro' the dank horrors of thy way!
While they their mud-lost sandals hunt
May all the curses, which they grunt
In raging moan like goaded hog,
Alight upon thee, damned Bog!

AN INVOCATION

1790.

Thou mightier Goddess, thou demand'st my lay,

Born when earth was seized with
cholic;

Or as more sapient sages say,
What time the Legion diabolic

Compell'd their beings to enshrine
In bodies vile of herded swine,
Precipitate adown the steep

With hideous rout were plunging
in the deep,

And hog and devil mingling grunt and yell

Seized on the ear with horrible obtrusion ;

Then if aright old legendaries tell,

Wert thou begot by Discord on Confusion!

Yet here her pensive ghost delights to stay;

Oft pouring on the winds the broken lay

And hark, I hear her 'twas the passing blast.

I love to sit upon her tomb's dark grass, Then Memory backward rolls Time's shadowy tide;

The tales of other days before me glide:

With eager thought I seize them as they pass;

For fair, tho' faint, the forms of Memory gleam,

Like Heaven's bright beauteous bow reflected in the stream. ? 1790.

But ah! not Music's self, nor fragrant bower

Can glad the trembling sense of wan disease.

Now that the frequent pangs my frame assail,

Now that my sleepless eyes are sunk and dim,

And seas of pain seem waving through each limb

Ah what can all Life's gilded scenes avail? I view the crowd, whom youth and health inspire,

Hear the loud laugh, and catch the sportive lay,

Then sigh and think-I too could laugh and play

And gaily sport it on the Muse's lyre, Ere Tyrant Pain had chased away delight, Ere the wild pulse throbb'd anguish thro' the night!

? 1790.