current meek!

Dear native brook! where first young Poesy

Stared wildly - eager in her noontide dream!

Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek,

My Love might weave gay garlands for

her brows.

When Twilight stole across the fading
vale,

To fan my Love I'd be the Evening
Gale ;

ramm Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling

vest,

And flutter my faint pinions on her breast!

On Seraph wing I'd float a Dream by night,

To soothe my Love with shadows of delight :

Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies, And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes!

70

As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame

Had basked beneath the Sun's unclouded

flame,

Where Friendship's fixed star sheds a mellowed ray,

Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears,

Where soften'd Sorrow smiles within her tears; 90

And Memory, with a Vestal's chaste employ,

| Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of

joy!

No more your sky-larks melting from the sight

Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight

No more shall deck your pensive Plea

sures sweet

With wreaths of sober hue my evening

seat.

Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied

scene

Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between!

TO FORTUNE

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE

SIR, The following poem you may perhaps deem admissible into your journal-if not, you will commit it els iepòv μένος Ηφαίστοιο. — I am, with more respect and gratitude than I ordinarily feel for Editors of Papers, your obliged, etc., CANTAB.-S. T. C.

To FORTUNE

On buying a Ticket in the Irish Lottery

Composed during a walk to and from the Queen's Head, Gray's Inn Lane, Holborn, and Hornsby's and Co., Cornhill.

PROMPTRESS of unnumber'd sighs,

O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes!

O look, and smile! No common prayer Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care! For, not a silken son of dress,

I clink the gilded chains of politesses, Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme. Unholy Pleasure's frail and feverish dream;

Nor yet my view life's dazzle blinds-Pomp!-Grandeur ! Power!-I give you to the winds!

Let the little bosom cold

Melt only at the sunbeam ray of goldMy pale cheeks glow-the big drops

Trembling, I plac'd it in my secret breast: And thrice I've viewed the vernal gleam, Since oft mine eye, with joy's electric beam,

Illum'd it and its sadder hue

Oft moistened with the tear's ambrosial dew!

Poor wither'd floweret! on its head
Has dark Despair his sickly mildew shed!
But thou, O Fortune! canst relume
Its deaden'd tints-and thou with hardier
bloom

May'st haply tinge its beauties pale,
And yield the unsunn'd stranger to the
western gale!

Morning Chronicle, Nov. 7, 1793.

LEWTI

OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT

AT midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam
And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;

But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half sheltered from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew.-
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair,
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the moon it passed; Still brighter and more bright it grew, With floating colours not a few,

Till it reach'd the moon at last : Then the cloud was wholly bright, With a rich and amber light! And so with many a hope I seek And with such joy I find my Lewti; And even so my pale wan cheek

IO

20

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud-it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 'tis whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,
When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,
A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind-
And yet, thou didst not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky, Thin, and white, and very high; I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud : Perhaps the breezes that can fly Now below and now above, Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud

30

4I

I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans together heave
On the gently-swelling wave.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,

And dreamt that I had died for care; All pale and wasted I would seem Yet fair withal, as spirits are! I'd die indeed, if I might see Her bosom heave, and heave for me! Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind! To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

IMITATIONS

AD LYRAM

(CASIMIR, BOOK II. ODE 3)

1794.

80

To-morrow death shall freeze this

hand,

And on thy breast, my wedded trea

sure,

I never, never more shall live;Alas! I quit a life of pleasure. Morning Post, May 10, 1798.

MORIENTI SUPERSTES

YET art thou happier far than she
Who feels the widow's love for thee!
For while her days are days of weeping,
Thou, in peace, in silence sleeping,
In some still world, unknown, remote,

The mighty parent's care hast found, Without whose tender guardian thought No sparrow falleth to the ground.

THE SIGH

WHEN Youth his faery reign began
Ere sorrow had proclaimed me man;
While Peace the present hour beguiled,
And all the lovely Prospect smiled;
Then Mary! 'mid my lightsome glee
I heaved the painless Sigh for thee.

And when, along the waves of woe,
My harassed Heart was doomed to know
The frantic burst of Outrage keen,
And the slow Pang that gnaws unseen;
Then shipwrecked on Life's stormy sea
I heaved an anguished Sigh for thee!

But soon Reflection's power imprest
A stiller sadness on my breast;
And sickly Hope with waning eye
Was well content to droop and die:
I yielded to the stern decree,
Yet heaved a languid Sigh for thee!

And though in distant climes to roam,
A wanderer from my native home,
I fain would soothe the sense of Care,
And lull to sleep the Joys that were!
Thy Image may not banished be-
Still, Mary! still I sigh for thee.

June 1794.

THE KISS

ONE kiss, dear Maid! I said and sighed-
Your scorn the little boon denied.
Ah why refuse the blameless bliss?
Can danger lurk within a kiss?

Yon viewless wanderer of the vale,
The Spirit of the Western Gale,

At Morning's break, at Evening's close
Inhales the sweetness of the Rose,
And hovers o'er the uninjured bloom
Sighing back the soft perfume.
Vigour to the Zephyr's wing
Her nectar-breathing kisses fling;
And He the glitter of the Dew
Scatters on the Rose's hue.
Bashful lo! she bends her head,
And darts a blush of deeper Red!

Too well those lovely lips disclose
The triumphs of the opening Rose;
O fair! O graceful! bid them prove
As passive to the breath of Love.
In tender accents, faint and low,
Well pleased I hear the whispered.
'No!'

Clasp'd to her bosom with a mother's care; And, as she loved thy kindred form to trace,

The slow smile wander'd o'er her pallid face.

For never yet did mortal voice impart Tones more congenial to the sadden'd heart:

Whether, to rouse the sympathetic glow, Thou pourest lone Monimia's tale of woe;

Or haply clothest with funereal vest The bridal loves that wept in Juliet's breast.

O'er our chill limbs the thrilling Terrors creep,

Th' entranced Passions their still vigil keep;

While the deep sighs, responsive to the song,

Sound through the silence of the trembling throng.

But purer raptures lighten'd from thy

face,

And spread o'er all thy form an holier grace,

When from the daughter's breasts the father drew

The life he gave, and mix'd the big

tear's dew.

Nor was it thine th' heroic strain to roll With mimic feelings foreign from the

soul:

Bright in thy parent's eye we mark'd the tear;

Methought he said, 'Thou art no Actress here!

A semblance of thyself the Grecian dame,

And Brunton and Euphrasia still the same!'

O soon to seek the city's busier scene, Pause thee a while, thou chaste-eyed maid serene,

Till Granta's sons from all her sacred

bowers

With grateful hand shall weave Pierian flowers