Away, Grim Phantom! Scorpion King, Beneath chill Disappointment's shade,

That didst so fair disclose thy early Told every pang, with which thy soul

Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal Ye woods! that wave o'er Avon's rocky

And Joy's wild gleams that lightened To Fancy's ear sweet is your murmuring

Youth of tumultuous soul, and haggard For here she loves the cypress wreath to

Round which the screaming sea-gulls And greet with smiles the young-eyed
Poesy

soar,

With wild unequal steps he passed along, All deftly masked as hoar Antiquity.
Oft pouring on the winds a broken song:
Anon, upon some rough rock's fearful
brow

Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood
Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood!

Would pause abrupt—and gaze upon the Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream, waves below. Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream;

Poor Chatterton! he sorrows for thy fate And on some hill, whose forest-frowning Who would have praised and loved thee,

side

This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Mintomb;

But dare no longer on the sad theme And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful

muse,

strelsy !

wind,

Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.

O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive! Sure thou would'st spread the canvass to the gale,

And love with us the tinkling team to drive

O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale;

Or to Bristowa's bard, the wondrous boy!

And we, at sober eve, would round thee An amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd

to own,

1 Chatterton.

Till disappointment came, and pelting

wrong

FRAGMENT

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM

Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's THE early year's fast-flying vapours stray
hope,
In shadowing trains across the orb of day:
Bright flower of hope killed in the And we, poor insects of a few short hours,
Deem it a world of gloom.

opening bud?

Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be Were it not better hope a nobler doom,

thine

And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one

hour

From anxious Self, Life's cruel taskmaster!

And the warm wooings of this sunny
day

Tremble along my frame and harmonize
The attempered organ, that even saddest

thoughts

Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes

Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument. 1796.

COUNT RUMFORD

THESE, Virtue, are thy triumphs, that
adorn

Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born
For loftiest action; not to gaze and

run

From clime to clime; or batten in the

sun,

Dragging a drony flight from flower to
flower,

Like summer insects in a gaudy hour;
Nor yet o'er love-sick tales with fancy
range
And cry,

"Tis pitiful, 'tis passing

strange!'

But on life's varied views to look around And raise expiring sorrow from the ground:

Proud to believe that with more active

powers

On rapid many-coloured wing

We thro' one bright perpetual Spring Shall hover round the fruits and flowers, Screen'd by those clouds and cherish'd by those showers! 1796.

ΤΟ

I MIX in life, and labour to seem free, With common persons pleased and common things,

While every thought and action tends to
thee,

And every impulse from thy influence
springs.
? 1796.

TO A PRIMROSE

THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON

Nitens et roboris expers
Turget et insolida est : et spe delectat.
OVID, Metam.
THY smiles I note, sweet early flower,
That peeping from thy rustic bower
The festive news to earth dost bring,
A fragrant messenger of spring.

But, tender blossom, why so pale?
Dost hear stern winter in the gale?
And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky
To catch one vernal glance and die?

Such the wan lustre sickness wears
When health's first feeble beam appears;
So languid are the smiles that seek

And he, who thus hath borne his part To settle on the care-worn cheek

assign'd

In the sad fellowship of human kind,
Or for a moment soothed the bitter pain
Of a poor brother-has not lived in

vain!

1796.

When timorous hope the head uprears,
Still drooping and still moist with tears,
If, through dispersing grief, be seen
Of bliss the heavenly spark serene.

O'ertake the heavy sailing Clouds of If transient Darkness film thy aweful

Two lovely Mourners of their Sire bereft! Thy Country's noblest and determin'd 'Twas wrong, like this, which Rome's