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 Grace, And Joy's wild gleams that lightened To Fancy's ear sweet is your murmuring o'er thy face? steep, deep! 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 soar, With wild unequal steps he passed along, All deftly masked as hoar Antiquity. Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood 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 Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong FRAGMENT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM Beat it to earth?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 opening bud? Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be Were it not better hope a nobler doom, thine And mock my boding! Dim similitudes hour From anxious Self, Life's cruel taskmaster! And the warm wooings of this sunny Tremble along my frame and harmonize 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 Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born run From clime to clime; or batten in the sun, Dragging a drony flight from flower to Like summer insects in a gaudy hour; "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 And every impulse from thy influence TO A PRIMROSE THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON Nitens et roboris expers But, tender blossom, why so pale? Such the wan lustre sickness wears And he, who thus hath borne his part To settle on the care-worn cheek assign'd In the sad fellowship of human kind, vain! 1796. When timorous hope the head uprears, O'ertake the heavy sailing Clouds of If transient Darkness film thy aweful Tongue, 20 When Prison-echoes mock'd Disease's groan ! Shall bid th' indignant Father flash dismay, And drag the unnatural Villain into Day Who 1 to the sports of his flesh'd Ruffians left Two lovely Mourners of their Sire bereft! Thy Country's noblest and determin'd 'Twas wrong, like this, which Rome's |