Such is the local love. But not alone

Is man to sympathies like these awake: The bird and beast the same sensations own, And from localities the impression take; Tho' but a moment they an effort make To recollect or image; tho' their frame

But with a transitory fervor shake:

Still, from one favorite spot, a sacred flame
Seems, with its wizard line, to circumscribe their aim

The wandering dove, amidst cold wintery skies,
Far off, remembers her accustom'd nest,
And down the gloom o'er many a long vale, flies,
Till there, with weary wing, she sinks to rest:
The dog, exulting, scours wide woods, in quest
Of his bemoaned home, with broken chain:

The warriour horse, by foreign toil opprest,
Quickens his eager pace, as, once again,

[plain*

He views the old deep road that bounds his pasture

Nor, as revisiting the palmy grove

That waves where Ganges rolls his yellow tide, Does the sage elephant at random rove,

But winding up the gem-fraught mountain's side, On the known valley glances looks of pride Where he had once, fierce victor, with the blood Of his mail'd enemy the foliage dyed:

Then o'er the feats of youth he seems to brood, Rears his proboscis high, and greets the conscious

wood.

Meanwhile, we give not to the brutes the joys That memory's more extensive power bestows; Since, chiefly as accustom'd scenes arise

To sense, each animal the emotion shews.

* The vanquished bull is represented by Virgil, as looking pensively back on his old hereditary stall and pastures, whence he is forced to retreat

"Et stabula aspectans regnis excessit avitis."

GEOR. lib, iii, 1. 228.

Yet ever new to man, the enjoyment flows,

As Memory her transporting vision rears!

There Fancy's fire, there generous Passion glows,

As now the fleeted landscape re-appears

[years.

With all its shadowy forms thro' the long lapse of

Lo, this affection grows a vigorous plant

In vulgar breasts. I hear the Grecian sigh, Amid the slumbering shores of the Levant: I see him lift to heaven his melting eye. "Here, (he exclaims, with mingled grief and joy) Within my Tenedos, the favour'd isle,

"Once lay the sable ships that conquer'd Troy! "Behold (he utters with a conscious smile) "The spot where chiefs were nurst, and glory crown'd their toil."*

*

Such was the exclamation of a Greek pilot to an English gentleman, Mr. Anson, at the island of Tenedos. "There (cried the pilot) 'twas our fleet lay!" "What fleet?" said Mr. Anson.

"What fleet!" replied

the man (a little piqued at the question) "Why, our Grecian fleet at

the siege of Troy 1"

Yet 'tis the lot alone of souls refin'd

By taste, to feel the luxury that springs From all the varied energies of mind:

To such, how oft a trivial object brings

The sweetly-pencil'd view, where Fancy flings The tender colors of the autumnal sheaf;

While, as she sports within her faery rings, Mixing the vivid tears of joy and grief,

She clothes each pictur'd form with rays of soft relief.

1

Tho' o'er his master's bow, so long unstrung,

An

eye

of sorrow good Eumæus cast, Tho' old Philætius o'er the quiver hung,

Pierc'd by a quick remembrance of the past; Yet was it theirs to own those feelings chaste, Those sympathies that mov'd the widow'd Fair? Yet was it theirs, inspir'd by kindred taste, As on an object of their fondest care

To muse, and from delight to steal a pensive air?

I see her slow the lofty stairs ascend!*

I see her bosom heave delicious sighs! Now o'er the bow I see the mourner bend,

While myriads of illusions round her rise

From the sweet relic of affection's ties, The chronicle of many a blissful hour;

That, as tears moisten her dejected eyes, Wins back her vanisht days with soothing power: So, pure in distant light, we paint the Elysian

bower.

* A moment's digression may be excused, whilst I observe, that the characters of Penelope and Ulysses as represented in the Odyssey, have,· from my schooldays, made a deeper impression on my mind, than any other characters of historical or fabulous antiquity. There is something extremely pleasing in the portraits of simplicity and sensibility united with regal dignity, such as can only consist, indeed, with the half-civilized eras. To this simplicity and sensibility are added politeness and a knowlege of the world, not only in Ulysses, but in his mourning queen. Penelope's mode of treating her suitors discovers no slight acquaintance with men and manners: and Ulysses, mores hominum multorum, &c.' But he studied men with very different views from those of Lord Chesterfield!

C