PLAINTIVE sonnet flowed from Milton's pen
When Time had stolen his three and twentieth
Say shall not I then shed one tuneful tear
Robbed by the thief of three-score years and ten?
No! for the foes of all life-lengthened men,
Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near;
Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory dear,
Hold unimpaired their weak, yet wonted reign:
Still round my sheltered lawn I pleased can stray;
Still trace my sylvan blessings to their spring :
Being of Beings! yes, that silent lay,
Which musing Gratitude delights to sing,
Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey,
And Hope, the cherub of unwearied wing.
HEN late the trees were stript by winter pale,
Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture green,
Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen,
On airy uplands met the piercing gale ;
And, ere its earliest echo shook the vale,
Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen.
But since, gay-throned in fiery chariot sheen,
Summer has smote each daisy-dappled dale;
She to the caves retires, high-arched beneath
The fount that laves proud Isis' towered brim ;
And now, all glad the temperate air to breathe,
While cooling drops distil from arches dim,
Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath,
She sits amid the quire of Naiads trim.
ON REVISITING THE RIVER LODON.
H! what a weary race my feet have run
Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
And thought my way was all through fairy
ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun,
Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round
Which fills the varied interval between ;
Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
No more return to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed
From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature,
Nor-with the Muse's laurel unbestowed.
WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF
EEM not devoid of elegance the sage,
By fancy's genuine feelings unbeguil'd,
Of painful pedantry the poring child,
Who turns of these proud domes the historic page,
Now sunk by time, and Henry's fiercer rage.
Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled
On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage
His thoughts on themes, unclassic falsely styled,
Intent. While cloistered Piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores New manners, and the pomp of elder days, Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores. Nor rough, nor barren, are the winding ways
Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers.
ARY! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from heaven as some have feigned
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things;
That ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings :-
But thou hast little need ;- there is a Book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright ;-
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
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