SONNET TO THE BOOK*.

AH go! beyond thy kindred copies bleft,

Go meet thy happiness-be JERSEY'S guest:

She, skill'd to judge, thy humble themes receives, Her graceful hand fhall touch thy trembling leaves: Her eyes, the boaft and envy of the age,

Shall shed their pleafing luftre o'er thy page:

And while fhe reads, thy confcious form shall feel.
The breath of fpring from lips celeftial fteal.

* These lines were fent to LADY JERSEY, with a former edition of these poems.

HONORIA

H ONO RIA:

OR,

THE DAY OF ALL SOULS.

A PO E M

02

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Scene of the following little Poem is fuppofed to be in the great church of St. AMBROSE at MILAN, the fecond of November, on which day the most folemn office is performed for the repofe of the Dead.

HONORIA,

YE

E hallow'd bells, whofe voices thro' the air' The awful fummons of affliction bear: • Ye flowly-waving banners of the dead, That o'er yon altar your dark horrors fpread : • Ye curtain'd lamps, whofe mitigated ray

Cafts round the fane a pale, reluctant day: Ye walls, ye fhrines, by Melancholy dreft, • Well do ye fuit the fashion of my breaft! • Have I not loft what language can't unfold, • The form of valour caft in beauty's mould Th' intrepid Youth the path of battle tried, And foremoft in the hour of peril died. Nor was I present to bewail his fate,

With pity's lenient voice to footh his state,

To watch his looks, to read, while death stood by, The laft expreffion of his parting eye.

But other duties, other cares impend,

• Cares that beyond the mournful grave extend;

• Now,

6

Now, now I view conven'd the pious train,
Whose bosom forrows at another's pain,
While recollection, pleasingly fevere, O

• Wakes for the awful dead the filent tear,
And pictures (as to each her fway extends)
The facred forms of lovers, parents, friends.
Now Charity a fiery feraph ftands
Befide yon altar with uplifted hands,

Yet, can this high folemnity of grief
Yield to the Youth I love the wifh'd relief?
Thefe rites of death-ah! what can they avail?
'HONORIUS died beyond the hallow'd pale,

₹

Plung'a in the gulph of fear-diftressful state!
My anxious mind dares not enquire his fate:

• Yet why defpond? could one flight error roll
A flood of poifon o'er the healthful foul?
Had not thy virtues full fufficing pow'r
To clear thee in the dread recording hour?
⚫ Did they before the Judge abash'd remain?
Did they, weak advocates, all plead in vain ?
By love, by piety, by reafon taught,
My foul revolts at the blafpheming thought;
↑ Sure, in the breast to pure religion true,
Where Virtue's templed, God is templed too.

Then