Here youth's free spirit innocently gay, Enjoy'd the most that Innocence can give; Those wholesome sweets that border Virtue's way; Those cooling fruits, that we may taste and live. Their board no strange ambiguous viand bore; From their own streams their choicer fare they To lure the scaly glutton to the shore, [drew; The sole deceit their artless bosom knew! Sincere themselves, ah! too secure to find Sketch'd on the lattice of the adjacent fane, For sure to blissful realms the souls are flown That never flatter'd, injur'd, censur'd, strove ; The friends of Science! music all their own; Music, the voice of Virtue and of Love! The journeying peasant, through the secret shade For these the sounds that chase unholy Strife! VOL. III. Farewell, pure spirits! vain the praise we give, The praise you sought from lips angelic flows; Farewell! the virtues which deserve to live Deserve an ampler bliss than life bestows. Last of his race, Palemon, now no more ELEGY, DESCRIBING THE SORROW OF AN INGENUOUS MIND ON THE MELANCHOLY EVENT OF A LICENTIOUS AMOUR. Why mourns my friend? why weeps his downcast eye? That eye where mirth, where fancy, us'd to shine; Thy cheerful meads reprove that swelling sigh; Spring ne'er enamell'd fairer meads than thine. Art thou not lodg'd in Fortune's warm embrace? Wert thou not form'd by Nature's partial care? Bless'd in thy song, and bless'd in every grace That wins the friend, or that enchants the fair! Damon,' said he, 'thy partial praise restrain; Not Damon's friendship can my peace restore: Alas! his very praise awakes my pain, And my poor wounded bosom bleeds the more. For, oh! that Nature on my birth had frown'd, Or Fortune fix'd me to some lowly cell! Then had my bosom 'scap'd this fatal wound, Nor had I bid these vernal sweets farewell. 'But led by Fortune's hand, her darling child, 'Of folly studious, ev'n of vices vain, Ah, vices gilded by the rich and gay! Poor artless maid! to stain thy spotless name Then while the fancied rage alarm'd her care, To thee, my Damon, dare I paint the rest? 'Nine envious moons matur'd her growing shame, 66 Henry," ," she said, "by thy dear form subdued, See the sad relics of a nymph undone! I find, I find this rising sob renew'd; I sigh in shades, and sicken at the sun. "Amid the dreary gloom of night I cry, When will the morn's once pleasing scenes return? Yet what can morn's returning ray supply, But foes that triumph, or but friends that mourn "Alas! no more that joyous morn appears ? That led the tranquil hours of spotless fame, For I have steep'd a father's couch in tears, And ting'd a mother's glowing cheek with shame. "The vocal birds that raise their matin strain, The sportive lambs, increase my pensive moan; All seem to chase me from the cheerful plain, And talk of truth and innocence alone. "If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray, "Ye flowers! that well reproach a nymph so frail! "Now the grave old alarm the gentler young, "Thus for your sake I shun each human eye, pangs for you. "Raise me from earth; the pains of want remove, "Be but my friend; I ask no dearer name; Be such the meed of some more artful fair; Nor could it heal my peace or chase my shame, That Pity gave what Love refus'd to share. "Force not my tongue to ask its scanty bread, "Haply, when age has silver'd o'er my hair, And Pity welcome to my native soil."— 'She spoke-nor was I born of savage race; Nor could these hands a niggard boon assign: Grateful she clasp'd me in a last embrace, And vow'd to waste her life in prayers for mine. 'I saw her foot the lofty bark ascend, I saw her breast with every passion heave: I left her-torn from every earthly friend; Oh! my hard bosom! which could bear to leave! |