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

DUGDALE'S "MONASTICON.”

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.

THOMAS Warton.

TO MARY UNWIN.

ARY! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from heaven as some have feigned

they drew,

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.

TO THE RIVER ARUN.

N thy wild banks, by frequent torrents worn,
No glittering fanes, or marble domes appear,

Yet shall the mournful Muse thy course adorn,
And still to her thy rustic waves be dear :-
For with the infant Otway, lingering here,
Of early woes she bade her votary dream,
While thy low murmurs soothed his pensive ear,
And still the poet-consecrates the stream.
Beneath the oak and birch that fringe thy side,
The first-born violets of the year shall spring;
And in thy hazels, bending o'er the tide,
The earliest Nightingale delight to sing :
-While kindred spirits, pitying, shall relate
Thy Otway's sorrows, and lament his fate!

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING.

HE garlands fade that Spring so lately wove,
Each simple flower, which she had nursed in
dew,

Anemones, that spangled every grove,

The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue.

No more shall violets linger in the dell,
Or purple orchis variegate the plain,

Till Spring again shall call forth every bell,

And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.

Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair,

Are the fond visions of thy early day,

Till tyrant passion and corrosive care,

Bid all thy fairy colours fade away.

-Another May new buds and flowers shall bring

Ah! why has happiness no second Spring?

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

.