Sleep, warriors, sleep In yon billowy deep, In peace, for no mortal care, No art can deceive, No anguish can heave The heart that once slumbers there. THE BEGGAR'S PETITION. SIR JOHN MORRIS. PITY the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; These tatter'd clothes my poverty bespeak, These hoary locks proclaim my lengthen'd years; And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek Has been the channel to a flood of tears. Yon house, erected on the rising ground, Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor! Oh, take me to your hospitable dome! Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold! Short is my passage to the friendly tomb, Should I reveal the sources of my grief, If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast, Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, And tears of pity would not be repress'd. Heav'n sends misfortunes; why should we repine? A little farm was my paternal lot; Then like the lark I sprightly hail'd the morn: My daughter, once the comfort of my age, My tender wife, sweet soother of my care, And left the world to wretchedness and me. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; THE PASSIONS. An Ode. COLLINS. WHEN Music, heavenly Maid, was young, From the supporting myrtles round First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire, With woful measures wan Despair Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd; A solemn, strange, and mingled air; But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, And longer had she sung-But with a frown He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunderdown, The war denouncing trumpet took, The doubling drum with furious heat; And tho' sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity at his side Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien, While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd; Of diff'ring themes the veering song was mix'd, And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate. With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd, And from her wild sequester'd seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And, dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels join'd the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole; Or o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Love of peace and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away. But O! how alter'd was its sprightly tone, When Cheerfulness, a Nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder hung, Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known; The oak-crown'd Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear, And Sport leap'd up, and seiz'd his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: First to the lively pipe his hand address'd; To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound : |