Each moral pleasure of the heart,

Each lasting charm of truth, Depends not on the giddy aid

Of wild, inconstant youth.

The vain coquet, whose empty pride

A fading face fupplies,
May justly dread the wint'ry gloom,

Where all its glory dies.

Leave such a ruin to deplore,

To fading forms confind: Nor

age nor wrinkles discompose One feature of the mind.

Amidst the universal change,

Unconscious of decay,
It views, unmov'd, the scythe of Time

Sweep all besides away.

Fix'd on its own eternal frame,

Eternal are its joys:
While, borne on transitory wings,

Each mortal pleasure flies.
While ev'ry short-liv'd flow'r of sense

Destructive years consume,
Thro' Friendship's fair enchanting walks

Unfading myrtles blo .m.
Nor with the narrow bounds of time

The beauteous prospect ends,
But, lengthen'd through the vale of death,

To Paradise extends.

THE STORY OF LAVINIA.

FROM THOMSON'S SEASONS.

SOON

as the morning trembles o'er the sky, And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day, Before the ripen'd field the reapers ftand In fair array, each by the lass he loves, To bear the rougher part, and mitigate, By nameless gentle offices, lier toil. At once they stoop, and swell the lusty shcaves, While through their cheerful hand the rural talk, The rural scandal, and the rural jelt, Fly harmless to deceive the tedious time, And steal, unfelt, the sultry hours away. Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks, And conlcious, glancing oft on every side His fated eye, feels his heart heave with joy. The gleaners spread around, and here and there, Spike after fpike, their scanty harvest pick. Be not too narrow, Husbandmen! but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, The lib'ral handful. Think, oh, grateful, think! How good the God of Harvest is to you, Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields ; While these unhappy partners of your kind Wide hover round you like the fowls of Heaven, And ask their humble dole. The various tuinis

Of fortune ponder; that your fons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint ye give.

The lovely young Lavinia once had friends,
And fortune smil'd deceitful on her birth :
For, in her helpless years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, fave Innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale,
By folitude and deep surrounding fhades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceald.
Together thus they shunnid the cruel scorn,
Which Virtue, funk to poverty, would meet
From giddy Passion, and low.minded Pride;
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that fung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the due wets its leaves ; unstained and pure,
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground, dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers ;
Or when the mournful tale her niother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy ftar
Of evening, shore in tears.

A native grace
Sat fair proportion’d on her polith'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
Bit is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most,
'Thoughtless of beauty, the was Beauty's felf,

Recluse amid the close-embowering woods,
As in the hollow breast of Appenine,
Beneath the Melter of encircling hills
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourish'd, blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia! till, at length, compellid
By strong Neceffity's fupreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of fwains
Paleinon was! the generous, and the rich!
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, fiich as Arcadian song
Transmits froin ancient uncorrupted times,
When tyrant Custom has not Mackled man,
But free to follow Nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with Autumnal scenes
Amuling, chanc'd beside his reaper.train
To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye;
Unconscious of lier power, and turning quick,
With unaffected blushes from his

gaze:
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceald.
That very moment love and chaste delire
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown,
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field :
And thus in secret to his soul he ngh'd:

“What pity! that fo delicate a form, " By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense “ And more than vulgar goodness seein to dwell, « Should be devoted to the rude embrace

" Of fome indecent clown! She looks, methinks, “ Of.old Acasto's line, and to my mind “ Recalls thai patron of my happy life, “ From whom my lib’ral fortune took its rise, “Nów to the dust gone down, his houses, lands, “ And once fair-fpreading family, dissolv’d. "'Tis said, that in some lone obscure retreat, “ Urg'd by remembrance fad, and decent pride, “ Far from those scenes which knew their better days, “ His aged widow and his daughter live, “ Whom yet my fruitless search could never find. “ Romantic wish! would this the daughter were!"

When ftri&t enquiring, from herself he found She was the same, the daughter of his friend, Of bountiful Acasto; who can speak The mingled passions that surpriz:d his heart, And through his nerves in fhiv'ring transport ran! Then blaz’d his Imother'd fame, avow'd and bold, And as he view'd her, ardent, o'er and o'er, Love, Gratitude, and Pity, wept at once. Confus'd and frighten'd at his sudden tears, Her rising beauties flufh'd a higher bloom, As thus Palemon, passionate, and just, Pour'd out the pions rapture of his foul:

" And art thou then Acarto's dear remains ? “ She, whom my restless gratitude has fought “ So long in vain ? O Heavens! the very fame, “ The foften’d image of my noble friend ; “ Alive his very look, his very feature, “ More elegantly touch'd. Sweeter than Spring! s. Thou sole surviving bloffom from the root " That nourish'd up my fortune ! Say, ah, where,