A FRAGMENT. WHEN, to their airy hall, my Fathers' voice If that with honour fail to crown my clay, 1803. THE TEAR. O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit! 1. WHEN Friendship or Love Our sympathies move; When Truth, in a glance, should appear, The lips may beguile With a dimple or smile, But the test of affection's a Tear, GRAY. Too oft is a smile 2. But the hypocrite's wile, To mask detestation, or fear; Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear. 3. Mild Charity's glow, Shews the soul from barbarity clear; Where this virtue is felt, And its dew is diffus'd in a Tear. 4. The man, doom'd to sail With the blast of the gale, Through billows Atlantic to steer; As he bends o'er the wave, Which may soon be his grave, The green sparkles bright with a Tear. 5. The Soldier braves death, In Glory's romantic career; When in battle laid low, And bathes ev'ry wound with a Tear. 6. If, with high-bounding pride, When, embracing the maid, 7. Sweet scene of my youth, Seat of Friendship and Truth, For a last look I turn'd, But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear. 8. Though my vows I can pour To my Mary no more, My Mary, to Love once so dear; In the shade of her bow'r, I remember the hour, She rewarded those vows with a Tear. By another possest, 9. May she live ever blest, Her name still my heart must revere; With a sigh I resign What I once thought was mine, And forgive her deceit with a Tear. 10. Ye friends of my heart, This hope to my breast is most near; May we meet, as we part, with a Tear! II. When my soul wings her flight And my corse shall recline on its bier; Where my ashes consume, Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear. 12. May no marble bestow The splendour of woe, Which the children of vanity rear; No fiction of fame Shall blazon my name : All I ask, all I wish, is a Tear. 1806. AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE, Delivered previous to the performance of « The Wheel of Fortune,» at a private theatre. SINCE the refinement of this polish'd age NO COOKE, NO KEMBLE, can salute you here, In fond suspense, this crisis of their fate. |