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Is it glad Summer's balmy breath, that blows
From the fair jasmine and the blushing rose?
Her balmy breath, and all her blooming store
Of rural bliss, was here before:

Oft have I met her on the verdant side
Of Norwood-hill, and in the yellow meads,
Where Pan the dancing Graces leads,
Array'd in all her flowery pride.

No sweeter fragrance now the gardens yield,
No brighter colours paint th' enamel'd field.

Is it to Love these new delights I owe?
Four times has the revolving Sun
His annual circle through the zodiac run;
Since all that Love's indulgent power
On favour'd mortals can bestow,
Was given to me in this auspicious bower.

Here first my Lucy, sweet in virgin charms,
Was yielded to my longing arms;
And round our nuptial bed,
Hovering with purple wings, th' Idalian boy
Shook from his radiant torch the blissful fires
Of innocent desires,

While Venus scatter'd myrtles o'er her head.

Whence then this strange increase of joy? He, only he, can tell, who, match'd like me, (If such another happy man there be)

Has by his own experience tried How much the wife is dearer than the bride.

TO THE

MEMORY OF THE SAME LADY.

A MONODY. A. D. 1747.

Ipse cavà solans ægrum testudine amorem, Te dulcis conjux, te solo in littore secum, Te veniente die, te decedente canebat.

Ar length escap'd from every human eye,
From every duty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love
Can on th' ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

Ye tufted groves, ye gently-falling rills,
Ye high o'ershadowing hills,
Ye lawns gay-smiling with eternal green,
Oft have you my Lucy seen!
But never shall you now behold her more:
Nor will she now with fond delight
And taste refin'd your rural charms explore.
Clos'd are those beauteous eyes in endless night,
Those beauteous eyes where beaming us'd to shine
Reason's pure light and Virtue's spark divine.

Oft would the Dryads of these woods rejoice
To hear her heavenly voice;

For her despising, when she deign'd to sing,
The sweetest songsters of the spring:
The woodlark and the linnet pleas'd no more;
The nightingale was mute,

And every shepherd's flute
Was cast in silent scorn away,
While all attended to her sweeter lay.
Ye larks and linnets, now resume your song,
And thou, melodious Philomel,

Again thy plaintive story tell;

For Death has stopt that tuneful tongue,

Whose music could alone your warbling notes excel.

In vain I look around

O'er all the well-known ground,

My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we us'd to walk,

Where oft in tender talk

We saw the summer Sun go down the sky;
Nor by yon fountain's side,

Nor where its waters glide

Along the valley, can she now be found:

In all the wide-stretch'd prospect's ample bound No more my mournful eye

Can aught of her espy,

But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

O shades of Hagley, where is now your boast? Your bright inhabitant is lost.

You she preferr'd to all the gay resorts Where female vanity might wish to shine, The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts. Her modest beauties shunn'd the public eye: To your sequester'd dales

And flower embroider'd vales

From an admiring world she chose to fly:
With Nature there retir'd, and Nature's God,
The silent paths of wisdom trod,
And banish'd every passion from her breast,
But those, the gentlest and the best,
Whose holy flames with energy divine
The virtuous heart enliven and improve,
The conjugal and the maternal love.

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns By your delighted mother's side,

Who now your infant steps shall guide? Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have form'd your youth, And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth?

O loss beyond repair!

O wretched father! left alone,

To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own!
How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe!
Now she, alas! is gone,

From folly and from vice their helpless age to save!

Where were ye, Muses, when relentless Fate From these fond arms your fair disciple tore; From these fond arms, that vainly strove With hapless ineffectual love

To guard her bosom from the mortal blow? Could not your favouring power, Aonia maids,

Could not, alas! your power prolong ber date For whom so oft in these inspiring shades,

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At least, ye Nine, her spotless name
'Tis yours from death to save,

And in the temple of immortal Fame
With golden characters her worth engrave.
Come then, ye virgin sisters, come,

And strew with choicest flowers her hallow'd tomb:
But foremost thou, in sable vestment clad,
With accents sweet and sad,

Thou, plaintive Muse, whom o'er his Laura's urn
Unhappy Petrarch call'd to mourn;

O come, and to this fairer Laura pay
A more impassion'd tear, a more pathetic lay.

Tell how each beauty of her mind and face
Was brighten'd by some sweet peculiar grace!
Hoy eloquent in every look
(spoke!
Through her expressive eyes her soul distinctly
Tell how her manners, by the world refin'd,
Left all the taint of modish Vice behind,

And made each charm of polish'd courts agree
With candid Truth's simplicity,

And uncorrupted Innocence !
Tell how to more than manly sense

She join'd the softening influence

Of more than female tenderness:

How, in the thoughtless days of wealth and joy,

Which oft the care of others' good destroy,
Her kindly-melting heart,

To every want and every woe,
To guilt itself when in distress,

The balm of pity would impart,

And all relief that bounty could bestow !
Ev'n for the kid or lamb that pour'd its life
Beneath the bloody knife,

Her gentle tears would fall,

Tears from sweet Virtue's source, benevolent to all.

Not only good and kind,

But strong and elevated was her mind:
A spirit that with noble pride
Could look superior down

On Fortune's smile or frown;
That could without regret or pain
To Virtue's lowest duty sacrifice

Or Interest or Ambition's highest prize;
That, injur'd or offended, never tried
Its dignity by vengeance to maintain,
But by magnanimous disdain.
A wit that, temperately bright,
With inoffensive light

All pleasing shoue; nor ever past
The decent bounds that Wisdom's sober hand,
And sweet Benevolence's mild command,
And bashful Modesty, before it cast.

A prudence undeceiving, undeceiv'd,
That nor too little nor too much believ'd,
That scorn'd unjust Suspicion's coward fear,
And without weakness knew to be sincere.
Such Lucy was, when, in her fairest days,
Amidst th' acclaim of universal praise,
In life's and glory's freshest bloom,
Death came remorseless on, and sunk her to the
tomb.

So, where the silent streams of Liris glide,
In the soft bosom of Campania's vale,
When now the wintry tempests all are fled,
And genial Summer breathes her gentle gale,
The verdant orange lifts its beauteous head:
From every branch the balmy flowerets rise,
On every bough the golden fruits are seen;
With odours sweet it fills the smiling skies,
The wood-nymphs tend, and th' Idalian queen.
But, in the midst of all its blooming pride,
A sudden blast from Apenninus blows,
Cold with perpetual snows:

The Mintio runs by Mantua, the birth place The tender blighted plant shrinks up its leaves, and of Virgil.

* The Clitumnus is a river of Umbria, the residence of Propertius.

The Anio runs through Tibur or Tivoli, where Horace had a villa.

4 The Meles is a river of Jonia, from whence Homer, supposed to be born on its banks, is called Melisigenes.

The Ilissus is a river at Athens.

dies.

Arise, O Petrarch, from th' Elysian bowers,
With never-fading myrtles twin'd,
And fragrant with ambrosial flowers,
Where to thy Laura thou again art join'd;
Arise, and hither bring the silver lyre,
Tuu'd by thy skilful hand,

To the soft notes of elegant desire,
With which o'er many a land

Was spread the fame of thy disastrous love;
To me resign the vocal shell,
And teach my sorrows to relate
Their melancholy tale so well,
As may ev'n things inanimate,

Rough mountain oaks and desert rocks, to pity move.

What were, alas! thy woes compar'd to mine?
To thee thy mistress in the blissful band

Of Hymen never gave her hand;

The joys of wedded love were never thine:
In thy domestic care

She never bore a share,
Nor with endearing art

Would heal thy wounded heart

Of every secret grief that fester'd there:
Nor did her fond affection on the bed

Of sickness watch thee, and thy languid head
Whole nights on her unwearied arm sustain,
And charm away the sense of pain:
Nor did she crown your mutual flame
With pledges dear, and with a father's tender name.

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We were the happiest pair of human kind:
The rolling year its varying course perform'd,
And back return'd again;

Another and another smiling came,
And saw our happiness unchang'd remain:
Still in her golden chain
Harmonious Concord did our wishes bind:
Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same.
O fatal, fatal stroke,

That all this pleasing fabric Love had rais'd
Of rare felicity,

On which ev'n wanton Vice with envy gaz'd, And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd, With soothing hope, for many a future day, In one sad moment broke!

Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay;

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Ev'n love itself, if rising by degrees Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state, Whose fleeting joys so soon must end, It does not to its sovereign good ascend. Rise then, my soul, with hope elate, And seek those regions of serene delight, Whose peaceful path and ever-open gate No feet but those of harden'd Guilt shall miss. There Death himself thy Lucy shall restore, There yield upall his power ne'er to divide you more,

ON THE SAME LADY.
To the

Memory of Lucy Lyttelton,

Daughter of Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh
In the county of Devon, esq.
Father to the present earl of Clinton,
By Lucy his wife,

The daughter of Matthew lord Aylmer, Who departed this life the 19th of Jan. 1746-7, Aged twenty-nine,

Having employed the short time assigned to her here

In the uniform practice of religion and virtue,

Made to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes;
Though meek, magnanimous; though witty, wise;
Polite, as all her life in courts had been;
Yet good, as she the world had never seen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin❜d.
Her speech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her song the warbling of the vernal grove;
Her eloquence was sweeter than her song,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong;
Her form each beauty of her mind express'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces dress'd.

HORACE. BOOK IV, ODE IV.
WRITTEN AT OXFORD 17251.
Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem, &c.
As the wing'd minister of thundering Jove,
To whom he gave his dreadful bolts to bear,
Faithful assistant 2 of his master's love,
King of the wandering nations of the air,

First printed with Mr. West's translation of Pindar. See the preface to that gentleman's

poems.

2 In the rape of Ganymede, who was carried up

When balmy breezes fann'd the vernal sky,
On doubtful pinions left his parent nest,
In slight essays his growing force to try,
While inborn courage fir'd his generous breast;

Then, darting with impetuous fury down,

The flocks he slaughter'd, an unpractis'd foe; Now his ripe valour to perfection grown The scaly snake and crested dragon know:

Or, as a lion's youthful progeny,

Wean'd from his savage dam and milky food, The gazing kid beholds with fearful eye,

Doom'd first to stain his tender fangs in blood:

Such Drusus, young in arms, his foes beheld, The Alpine Rhæti, long unmatch'd in fight: So were their hearts with abject terrour quell'd; So sunk their haughty spirit at the sight. Tam'd by a boy, the fierce barbarians find

How guardian Prudence guides the youthful flame,
And how great Cæsar's fond paternal mind
Each generous Nero forms to early fame;

A valiant son springs from a valiant sire :
Their race by mettle sprightly coursers prove;
Nor can the warlike eagle's active fire

Degenerate to form the timorous dove.

But education can the genius raise,

And wise instructions native virtue aid; Nobility without them is disgrace,

And honour is by vice to shame betray'd. Let red Metaurus, stain'd with Punic blood, Let mighty Asdrubal subdued, confess How much of empire and of fame is ow'd By thee, O Rome, to the Neronian race.

Of this be witness that auspicious day,

Which, after a long, black, tempestuous night,
First smil'd on Latium with a milder ray, [light.
And cheer'd our drooping hearts with dawning
Since the dire African with wasteful ire
Rode o'er the ravag'd towns of Italy;

As through the pine-trees flies the raging fire,
Or Eurus o'er the vext Sicilian sea.

From this bright era, from this prosperous field,
The Roman glory dates her rising power;
From hence 'twas given her conquering sword to
wield,

Raise her fall'n gods, and ruin'd shrines restore.

Thus Hannibal at length despairing spoke :

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Like stags to ravenous wolves an easy prey, Our feeble arms a valiant foe provoke,

Whom to elude and 'scape were victory: "A dauntless nation, that from Trojan fires, Hostile Ausonia, to thy destin'd shore Her gods, her infant sons, and aged sires, Through angry seas and adverse tempests bore:

"As on high Algidas the sturdy oak,

Whose spreading boughs the axe's sharpness feel, Improves by loss, and, thriving with the stroke, Draws health and vigour from the wounding steel.

to Jupiter by an eagle, according to the Poetical History.

"Not Hydra sprouting from her mangled head
So tir'd the baffled force of Hercules;
Nor Thebes, nor Colchis, such a monster bred,
Pregnant of hills, and fam'd for prodigies.
"Plunge her in ocean, like the morning Sun,
Brighter she rises from the depths below:
To earth with unavailing ruin thrown,
Recruits her strength, and foils the wondering foe.

"No more of victory the joyful fame
Shall from my camp to haughty Carthage fly;
Lost, lost, are all the glories of her name!
With Asdrubal her hopes and fortune die !
"What shall the Claudian valour not perform
Which Power Divine guards with propitious care,
Which Wisdom steers through all the dangerous
storm,
[war?"
Through all the rocks and shoals of doubtful

VIRTUE AND FAME.

TO THE COUNTESS OF EGREMONT.

VIRTUE and Fame, the other day,
Happen'd to cross each other's way;
Said Virtue," Hark ye! madam Fame,
Your ladyship is much to blame;
Jove bids you always wait on me,
And yet your face I seldom see:
The Paphian queen employs your trumpet,
And bids it praise some handsome strumpet;
Or, thundering through the ranks of war,
Ambition ties you to her car."
Saith Fame," Dear madam, I protest,
I never find myself so blest
As when I humbly wait behind you!
But 'tis so mighty hard to find you!
In such obscure retreats you lurk!
To seek you is an endless work."

"Well," answer'd Virtue, "I allow Your plea. But hear, and mark me now. I know (without offence to others)

I know the best of wives and mothers;
Who never pass'd an useless day
In scandal, gossiping, or play:
Whose modest wit, chastis'd by sense,
Is lively cheerful innocence;
Whose heart nor envy knows, nor spite,
Whose duty is her sole delight;
Nor rul'd by whim, nor slave to fashion,
Her parents' joy, her husband's passion.'
Fame smil'd and answer'd,
"On my life,
This is some country parson's wife,
Who never saw the court nor town,
Whose face is homely as her gown;
Who banquets upon eggs and bacon-"
"No, madam, no-you're much mistaken-
I beg you'll let me set you right-
'Tis one with every beauty bright;
Adorn'd with every polish'd art
That rank or fortune can impart :
'Tis the most celebrated toast
That Britain's spacious isle can boast;
'Tis princely Petworth's noble dame;
'Tis Egremont-Go, tell it, Fame."

ADDITION, EXTEMPORE,

BY EARL HARDWICKE.

FAME heard with pleasure-straight replied,
"First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride;
My trumpet oft I've rais'd, to sound
Her modest praise the world around!
But notes were wanting-Canst thou find
A Muse to sing her face, her mind?
Believe me, I can name but one,
A friend of yours-'tis Lyttelton."

LETTER TO EARL HARDWICKE:

OCCASIONED BY THE FOREGOING VERSES.

MY LORD,

A THOUSAND thanks to your lordship for your addition to my verses. If you can write such extempore, it is well for other poets, that you chose to be lord chancellor, rather than laureat. They explain to me a vision I had the night before.

Methought I saw before my feet,
With countenance serene and sweet,
The Muse, who, in my youthful days,
Had oft inspir'd my careless lays.

She smil'd, and said, "Once more I see
My fugitive returns to me;

Long had I lost you from my bower,
You scorn'd to own my gentle power;
With me no more your genius sported,
The grave historic Muse you courted;

Or, rais'd from Earth, with straining eyes;
Pursued Urania through the skies;
But now, to my forsaken track,
Fair Egremont has brought you back:
Nor blush, by her and Virtue led,
That soft, that pleasing path, to tread;
For there, beneath to morrow's ray,
Ev'n Wisdom's self shall deign to play.
Lo! to my flowery groves and springs
Her favourite son the goddess brings,
The council's and the senate's guide,
Law's oracle, the nation's pride:
He comes, he joys with thee to join,
In singing Wyndham's charms divine:
To thine he adds his nobler lays;
Ev'n thee, my friend, he deigns to praise.
Enjoy that praise, nor envy Pitt
His fame with burgess or with cit;
For sure one line from such a bard,
Virtue would think her best reward."

HYMEN TO ELIZA

MADAM, before your feet I lay
This ode upon your wedding-day,
The first indeed I ever made,
For writing odes is not my trade:
My head is full of household cares,
And necessary dull affairs;
Besides that sometimes jealous frumps
Will put me into doleful dumps.
And then no clown beneath the sky
Was e'er more ungallant than I;

For you alone I now think fit
To turn a poet and a wit-

For you whose charms, I know not how,
Have power to smooth my wrinkled brow,
And make me, though by nature stupid,
As brisk, and as alert, as Cupid.
These obligations to repay,
Whene'er your happy nuptial day
Shall with the circling years return,
For you my torch shall brighter burn
Than when you first my power ador'd,
Nor will I call myself your lord,
But am, (as witness this my hand)
Your humble servant at command.

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SUCH were the notes that struck the wondering ear
Of silent Night, when, on the verdant banks
Of Siloe's hallow'd brook, celestial harps,
According to seraphic voices, sung
Glory to God on high, and on the earth
Peace and good-will to men !-Resume the lyre,
Chauntress divine, and every Briton call
Its melody to hear-so shall thy strains,
More powerful than the song of Orpheus, tame
The savage heart of brutal Vice, and bend
At pure Religion's shrine the stubborn knees
Of bold Impiety.-Greece shall no more
Of Lesbian Sappho boast, whose wanton Muse,
Like a false Syren, while she charm'd, seduc'd
To guilt and ruin. For the sacred head
Of Britain's poetess, the Virtues twine

A nobler wreath, by them from Eden's grove
Unfading gather'd, and direct the hand
Of -to fix it on her brows.

MOUNT EDGECUMBE.

THE gods, on thrones celestial seated,
By Jove, with bowls of nectar heated,
All on Mount Edgecumbe turn'd their eyes;
"That place is mine," great Neptune cries:
"Behold! how proud o'er all the main
Those stately turrets seem to reign!
No views so grand on Earth you see!
The master too belongs to me:

I grant him my domain to share,

I bid his hand my trident bear."

"The sea is your's, but mind the land,” Pallas replies; "by me were plann'd Those towers, that hospital, those docks, That fort, which crowns those island rocks: The lady too is of my choir,

I taught her hand to touch the lyre;

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