Pipe on, thou sweetest of th' Arcadian-train,
That e'er with tuneful breath inform'd the quill:
Pipe on, of lovers the most loving swain!
Of bliss and melody O take thy fill.
Ne envy I, if dear lanthe smile,

Tho' low my numbers, and tho' rude my style;
Ne quit for Acidale, fair Albion's happy isle.

Come then Ianthe! milder than the Spring,
And grateful as the rosy mouth of May,
O come; the birds the hymn of Nature sing,
Enchanting-wild, from every bush and spray :
Swell th' green gems and teem along the vine,
A fragrant promise of the future wine,
The spirits to exalt, the genius to refine!

Let us our steps direct where father-Thames,
In silver windings draws his humid train,
And pours, where'er he rolls his naval-stream,
Pomp on the city, plenty o'er the plain.
Or by the banks of Isis shall we stray,
(Ah why so long from Isis banks away!)
Where thousand damsels dance, and thousand
shepherds play.

Amid the pleasaunce of Arcadian scenes,
Love steals his silent arrows on my breast;
Nor fails of water, nor enamel'd greens,
Can soothe my anguish, or invite to rest.
You, dear Ianthe, you alone impart
Balm to my wonnds, and cordial to my smart:
The apple of my eye, the life-blood of my heart.

With line of silk, with hook of barbed steel,
Beneath this oaken umbrage.let us lay,
And from the water's crystal-bosom steal
Upon the grassy bank the finny prey:
The perch, with purple speckled manifold;
The eel, in silver labyrinth self-roll'd,

And carp, all burnish'd o'er with drops of scaly gold.

Or shall the meads invite, with Iris-hues
And Nature's pencil gay-diversify'd,
(For now the Sun has lick'd away the dews)
Fair-flushing and bedeck'd like virgin-bride?
Thither, (for they invite us) we'll repair,
Collect and weave (whate'er is sweet and fair)
A posy for thy breast, a garland for thy hair.

Fair is the lily clad in balmy snow;
Sweet is the rose, of Spring the smiling eye;
Nipt by the winds, their heads the lilies bow;
Cropt by the hand, the roses fade and die.
Tho' now in pride of youth and beauty drest,
O think, lanthe, cruel Time lays waste
The roses of the cheek, the lilies of the breast.

Weep not; but, rather taught by this, improve
The present freshness of thy springing prime:
Bestow thy graces on the god of love,
Too precious for the wither'd arms of Time.

In chaste endearments, innocently gay,
Ianthe! now, now love thy Spring away;
Ere cold October-blasts despoil the bloom of May.

Now up the chalky mazes of yon hill,
With grateful diligence, we wind our way;
What op'ning scenes our ravish'd senses fill,
And, wide, their rural luxury display! [spires,
Woods, dales, and flocks, and herds, and cots and
Villas of learned clerks, and gentle squires;
The villa of a friend the eye-sight never tires.

If e'er to thee and Venus, May, I strung
The gladsome lyre, when livelood 8 swell'd my
veins,

And Eden's nymphs and Isis' damsels sung
In tender elegy, and pastoral-strains';
Collect and shed thyself on Theron's bowr's,
O green his gardens, O perfume his flow'rs,
O bless his morning-walks and sooth his ev'ning-
hours.

Long, Theron, with thy Annabell enjoy
The walks of Nature, still to Virtue kind,
For sacred solitude can never cloy,
The wisdom of an uncorrupted mind!
O very long may Hymen's golden chain
To Earth confine you and the rural-reign;
Then soar, at length, to Heaven! nor pray, O
Muse, in vain.

Where'er the Muses haunt, or poets muse,
In solitary silence sweetly tir'd,
Unloose thy bosom, May! thy stores effuse,
Thy vernal stores, by poets most desir'd,
Of living fountain, of the wood-bind-shade,
Of Philomela, warbling from the glade.
Thy bounty, in his verse, shall certes be repaid.

On Twit'nam-bow'rs (Aonian Twit'nam bow'rs!)
Thy softest plenitude of beauties shed,
Thick as the winter-stars, or summer-flow'rs;
Albe the tuneful master (ah!) be dead.
To Colin next he taught my youth to sing,
My reed to warble, to resound my string:
The king of shepherds he, of poets he the king.

Hail, happy scenes, where Joy wou'd choose to dwell;

Hail, golden days, which Saturn deems his own;
Hail, music, which the Muses scant 3 excel;
Hail, flow'rets, not unworthy Venus' crown,
Ye linnets, larks, ye thrushes, nightingales;
Ye hills, ye plains, ye groves, ye streams, ye gales,
Ye ever-happy scenes! all you, your poet hails.

All-bail to thee, O May! the crown of all!
The recompense and glory of my song:
Ne small the recompense, ne glory small,
If gentle ladies, and the tuneful-throng,
With lover's myrtle, and with poet's bay
Fairly bedight, approve the simple lay,
And think on Thomalin whene'er they hail thee,
May!

8 Liveliness.

9 Stella; sive Amores: Elegiarum Tres Libri. Written in the year 1736.

I Six pastorals: written in the year 1734. 2 tho' • Scarcely. 4 Adorned.

THE NEW LYRE.

TO A FRIEND. 1

I STRUNG my lyre, when Love appear'd,
Demanding a light-wanton lay:
"Christ!" I began the trifler heard,
And shook his wings, and pass'd away.

The strings rebellious to my hand
Refuse to charm: in vain I sue,

The strings are mute to my demand1 broke the old, and form'd a new.

"Christ!" I began: the sacred lyre
Responsive swell'd with notes divine,
And warm'd me with seraphic-fire:
Sweet Jesus, I am only thine!

O wake to life this springing grace,
And water with thy heavenly dew:
Display the glories of thy face,
My spirit and my heart renew!

Direct my soul, direct my hand:-
O blessed change! thy pow'r I feel:
My numbers flow at thy command,
My strings with holy raptures swell.

And, you, whose pious pains unfold Those truths, receive this tribute due; You once endur'd my Muse of old, Nor scorn the firstfruits of the new.

SICKNESS, A POEM:

IN FIVE BOOKS.

BOOK I.

The Lord comfort him, when he lieth sick upon his bed; make thou all his bed in his sickness. Psalms.

ARGUMENT. Subject proposed. The folly of employing poetry on wanton or trifling subjects. Invocation of Urania. Reflections on the instability of life itself: frailuess of youth, beauty, and health. The suddenness and first attacks of a distemper, in particular of the small pox. Moral and religious observations resulting from sickness.

Of days with pain acquainted, and of nights
Unconscious of the healing balms of sleep,
That burn in restless agonies away;
Of Sickness, and its family of woes,
The fellest enemies of life, I sing,
Horizon'd close in darkness. While I touch
The ebon-instrument, of solemn tone,
Pluckt from the cypress' melancholy boughs,
Which, deep'ning, shade the house of mourning,

groans

He lent me a MS. discourse on these words "Old things are passed away, and lo! all things

arc become new."

And hollow wailings, through the damps of night,
Responsive wound the ear. The sprightly pow'rs
Of musical enchantment wave their wings,
And seek the fragrant groves and purple fields,
Where Pleasure rolls her honey-trickling streams,
Of blooming Health and laughter-dimpled Joy.

Me other scenes than laughing Joy, and Health
High-blooming, purple-living fields and groves,
Fragrant with Spring, invite. Too long the Muse,
Ah! much too long, a libertine diffus'd
On Pleasure's rosy lap, has, idly, breath'd
Love-sighing elegies, and pastoral-strains,
The soft seducers of our youthful hours,
Soothing away the vigour of the mind,
And energy of virtue. But farewel,

Ye myrtle walks, ye lily-mantied meads,
Of Paphos, and the fount of Acidale,
Where, oft, in summer, Grecian fables tell,
The daughters of Eurynome and Jove,
Thalia and her sister-Graces cool

Their glowing features, at the noontide hour,
Farewel!-But come, Urania, from thy bow'rs
Of everlasting day; O condescend

To lead thy votary (with rapt’rous zeal
Adoring Nature's God, the great Three-One!)
To Salem; where the shepherd-monarch wak'd
The sacred breath of melody, and swell'd
His harp, to angels' kindred notes attun'd,
With music worthy Heaven! O bathe my breast,
With praises burning, in the morning-dews,
Which sparkle, Sion, on thy holy hill.

The prophets, eagle-ey'd, celestial maid,
Those poets of the sky! were taught to chant
The glories of Messiah's reign by thee:
Kindled by thee, the eastern-pages flame
With light'ning, and with thunder shake the soul;
While, from the whirlwind, God's all-glorious
Bursts on the tingling ears of Job: the writ [voice
Of Moses, meek in spirit, but his thoughts
Lofty as Heav'n's blue arch. My humble hopes
Aspire but to the alpha of his song;
Where, roll'd in ashes, digging for a grave,
More earnest than the covetous for gold
Or hidden treasures crusted o'er with boils,
And roaring in the bitterness of soul,
And heart-sick pain, the man of Uz complains,
Themes correspondent to thy servant's theine.
I sing to you, ye sons of men! of dust,
Say rather: what is man, who proudly lifts
His brow audacious, as confronting Heav'n,
But moulded clay? an animated heap
And tramples, with disdain, his mother Earth,
Of dust, that shortly shall to dust return?

We dream of shadows, when we talk of life,
Of Pelops' shoulder, of Pythagoras' thigh,
Of Surius's saints, and Ovid's gods;
Mere tales to cheat our children with to rest;
And, when the tale is told, they sink to sleep,
Death's image! so inane is mortal-man!
Man's but a vapour, toss'd by every wind,
The child of smoke, which in a moment flies,
And, sinking into nothing, disappears.
Man's a brisk bubble floating on the waves
Of wide eternity: he dances now
Gay-gilded by the Sun (tho' empty proud;)
Phantastically fine! and now he drops
In a broad sheet of waters deep involv'd
And gives his place to others. O, ye song
Of vanity, remember, and be wise!
Man is a flow'r, which in the morning, fair

As day-spring, swelling from its slender stem,
In virgin-modesty, and sweet reserve,
Lays out its blushing beauties to the day,
As Gideon's fleece, full with the dews of Heav'n.
But if some ruder gale, or nipping wind,
Disastrous, blow too hard, it, weeping, mourns
In robes of darkness; it reclines its head
In languid softness; withers every grace;
And ere the ev❜ning-star the west inflames,
It falls into the portion of those weeds
Which, with a careless hand, we cast away-
Ye thoughtless fair-ones, moralize my song!
Thy pulse beats music; thou art high in health;
The rather tremble. When the least we fear,
When Folly lulls us on her couch of down,
And wine and lutes and odours fiil the sense
With their soft affluence of bewitching joys;
When years of rapture in thy fancy glow
To entertain thy youth; a sudden burst
Of thunder from the smallest cloud of Fate,
Small as the prophet's hand, destroys, confounds,
And lays thy visionary hopes in dust.
By my example taught, examples teach
Much more than precepts, learn to know thy end.
The day was Valentine's: when lovers' wounds
Afresh begin to bleed, and sighs to warm
The chilly rigour of relenting skies:
Sacred the day to innocence and mirth,
The festival of youth! in seeming health
(As custom bids) I hail'd the year's fair morn,
And with its earliest purple braid my brows,
The violet, or primrose, breathing sweets
New to the sense. lanthe by my side,
More lovely than the season! rais'd her voice,
Observant of his rites, in festal lays,
And thus addrest the patron of the Spring:
"Hail, Valentine! at thy approach benign,
Profuse of gems, the bosom of the Earth
Her fragrant stores unfoids: the fields rejoice,
And, in the infancy of plenty, smile:
The valleys laugh and sing: the woods, alive,
Sprout into floating verdure, to embow'r
Those happy lovers, who record thy praise.
"Hail, Valentine! at thy approach benign,
Inhaling genial raptures from the Sun,
The plumy nations swell the song of joy,
Thy soaring choiristers! the lark, the thrush,
And all th' aerial people, from the wren
And linnet to the eagle, feel the stings
Of amorous delight, and sing thy praise.

Hail, Valentine! at thy approach benign, Quick o'er the soft'ning soul the gentle gales Of Spring, awaking bliss, instinctive move The ardent youth to breathe the sighs of faith Into the virgin's heart; who, sick of love, With equal fires, and purity of truth, Consenting, blushes while she chants thy praise." So sung lanthe: to my heart I prest Her spotless sweetness: when, (with wonder, hear!) Tho' she shone smiling by, the torpid pow'rs Of heaviness weigh'd down my beamless eyes, And press'd them into night. The dews of death Hung, clammy, on my forehead, like the damps Of midnight sepulchres; which, silent, op'd By weeping widows, or by friendship's hand, Yawn hideous on the Moon, and blast the stars With pestilential reek. My head is torn With pangs insufferable, pulsive starts, And pungent aches, gliding thro' the brain, To madness hurrying the tormented sense,

To Thomalin? forbid it, gracious Heav'n!"

No, beauteous innocence! as soon the rose Shall poison with its balm; as soon the dove Become a white dissembler, and the stream With lulling murmurs, creeping thro' the grove, Offend the shepherd's slumber"-Scarce my tongue These fault'ring accents stammer'd, down I sink, And a lethargic stupor steeps my sense In dull oblivion: till returning pain, Too faithful monitor! and dire disease Bid me remember, pleasure is a dream, That health has eagle's wings, nor tarries long. New horrours rise. For in my pricking veins I feel the forky flame: the rapid flood Of throbbing life, excursive from the laws Of sober Nature and harmonious Health, Boils in tumultuary eddies round Its bursting channels. Parching thirst, anon, Drinks up the vital maze, as Simois dry, Or Xanthus, by the arm-ignipotent, With a red torrent of involving flames Exhausted; when Achilles with their floods Wag'd more than mortal war: the god of fire Wide o'er the waters pour'd th' inundant blaze, The shrinking waters to the bottom boil And biss in ruin. O! ye rivers, roll Your cooling crystal o'er my burning breast, For Ætna rages here! ye snows descend; Bind me in icy chains, ye northern winds, And mitigate the furies of the fire!

Good Heav'n! what hoards of unrepented guilt Have drawn this vengeance down, have rais'd this To lash me with his flames? But, O, forgive [fiend My rashness, that dares blame thy just decrees. It is thy rod: I kiss it with my heart, As well as lips: like Aaron's may it bloom With fruits of goodness: not, like Moses, turn A serpent; or, to tempt me to accuse The kind oppression of thy righteous hand, Or, sting me to despair.-Affliction, hail! Thou school of virtue! open wide thy gates, Thy gates of cbony! Yet, O, correct Thy servant, but with judgment, not in wrath, But with thy mercy, Lord! thy stripes will heal. Thus without heresy, afflictions prove A purgatory; save us as by fire: And purifying off the dross of sin, Like old Elijah's chariot, rap the soul, On wings of Meditation, to the skies.

In health we have no time to visit Truth: Health's the disease of morals: few in health Turn o'er the volumes which will make us wise. What are ye, now, ye tuneful triflers! once The eager solace of my easy hours, Ye dear deluders or of Greece or Rome, Anacreon, Horace, Virgil, Homer, what? The gay, the bright, the sober, the sublime? And ye of softer strain, ye amorous fools, Correctly indolent, and sweetly vain, Tibullus, Ovid, and the female-verse

Of her, who, plunging from Leucadia's heights, Extinguish'd, with her life, her hopeless fires, Or rose a swan, as love-struck Fancy deem'd. Who wou'd not, in these hours of wisdom, give A Vatican of wits for one saint Paul?