Vain was in sculptured domes thy trust:
Vainly thou breath'd'st in every bust;
Thy gorgeous temples sink to dust!
Of Phidias mangled heaps remain ;
Of Xeuxis but a name;

Whilst slumbering nations wake at Homer's strain,
And dazzled votaries veil at Pindar's flame.
Thy mortal body fades away;

Thy soul immortal springs to deathless day!
Alas, how changed thy classic scene;
Still Athens breathes her air serene;
Still fragrance down her vallies floats;
Still echo there in softened notes
Sweet songs of love from maidens fair;
But vanished now is Greece's spell;
Her cities of the spoiler tell;

Degenerate and unmourned she fell,
When weeping Genius fled before Despair.

IV.

Where didst thou fly? Imperial Rome,
With thee awhile the Spirit staid;
And vassal nations owned thy doom,
And the world trembled and obeyed.
Then Virgil's song and Tully's speech,
Seemed half the Grecian strength to reach ;
Till luxury and vice with victory came,
And Genius fled away!

Where heavenly Spirit did'st thou stray
Thro' that long night in which no genial ray

Flashed thy undying flame?

Say, did'st thou seek in rosy bowers, The lovely maids of Cachmire's vale,

Re-echoing through the moonlight hours,

The warblings of the nightingale?

Or didst thou wake in Iceland's storms,
The magic notes of Odin's shell,

And mid Valhalla's shadowy forms,
Sing those who conquered, those who fell?
Or did'st thou in a world unknown,
Pour the wild Indian's warlike tone,
Where courage, seeking but to die,
Climbs undesigned the heights of Poesy?

Still lingering in thy lovely Italy,

When Europe from her trance awoke,
Thy meteor fire in Dante's vision broke,
And in Orlando's tale of witchery.

Then was it quenched :-and then was heard,
In northern climes thy gifted word.
Scarce on the flowery plains of France,
Ethereal Genius, did'st thou glance;

Scarce from the mitred prelate roll,

One peal of eloquence to shake the soul;

While England, happy England, was thy home!
O never more to roam!

Shakspeare and Spenser claimed thee all;

And he who sang of Eden's fall,

Sightless himself to give to others sight;

And the long train of bards in heaven-born radiance bright.

O Genius of the liquid lay!

How sweetly in her evil day,

O'er Albion's hills thy visions play,

And breathe thy spirit ever;

Here fix thy dwelling-place and say,

England, I leave thee never."

VI.

O vain and idle prayer! To give
Unbounded spirit bounds to live!
Where liv'st thou not? Let pedants tell,
That only shut in Learning's cell,
Or in the Minstrel's lighter spell,
Thy magic shines confest;

Still let them pour their narrow strife;
Thou liv'st wherever man has life!
Wherever love can warm the breast,
Where'er the hero's glories rest;
Where'er the peasant's mountain nest,
Is snatched from tyranny.

Yes! from Arabia's burning zone,

To where from giant nature's gorgeous throne,
The northern Indian views lake, river, tree,
Majestic as the sky's bright panoply,
And calls them all his own,

The earth his vassal, man, man only free!
Yes, even there, or on the Lapland rock,
Which seems the sounding surge to mock,
The fisher whose unceasing toil,

From ocean plucks his scanty spoil,

And, like the eagle in his eyrie shares,

With one dear mate his joys, his griefs, his cares;

Yes even with him, blest Genius, may'st thou dwell,

And though the grand ideas that swell

His bursting spirit, scarce his tongue can tell,

Yet not extinct, tho' smothered is thy flame,

And brighter the wild flash that none may claim,
And dearer is its power,

To cheer the toilsome hour,

Than the forced sickly blaze that lends wit's flickering

fame.

Genius! presumptuous reason may not dare
Thy bounds to scan;

But where is love, and liberty, and man,
Genius, thou wilt be there!

IMPROMPTU

WRITTEN IN THE

IRISH MELODIES OF MY DAUGHTER, S. I. 1809.

BY EYLES IRWIN, ESQ.

THO' o'er the wild notes of thy native isle,
The novel grace of STEVENSON be thrown;
As beauty points her arrows with a smile,

And VENUS Ow'd her witchcraft to a zone:
Tho' still the strain of CAROLAN must charm,
Your song, IERNE's daughters! still endure;
Pure, as it flows, with richer colours warm,
With all the wit and elegance of MOORE:
Yet, to these MELODIES, from chasten'd art,
SELINA's magic harp! shall praise redound-
Haste, strike the chords! and to the feeling heart
The light of taste convey, and soul of sound!

REPLY TO A POEM OF LORD VAUX.

"I LOATH THAT I HAVE LOV'D," &c.

BY J. THELWALL, ESQ.

I..

I Do not loath that I have lov'd,
Tho' years came stealing on;
Or that the sweetest joys I prov'd,
Ere time of joy was gone.

11.

I do not loath that I have lov'd,
Or that my love was fair;
For love's return to me hath prov'd
The balm of every care.

For let but virtue, hand in hand
With youthful passion go,-

The love that's knit with reason's band
Repentance ne'er shall know.