From filial rage and ftrife, To fcreen his clofing life, He quits his throne, a father's forrow feels, And in the lap of Want his patient head conceals, More yet remain 'd-but lo! the penfive Queen When kindling into flame, And bold in Virtue's caufe, her zeal afpires To waken guilty pangs, or breathe heroick fires. Aw'd into filence, my rapt foul attends The Power, with eyes complacent, faw my fear; And, as with grace ineffable fhe bends, Thefe accents vibrate on my lift'ning ear. Know, tho' thy feeling heart Glow with thefe wonders to thy fancy fhewn, Still may the Delian God thy powerlefs toils difown. A thousand tender fcenes of foft diftrefs May fwell thy breaft with fympathetick woes; That awful gloom, this melancholy plain, The types of every theme that fuits the TRAGICK STRAIN. Bat doft thou worship Nature night and morn, And all due honour to her precepts pay? Canft thou the lure of Affectation scorn, Pleas'd in the fimpler paths of Truth to ftray? • Haft Haft thou the Graces fair • Invok'd with ardent prayer? They must attire, as Nature muft impart, • The fentiment fublime, the language of the heart. Then, if creative Genius pour his ray, Warm with infpiring influence on thy breaft; • Affected, feel thy strain; Feel Grief or Terror, Rage or Pity move: * Change with thy varying fcenes, and every fcene approve!' Humbled before her fight, and bending low, I kifs'd the borders of her crimson veft; Eager to speak, I felt my bofom glow, The bowers, the lawn, the wood, Friend of thine, the fhepherd plays Blithfome near the yellow broom; While his flock, that careless strays, Seeks the wild thyme's sweet perfume. May, with thee I mean to rove O'er thefe lawns and vallies fair; Tune thy gentle lyre to love, Cherish hope, and foften care. Round me fhall the village fwains, While I fing, in rural strains, I had never skill to raise Peans from the vocal strings; Stranger to the hoftile plains, Where the brazen trumpets found; Life's purple stream the verdure ftains, Where the murderous cannon's breath Fate denounces from afar, And the loud report of death Stuns the cruel ear of war. Stranger to the park and play, Birth-night balls, and courtly trains; Thee I woo, my gentle May, Tune for thee my native ftrains. Blooming Blooming groves, and wand'ring rills, Sooth thy vacant poet's dreams; THE HYMN OF CLEANTHES. BY GILBERT WEST, ESQ. Under various facred names ador'd! * Cleanthes, the author of this hymn, was a difciple of Zeno. For nor in earth, nor earth-encircling floods, But wretched mortals fhun the heav'nly light; Some thro' oppofing crowds and threat'ning war, And fhed the beams of wifdom on the foul! Thofe radiant beams, by whofe all-piercing flame Thy juftice rules this univerfal frame. With honorary fongs and grateful lays, And hymn thy glorious works with ceaseless praise, The |