While round her steps their leaves exhale, And when her eye again shall trace When soft the streams of Twilight heave O bid the soothing cadence die, That lunar spirits round thy shrine Chaunt to their heaven-strung harps divine; Waking the holiest dreams of rest. EPIGRAM. TO A LIVING AUTHOR. ADELINE. YOUR Comedy I've read, my Friend, HORACE, LIB. 1, ODE 5. TRANSLATED BY E. L. SWIFT, ESQ. TO PYRRHA. 1. WHAT slender youth, all-odor'd, presses Thee, Pyrrha, in the roseate shade ? For whom thine auburn-flowing tresses, Simply becoming, dost thou braid? 2. How oft, alas, by thee forsaken, 3. Who now enjoys, too fond believer, 4. Ah wretch, by whom untried thy beauty! My votive tablet on his fane Shews my dank weeds, with grateful duty Hung to the Ruler of the Main. 1802. VERSES ADDRESSED, IN 1782, TO MR. WRIGHT, OF DERBY. BY ANNA SEWARD. 1. THOU, in whose breast the gentle Virtues shine; 2. And shou'd in vain my feeble arm extend, 3. Yet thy bright tablet, with unfading hues, 4. Brought every gem the mines of Knowledge hide, Cull'd roseate wreaths from Fancy's flowery plains, And with their mingled stores new bands supplied, That bind the Sister-Arts in closer chains. *Mr. Hayley celebrated Mr. Wright's talent in his first work EPISTLES ON PAINTING. 5. What living lights, ingenious Artist! stream 6. * Charm'd, as we mark, beneath thy magic hand, What sweet repose surrounds the sombrous scene, Where, fring'd with wood, yon moon-bright cliffs expand, The curl'd waves twinkling, as they wind between, 7. Start, as on high thy red Vesuvius glares, 8. Sigh, where, 'mid twilight shades, yon pile sublime, Where nurs'd by thee, poetic ivies climb, 9. Or weep for Julia in her sea-girt cave, * "Mr. Wright's MOONLIGHT VIEWS OF MATLOCK;"—his "VESUVIUS ;"-his "VIRGIL'S TOMB ;"-and his "JULIA,”banished to a desert Island by her Grandfather, Augustus Cesar, for her amours with Ovid, 10. Now, ardent Wright, from thy creative hand, 11. O, when his Urn shall drink my falling tears, ON WIT *. BY ANNA SEWARD. WIT must at once be vigorous, light, and gay, Pope thus defines wit True wit is nature to advantage drest, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest. This by no means appears an accurate definition. Wit, to deserve its name, must in some degree strike and surprise, and to produce those effects novelty of idea is even more necessary than felicity of expression; tho' to the perfection of that rare faculty, both are necessary. |