Not always did repining rue, And misery her steps pursue, Time was, when nobles thought their titles graced, When Sheffield joined the harmonious throng, How different thought the sires of this degenerate race"" I. 2. Thus sang the minstrel :-still at eve And still his shame was aye the same, Neglect had stung him to the core; And muse on all his sorrows o'er, And vow that he would join the abjured world no more, II. 2. But human vows, how frail they be! The Augustan age anew. Filled with wild rapture, up he rose, And hails the ideal day of virtuous eminence. III. 2. Ah! silly man, yet smarting sore, An unsubstantial prop at best, And not to know one swallow makes no summer! Illumining the darkness there, Was but a simple solitary beam, While all around remained in customed night. Still leaden ignorance reigns serene, In the false court's delusive height, And only one Carlisle is seen, To illumine the heavy gloom with pure and steady light. DESCRIPTION OF A SUMMER'S EVE. DOWN the sultry arc of day, The burning wheels have urged their way, And Eve along the western skies Sheds her intermingling dyes. Down the deep, the miry lane, The barn is still, the master's gone, supper messes in the cans; In the hovel carts are wheeled, And both the colts are drove a-field; The horses are all bedded up, Now on the settle all, but Bess, And little Tom, and roguish Kate, TO CONTEMPLATION. COME, pensive sage, who lovest to dwell In some retir'd Lapponian cell, Where far from noise, and riot rude, Resides sequestered solitude. Come, and o'er my longing soul I will meet thee on the hill, Where, with printless footstep still The morning in her buskin grey, Springs upon her eastern way; While the frolic zephyrs stir, Playing with the gossamer, And, on ruder pinions borne, Shake the dew-drops from the thorn. There, as o'er the fields we pass, Brushing with hasty feet the grass, We will startle from her nest, The lively lark with speckled breast, And hear the floating clouds among Her gale-transported matin song, Or on the upland stile embower'd, With fragrant hawthorn snowy flowered, Will sauntering sit, and listen still, To the herdsman's oaten quill, Wafted from the plain below; Or the heifer's frequent low: Or the milkmaid in the grove, Singing of one that died for love. Or when the noon-tide heats oppress, We will seek the dark recess, |