Yet for awhile let the bewilder'd soul
Find in society relief from woe;

O, yield awhile to Friendship's soft control;
Some respite, Friendship, wilt thou not bestow!
Come then, Philander! for thy lofty mind
Looks down from far on all that charms the
great;

For thou canst bear, unshaken and resign'd,
The brightest smiles, the blackest frowns of
Fate:

Come thou, whose love unlimited, sincere,
Nor faction cools, nor injury destroys;
Who lend'st to Misery's moans a pitying ear,
And feel'st with ecstasy another's joys:

Who know'st man's frailty; with a favouring eye
And melting heart, behold'st a brother's fall;
Who, unenslaved by custom's narrow tie,

With manly freedom follow'st reason's call.

And bring thy Delia, softly smiling fair,
Whose spotless soul no sordid thoughts deform;
Her accents mild would still each throbbing care,
And harmonize the thunder of the storm:

Though bless'd with wisdom, and with wit refined, She courts not homage, nor desires to shine; In her each sentiment sublime is join'd

To female sweetness and a form divine.

Come, and dispel the deep surrounding shade: Let chasten'd mirth the social hours employ; O, catch the swift wing'd hour before 'tis fled, On swiftest pinion flies the hour of joy.

E'en while the careless disencumber'd soul
Dissolving sinks to Joy's oblivious dream,
E'en then to Time's tremendous verge we roll
With haste impetuous down life's surgy stream.
Can Gaiety the vanish'd years restore,

Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed, Or soothe the sad inevitable hour,

Or cheer the dark, dark mansions of the dead? Still sounds the solemn knell in Fancy's ear,

That call'd Cleora to the silent tomb;

To her how jocund roll'd the sprightly year! How shone the nymph in beauty's brightest bloom!

Ah! Beauty's bloom avails not in the grave,
Youth's lofty mien, nor age's awful grace;
Moulder unknown the monarch and the slave,
Whelm'd in the' enormous wreck of human race.

The thought-fix'd portraiture, the breathing bust,
The arch with proud memorials array'd,
The longlived pyramid shall sink in dust
To dumb oblivion's ever desert shade.

Fancy from comfort wanders still astray,

Ah Melancholy! how I feel thy power! Long have I labour'd to elude thy sway! But 'tis enough, for I resist no more.

The traveller thus, that o'er the midnight-waste Through many a lonesome path is doom'd to

roam,

Wilder'd and weary sits him down at last; For long the night, and distant far his home.

BEATTIE.

TO WISDOM.

O WISDOM! not to thee the song of praise
I wake triumphant, or the votive strain;
My spirit sinks-my strength, my life decays—
To thee my heart would sorrow and complain.
Didst thou not win my childhood's giddy years,

"Till well the hornbook task, the sacred lay, The tale I learn'd, by others conn'd with tears, And right could spell the column's long array: 'Till mid her rosy school the learned dame,

Call'd me in favour near her wheel to stand; Oft shared her sway, as earlier evenings came, And bade me lisping teach her lisping band? Didst thou not charm my step with kindliest smile, New worlds of growing labour to explore; Teach me on ciphers ciphers high to pile,

Wake my young pride, and lure me to thy lore? My boyish mind in trance enraptured hold Mid heroes-giants-all that wondrous seem'd, The hermit, sailor, and the outlaw bold,

While eastern genii through my slumbers
gleam'd?

And rude I deem'd, and all unfit to please,
Each thoughtless pastime of the youthful day;
To guide the skiff, and lean along the breeze,
The gleaning covey's whirring flight to stay;
With hound and horn to cheer the woodland's side,
And catch each bliss to bounding vigour known,
Or skim with mimic fly the mountain tide,
That silvery eddies round the hoary stone.

E'en mid my schoolmates on the sunny plain,
Oft when their earnest sports I seem'd to share,
How have I learn'd with meditating pain,

The morrow's task in secret to prepare.

Didst thou not touch with fire my graver mind,

And nature's mysteries promise to unfold; And cheer me while I toil'd to thee resign'd, Through all the sage had taught, the scholar told?

Didst thou pot whisper dreams of deathless fame,
Of matchless bliss bestow'd by thee alone;
Of grateful ages and the loud acclaim

Of friends, who in my triumphs felt their own?—

Oh! with what rapture as thy guidance led Through thy fresh landscapes did my steps

pursue;

Bright flowers and prospects fair before me spread, And still I onward press'd, still ardent flew.

Why, Wisdom, dimmer glows thy angel form, Less beauteous why thy flowers and landscapes all;

Less gay thy prospects, and thy skies less warm, And why these chilling glooms that round me fall?

Where is thy bliss-thy fame-thy mysteries where?

-Thee while I follow, Time already, see, Has touch'd with blighting hand my auburn hair, And smiles contemptuous when I point to thee.

-Oh carol as thou goest, thou village hind! And whistle as thou break'st the furrow'd plain; Gay is thy heart, for vacant is thy mind,

Not thine the thoughts that labouring mourn in vain.

Ye, too, who sport in pleasure's rosy ray,

Who mock the student and his griefs despise, To me all maniac seem'd your frolics gay;

Yet bless'd your madness, and your folly wise. Can learning's toil the Eternal Cause reveal,

Say why thus mix'd our virtues and our doom, Teach what the powers within that think and feel, Or tell the shuddering secrets of the tomb? These splendid wonders and these mysteries high, Are these for reasoning man too poor a theme? Can helpless nature cast on these her eye,

And long not, sigh not for a brighter beam?

Ye glittering stars, that while to heaven I raise My thoughts, in wilder'd musings lost-destroy'd

Ye glittering stars, that meet my lonely gaze,
In careless grandeur scatter'd o'er the void;
Ye worlds on worlds, that silent and serene,
Seem nought of trouble or of pain to know;
Oh dwells there aught within your distant scene,
Aught that can think and feel, like man below?
Ye spirits, that, secure from earthly woes,

Far through yon azure realms in rapture speed;
Or soar where full the living glory flows,
And hymn at heaven's high throne the' ecstatic
meed;

VOL. IV.

BB