ODE TO PHILOCLEA.

BY THE LATE REV. R. POTTER.

OH Philoclea! e'er I saw those eyes
No calm Philosopher was half so wise:
The brightest charms that beauty shows,
I unconcern'd beheld,

As we behold the flower that glows
Upon th' enamel'd field;

And eyes might shine; to me they shone in vain,
They never touch'd my heart, or gave me pain.

The tyrant Love, to vindicate his power,
Led me where well he knew I must adore;
To you he led me-Oh my heart!
Shou'd I to Wisdom fly?

But Wisdom took the Tyrant's part,
And help'd his victory.

With raptur'd eyes I hung upon the sight,
And lost myself in wonder and delight.

So heav'nly bright the beam of beauty shin'd,
It left your image priuted on my mind.

My mind how chang'd! For from that hour
I lost my liberty;
And nothing now is in my power,

But to adore and sigh;

For from that hour whate'er I say, or do,
Or think, or wish, is you, and only you.

Oft as I hear the mention of your name,
My mantling blood glows conscious of my flame:
But if I touch that tender hand,

(Ye wise, in nature read,

Who Love's deep myst'ries understand,
Say whence it can proceed,)

I feel a delicate and pleasing pain

Thrill in each nerve, and glide thro' every vein

Where'er I go, I bear your form about;
I shut my eyes, but cannot shut you out.
What shall I do? With books I try
To mitigate my pain;
But my fond fancy will apply

To you the glowing strain;

To you the Poet's praises must belong,
The Mira or Orinda of the song.

Forgive me heav'n! when o'er the sacred page, Where holy truths th' enraptur'd mind engage; Truths, which the glowing bosom fire

With a diviner ray,

And bid th' exulting soul aspire
To heav'n's eternal day;

I see you more than fairest angels fair,
And think my heav'n will be to love you there.

HARK, how the chill north chides among the trees,
Making us shrink and shiver at the sound'!
See, how the snow comes beating in the breeze,
And covers with unkindly cold the ground!
Keen cuts the cold with bitter-biting hate,
And sad th' unsightly season's stormy state.

The writer of Mr. Waller's Life, prefixed to his Poems, observes, "that the way of using the same initial letters in a line, which throws the verse off more easily, was first introduced by him (Waller.) And Mr. Dryden imitated it to affectation, as some others since him have also done." Happily for Poetry Mr. Waller had read the Roman Poets, and studied the harmony of Spenser, who has scattered this beauty through his Works with an unsparing hand. Indeed there is hardly a grace in all the regions of Poetry which Mr. Dryden did not seize and improve; but the affectation is to be looked for in Writers of a different class. Instances abound. Virgil in the fourth Georgic describes the rise of his rivers with all the magic of poetic numbers,

Unde Pater Tiberinus, et unde Aniena fluenta,
Saxosumque sonans Hypanis, &c.

4Writer, who thought he could never be Poet enough, determined
to be even with his master; so he tosses the Alps, one knows not
how,

The dainty daisy, and the primrose pale,
The silver'd snow-drop, and the violet blue,
The gorgeous daffodil that decks the dale,

The crocus glitt'ring in his golden hue,

Fold up their silken leaves, and droop their heads,
As they wou'd shrink again into their beds.

Mute is the music of the thrush's throat;
No more the lively linnet sweetly sings;
Hush'd is the light lark's wildly-warbled note,
And the gay goldfinch droops his gaudy wings;
The robin-red-breast, indigent and chill,
Knocks at the casement with familiar bill.

Pierc'd with the eager air the hardy hind,
Wrapt in his coarse-spun duffield bends along;
And hastens homeward from the wintry wind,
Nor chears his journey with one jocund song:
The houseless herds from such a raging sky
For shelter to the friendly hedge-rows fly.

This is the mirror of my mournfull mind,

All there is winter's waste, alas the while! For thou, my Philoclea, art unkind,

Ah! too unkind to bless me with a smile : All as the year with wrathfull winter wasted, The budding blossoms of my joys are blasted.

how, into the end of an act, melts their snows, tumbles them into the Rhone, and makes them

United there roll rapidly away,

And roaring reach o'er rugged rocks the sea.

thus by putting this beauty on the rack he has distorted every feature, and destroyed every grace; and so it will often happen, that an acknowledged excellence in a great Writer fills half the land with imitating Fools

Mirth, goddess gay, my pensive breast forsakes,
The lightly-tripping train of pleasures flies;
Here his sad seat mute Melancholy makes,

And dull Despair, the god of dolefull sighs: With chiding blasts blow, blow thou winter's wind, Thy murmurs are meet music for my mind.

But when the genial ruler of the year

Chears the glad vallies with a vernal ray, Deck'd in their lovely liveries they appear,

With blooming bushes and fresh flowrets gay: Pruning their painted plumes the sweet birds sing, The hills, the dales, the woods, the fountains ring.

So, Philoclea, shou'dst thou sweetly smile

In pity of my painfull pangs of love, That smile wou'd every cruel care beguile,

And wastfull winter from my heart remove; Rose-robed the sprightly spring wou'd revel here, And own thee for the ruler of my year.

TO THE PAINTER :

ON

MRS. LONGE'S PICTURE OF SPIXWORTH.

BY THE SAME.

THY skill, we know, can figure out the fair, Draw the bright form, and give the gracefull air;

Bid the free ringlets elegantly flow,

To shade the swelling bosom's mimic snow;