And knocks with all his little force. My bow can still impel the shaft: 'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it; Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?" FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF GREAT Jove, to whose almighty throne 'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. TO EMMA. SINCE now the hour is come at last, One pang, my girl, and all is over. Which bids us part to meet no more; Which tears me far from one so dear, Departing for a distant shore. Well! we have pass'd some happy hours, Forget to scare the hovering flies, It dared to give your slumbering eyes: See still the little painted bark, In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm I clamber'd for your sake. These times are past-our joys are gone, You leave me, leave this happy vale: These scenes I must retrace alone: Without thee, what will they avail? Who can conceive, who has not proved, The anguish of a last embrace, When, torn from all you fondly loved, You bid a long adieu to peace? This is the deepest of our woes, For this these tears our cheeks bedew; This is of love the final close, O God! the fondest, last adieu! TO M. S. G. WHENE'ER I view those lips of thine, Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss. For that would banish its repose. I ne'er have told my love, yet thou Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be. Then let the secret fire consume, Let it consume, thou shalt not know: With joy I court a certain doom, Rather than spread its guilty glow. I will not ease my tortured heart, Each thought presumptuous I resign. Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair, TO CAROLINE. THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine, The tears that from my eyelids flow'd Were lost in those which fell from thine. Thou could'st not feel my burning cheek, Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame; And as thy tongue essay'd to speak, In sighs alone it breathed my name. And yet, my girl, we weep in vain, In vain our fate in sighs deplore; Remembrance only can remain But that will make us weep the more. Again, thou best beloved, adieu! Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret ; Nor let thy mind past joys review— Our only hope is to forget! For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this. Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright'ning, Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage, On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning, With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage. But now tears and curses, alike unavailing, Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight: Could they view us our sad separation bewailing, Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight. Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resignation, Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer, Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation; In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear. Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me, Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are fled? If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee, Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead. STANZAS TO A LADY, WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOENS. THIS votive pledge of fond esteem, reprove, I court the effusions that spring from the heart, Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love. Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move: Arcadia displays but a region of dreams: What are visions like these to the first kiss of love? Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove; Some portion of paradise still is on earth, And Eden revives in the first kiss of love. When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past For years fleet away with the wings of the dove The dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love. ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own With florid jargon, and with vain parade; TO THE DUKE OF DORSET. DORSET! whose early steps with mine have stray'd, Exploring every path of Ida's glade; The gift of riches, and the pride of power; When youthful parasites, who bend the knee To wealth, their golden idol, not to theeAnd even in simple boyhood's opening dawn Some slaves are found to flatter and to fawnWhen these declare, "that pomp alone should wait On one by birth predestined to be great; For well I know that virtue lingers there. Yes! I have mark'd thee many a passing day, But now new scenes invite me far away; Yes! I have mark'd within that generous mind A soul, if well matured, to bless mankind. Ah! though myself by nature haughty, wild, Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favourite child: Though every error stamps me for her own, And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone; Though my proud heart no precept now can tame, I love the virtues which I cannot claim. 'Tis not enough, with other sons of power, To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour; To swell some peerage page in feeble pride, With long-drawn names that grace no page beside; Then share with titled crowds the common lotIn life just gazed at, in the grave forgot: While nought divides thee from the vulgar des Except the dull cold stone that hides thy hea The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's re That well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll, Where lords, unhonour'd, in the tomb may find One spot, to leave a worthless name behind. Turn to the annals of a former day; The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close, were mine: Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue, Since the same senate, nay, the same debate, For me, in future, neither friend nor foe, A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe, With thee no more again I hope to trace The recollection of our early race; No more, as once, in social hours rejoice, Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice: Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught To veil those feelings which perchance it ought, If these but let me cease the lengthen'd strain: Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in vain, The guardian seraph who directs thy fate Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee FRAGMENT. great. WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF HILLS of Annesley! bleak and barren, Now no more the hours beguiling, Former favourite haunts I see; Now no more my Mary smiling Makes ye seem a heaven to me. GRANTA: A MEDLEY. Αργυρέαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα On! could Le Sage's demon's gift * This night my trembling form he'd lift Then would, unroof'd, old Granta's halls Lo! candidates and voters lie All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number: A race renown'd for piety, Whose conscience won't disturb their slum- Lord H-, indeed, may not demur; I'll turn mine eye, as night grows later, The studious sons of Alma Mater. To scan precisely metres Attic: In solving problems mathematic: Which bring together the imprudent: * The Diable Boiteux of Le Sage, where Asmodeus, the demon, places Don Cleofas on an elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for inspection. Whose daring revels shock the sight, As every sense is steep'd in wine. Who plans of reformation lay: In humble attitude they sue, And for the sins of others pray: Forgetting that their pride of spirit, Their exultation in their trial, Detracts most largely from the merit Of all their boasted self-denial. "Tis morn :-from these I turn my sight. What scene is this which meets the eye? A numerous crowd, array'd in white, Across the green in numbers fly. Loud rings in air the chapel bell; 'Tis hush'd-what sounds are these I hear? The organ's soft celestial swell Rolls deeply on the listening ear. To such a set of croaking sinners. Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended In furious mood he would have tore 'em. The luckless Israelites, when taken Oh! had they sung in notes like these, They might have set their hearts at ease, But if I scribble longer now, The deuce a soul will stay to read: ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND SCHOOL OF HARROW-ON-THEHILL. "Oh! mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos." VIRGIL. YE scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection Embitters the present, compared with the past; Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection, And friendships were form'd, too romantic to last; Where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied, How welcome to me your ne'er-fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied! Again I revisit the hills where we sported, The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought; The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted, To pore o'er the precepts by pedagogues taught. Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd, As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay: Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd, To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray. I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown; While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.* Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast; Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you: Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest. To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me, While fate shall the shades of the future unroll! Since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me, More dear is the beam of the past to my soul. But if, through the course of the years which | await me, Some new scene of pleasure should open to view, I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me, "Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew!" TO M. OH! did those eyes, instead of fire, Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam, That fatal glance forbids esteem, When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth, So much perfection in thee shone, She fear'd that, too divine for earth, The skies might claim thee for their own: Therefore, to guard her dearest work, Lest angels might dispute the prize, She bade a secret lightning lurk Within those once celestial eyes. for his performance of Zanga. * Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous 1 |