Inspiration, Nature's child,

Seek the folitary wild.

IV.

You with the tragic Mufe' retir'd
The wife Euripides infpir'd,

You taught the fadly-pleafing air
That Athens fav'd from ruins bare.
You gave the Cean's tears to flow,
And unlock'd the fprings of woe;
You penn'd what exil'd Nafo thought,
And pour'd the melancholy note.

With Petrarch o'er Valclufe

you stray'd, When Death fnatch'd his 'long-lov'd maid;

You taught the rocks her loss to mourn,
You ftrew'd with flowers her virgin urn.
And late in Hagley you were seen,
With blood-shed eyes, and fombre mien,
Hymen his yellow vestment tore,
And Dirge a wreath of cyprefs wore.

But chief your own the folemn lay

That wept Narciffa

young and

gay,

f In the island Salamis.

8 See Plutarch in the life of Lyfander.

Simonides.

i Laura, twenty years, and ten after her death. * Monody on the death of Mrs. Lyttelton.

Darkness

Darkness clap'd her fable wing,

While you touch'd the mournful string,

Anguish left the pathlefs wild,
Grim-fac'd Melancholy fmil'd,
Drowly Midnight ceas'd to yawn,
The starry hoft put back the dawn,
Afide their harps ev'n Seraphs flung
To hear thy fweet Complaint, O Young.
V.

When all Nature's hush'd asleep,

Nor Love nor Guilt their vigils keep,

Soft

you leave your cavern'd den,
And wander o'er the works of men.
But when Phosphor brings the dawn,
By her dappled courfers drawn,
Again you to the wild retreat

And the early huntsman meet,
Where as you perfive pace along,
You catch the distant fhepherd's fong,
Or brush from herbs the pearly dew,
Or the rifing primrose view.

Devotion lends her heav'n-plum'd wings,

You mount, and Nature with you fings.

VOL. IV.

R

But

But when mid-day fervors glow,
To upland airy fhades you go,

Where never funburnt woodman came,
Nor sportsman chas'd the timid game;
And there beneath an oak reclin'd,

With drowsy waterfalls behind,

You fink to rest.

'Till the tuneful bird of night
From the neighb'ring poplar's height.
Wake you with her folemn strain,

And teach pleas'd Echo to complain.

VI.

With you rofes brighter bloom,

Sweeter every fweet perfume,
Purer every fountain flows,

Stronger every wilding grows.

VII.

Let thofe toil for gold who please,
Or for fame renounce their ease.
What is fame? an empty bubble,
Gold? a tranfient, fhining trouble.
Let them for their country bleed,

What was Sidney's, Raleigh's meed?

Man's

Man's not worth a moment's pain,

Base, ungrateful, fickle, vain.

Then let me, fequefter'd fair,
To your Sibyl grot repair,
On yon hanging cliff it ftands
Scoop'd by Nature's falvage hands,
Bofom'd in the gloomy fhade
Of cypress not with age decay'd.
Where the owl still-hooting fits,
Where the bat inceffant flits,
There in loftier ftrains I'll fing
Whence the changing seasons spring,
Tell how storms deform the skies,
Whence the waves fubfide and rise,
Trace the comet's blazing tail,
Weigh the planets in a scale;

Bend, great God, before thy fhrine,

The bournless macrocofm's thine.

VIII.

Save me! what's yon fhrouded shade, That wanders in the dark-brown glade ? It beckons me! —vain fears adieu,

Mysterious ghost, I follow you,

Ah me! too well that gait I know,

My youth's first friend, my manhood's woe!
Its breaft it bares! what! ftain'd with blood?
Quick let me ftanch the vital flood.
O fpirit, whither art thou flown?
Why left me comfortless alone?
O Solitude, on me bestow

The heart-felt harmony of woe,

Such, fuch, as on th' Ausonian fhore,
Sweet' Dorian Mofchus trill'd of yore:

No time fhould cancel thy defert,

*

m

More, more, than " Bion was, thou wert.

IX.

O goddess of the tearful eye,

The never-ceafing stream supply.

Let us with Retirement go

To charnels, and the house of woe,

O'er Friendship's herfe low-drooping mourn,

Where the fickly tapers burn,

Where Death and nun-clad Sorrow dwell,
And nightly ring the folemn knell.

1 See Idyll.

m Alluding to the death of a friend.

The