No social scenes of gay delight
Beguile the dreary winter night.
No strains but those of sorrow flow,
And nought be heard but sounds of woe,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o'er the silent plain.

5 Oh! baneful cause, oh! fatal morn,
Accursed to ages yet unborn!

The sons against their father stood,
The parent shed his children's blood.
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor's soul was not appeased:
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames, and murdering steel!

6 The pious mother, doom'd to death,
Forsaken wanders o'er the heath,
The bleak wind whistles round her head,
Her helpless orphans cry for bread;
Bereft of shelter, food, and friend,
She views the shades of night descend,
And, stretch'd beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies.

7 While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate,
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And, spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia! mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!

VERSES ON A YOUNG LADY

PLAYING ON A HARPSICHORD AND SINGING.

1 WHEN Sappho struck the quivering wire,
The throbbing breast was all on fire;
And when she raised the vocal lay,
The captive soul was charm'd away!

2 But had the nymph possess'd with these
Thy softer, chaster power to please,
Thy beauteous air of sprightly youth,
Thy native smiles of artless truth-

3 The worm of grief had never prey'd
"On the forsaken love-sick maid;
Nor had she mourn'd a hapless flame,
Nor dash'd on rocks her tender frame.

LOVE ELEGY.

IN IMITATION OF TIBULLUS.

1 WHERE now are all my flattering dreams of joy?
Monimia, give my soul her wonted rest;
Since first thy beauty fix'd my roving eye,
Heart-gnawing cares corrode my pensive breast.

2 Let happy lovers fly where pleasures call,
With festive songs beguile the fleeting hour;
Lead beauty through the mazes of the ball,
Or press her, wanton, in Love's roseate bower.

3 For me, no more I'll range the empurpled mead, Where shepherds pipe, and virgins dance around, Nor wander through the woodbine's fragrant shade, To hear the music of the grove resound.

4 I'll seek some lonely church, or dreary hall,

Where fancy paints the glimmering taper blue, Where damps hang mouldering on the ivied wall, And sheeted ghosts drink up the midnight dew:

5 There, leagued with hopeless anguish and despair,
A while in silence o'er my fate repine :
Then with a long farewell to love and care,
To kindred dust my weary limbs consign.

6 Wilt thou, Monimia, shed a gracious tear

On the cold grave where all my sorrows rest? Strew vernal flowers, applaud my love sincere, And bid the turf lie easy on my breast?

BURLESQUE ODE.1

WHERE wast thou, wittol Ward, when hapless fate
From these weak arms mine aged grannam tore?
These pious arms essay'd too late

To drive the dismal phantom from the door.
Could not thy healing drop, illustrious quack,
Could not thy salutary pill prolong her days,
For whom so oft to Marybone, alack!

Thy sorrels dragg'd thee, through the worst of ways?

1 Smollett, imagining himself ill-treated by Lord Lyttelton, wrote the above burlesque on that nobleman's Monody on the death of his lady.

Oil-dropping Twickenham did not then detain
Thy steps, though tended by the Cambrian maids ;
Nor the sweet environs of Drury Lane ;

Nor dusty Pimlico's embowering shades
Nor Whitehall, by the river's bank,

Beset with rowers dank;

;

Nor where the Exchange pours forth its tawny sons; Nor where, to mix with offal, soil, and blood,

Steep Snowhill rolls the sable flood;

Nor where the Mint's contamined kennel runs :
Ill doth it now beseem,

That thou should'st doze and dream,
When Death in mortal armour came,

And struck with ruthless dart the gentle dame.
Her liberal hand and sympathising breast
The brute creation kindly bless'd;
Where'er she trod, grimalkin purr'd around,
The squeaking pigs her bounty own'd;
Nor to the waddling duck or gabbling goose
Did she glad sustenance refuse;

The strutting cock she daily fed,
And turkey with his snout so red;

Of chickens careful as the pious hen,

Nor did she overlook the tom-tit or the wren,
While red-breast hopp'd before her in the hall,
As if she common mother were of all.

For my distracted mind,
What comfort can I find;

O best of grannams! thou art dead and gone,
And I am left behind to weep and moan,
To sing thy dirge in sad and funeral lay,
Oh! woe is me! alack! and well a-day!

ODE TO MIRTH.

PARENT of joy! heart-easing Mirth!
Whether of Venus or Aurora born,
Yet Goddess sure of heavenly birth,
Visit benign a son of grief forlorn :
Thy glittering colours gay,
Around him, Mirth, display,

And o'er his raptured sense
Diffuse thy living influence :

So shall each hill, in purer green array'd,
And flower adorn'd in new-born beauty glow,
The grove shall smooth the horrors of the shade,
And streams in murmurs shall forget to flow.
Shine, Goddess! shine with unremitted ray,

And gild (a second sun) with brighter beam our day.
Labour with thee forgets his pain,

And aged Poverty can smile with thee;

If thou be nigh, Grief's hate is vain,

And weak the uplifted arm of Tyranny.
The morning opes on high

His universal eye,

And on the world doth pour

His glories in a golden shower;

Lo! Darkness trembling 'fore the hostile ray,
Shrinks to the cavern deep and wood forlorn :
The brood obscene that own her gloomy sway
Troop in her rear, and fly the approaching morn;
Pale shivering ghosts that dread the all-cheering light,
Quick as the lightning's flash glide to sepulchral night.
But whence the gladdening beam

That pours his purple stream

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