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And sing the' infusive force of Spring on man;
When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie
To raise his being, and serene his soul.
Can he forbear to join the general smile
Of Nature? Can fierce passions vex his breast,
While every gale is peace, and every grove
Is melody? Hence! from the bounteous walks
Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of Earth,
Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe,
Or only lavish to yourselves,-away!

But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought,
Of all His works, creative Bounty burns
With warmest beam; and on your open front,
And liberal eye, sits, from his dark retreat
Inviting modest Want.

Nor, till invoked,

Can restless goodness wait: your active search
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored;
Like silent-working Heaven, surprising oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good.
For you the roving spirit of the wind
Blows Spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world;
And the Sun sheds his kindest rays for you,
Ye flower of human race! In these green days,
Reviving Sickness lifts her languid head:
Life flows afresh; and young-eyed Health exalts
The whole creation round.

Contentment walks

The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Pure serenity apace

Induces thought, and contemplation still.
By swift degrees the love of Nature works,
And warms the bosom; till at last, sublimed
To rapture, and enthusiastic heat,
We feel the present Deity, and taste
The joy of God to see a happy world!

These are the sacred feelings of thy heart,
Thy heart inform'd by reason's purer ray,
O Lyttelton, the friend! thy passions thus
And meditations vary, as at large,

Courting the Muse, through Hagley-Park you stray;
Planning, with warm benevolence of mind,

And honest zeal, unwarp'd by party-rage,
Britannia's weal; how from the venal gulf
To raise her virtue, and her arts revive.
Perhaps thy loved Lucinda shares thy walk,
With soul to thine attuned. Then Nature all
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love;
And all the tumult of a guilty world,
Toss'd by ungenerous passions, sinks away.
The tender heart is animated peace;
And as it pours its copious treasures forth,
In varied converse, softening every theme,
You, frequent pausing, turn, and from her eyes,
Where meeken'd sense, and amiable grace,
And lively sweetness dwell, enraptured drink
That nameless spirit of ethereal joy,
Inimitable happiness! which love,

Alone, bestows, and on a favour'd few.

Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow
The bursting prospect spreads immense around:
And snatch'd o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn,
And verdant field, and darkening heath between,
And villages embosom'd soft in trees,

And spiry towns by surging columns mark'd
Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams:
Wide-stretching from the Hall, in whose kind haunt
The hospitable genius lingers still,

To where the broken landscape, by degrees,
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills;

O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.

O happy they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend. "T is not the coarser tie of human laws, Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind, That binds their peace, but harmony itself, Attuning all their passions into love; Where friendship full exerts her softest Perfect esteem, enliven'd by desire Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

power,

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence: for nought but love

Can answer love, and render bliss secure :
While those whom love cements in holy faith,

And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Disdaining fear.

What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all?
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish;
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumined face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven!

Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
O, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart:
An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;
And thus their moments fly.

The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads :
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;
When, after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly

To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

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247

SELECTIONS FROM LORD LYTTELTON.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE FIRST LADY
LYTTELTON.

A MONODY.

Ar length escaped from every human eye,

From every duty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss the happiest love
Can on the' ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.
Ye tufted groves, ye gently-falling rills,
Ye high o'ershadowing hills,

Ye lawns gay-smiling with eternal green,
Oft have you my Lucy seen!

But never shall you now behold her more:
Nor will she now with fond delight

And taste refined your rural charms explore.
Closed are those beauteous eyes in endless night,
Those beauteous eyes where beaming used to shine
Reason's pure light and Virtue's spark divine.
Oft would the Dryads of these woods rejoice
To hear her heavenly voice;

For her despising, when she deign'd to sing,
The sweetest songsters of the spring:
The woodlark and the linnet pleased no more;
The nightingale was mute,

And every shepherd's flute

Was cast in silent scorn away,
While all attended to her sweeter lay.
Ye larks and linnets, now resume your song.
And thou, melodious Philomel,

Again thy plaintive story tell;

For Death hath stopp'd that tuneful tongue, Whose music could alone your warbling notes excel.

In vain I look around

O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we used to walk,

Where oft in tender talk

We saw the summer Sun go down the sky;
Nor by yon fountain's side,
Nor where its waters glide

Along the valley, can she now be found:
In all the wide-stretch'd prospect's ample bound,

No more my

mournful

Can aught of her espy,

eye

But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

O shades of Hagley, where is now your boast?
Your bright inhabitant is lost.

You she preferr'd to all the gay resorts
Where female vanity might wish to shine,
The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts.
Her modest beauties shunn'd the public eye:
To your sequester'd dales

And flower-embroider'd vales

From an admiring world she chose to fly:
With Nature there retired, and Nature's God,
The silent paths of wisdom trod,

And banish'd every passion from her breast,
But those, the gentlest and the best,
Whose holy flames with energy divine
The virtuous heart enliven and improve,
The conjugal and the maternal love.

Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns
By your delighted mother's side,

Who now your infant steps shall guide?
Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care
Το every virtue would have form'd your youth,
And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth?
O loss beyond repair!

O wretched father! left alone,

To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own!
How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe,
And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave,
Perform the duties that you doubly owe,

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