TO THE

Hon. WILMOT VAUGHAN, Efq; in WALES.

By the Same.

E distant realms that hold my friend

YE

Beneath a cold ungenial sky,

Where lab'ring groves with weight of vapours bend,

Or raving winds o'er barren mountains fly;

Restore him quick to London's focial clime,
Restore him quick to friendship, love and joy;

Be fwift, ye lazy fteeds of Time,

Ye moments, all your fpeed employ.
Behold November's glooms arife,

Pale funs with fainter glory fhine,

Dark gathering tempefts blacken in the fkies,
And fhiv'ring woods their fickly leaves refign.
Is this a time on Cambrian hills to roam,

To court disease in Winter's baleful reign,
To listen to th' Atlantic foam,

While rocks repel the roaring main,

While

While horror fills the region vaft,

Rheumatic tortures Eurus brings,

Pregnant with agues flies the northern blast,

And clouds drop quartans from their flagging wings.
Doft thou explore Sabrina's fountful fource,
Where huge Plinlimmon's hoary height afcends:
Then downward mark her vagrant course,
'Till mix'd with clouds the landscape ends?
Doft thou revere the hallow'd foil

Where Druids old fepulchred lie;

Or up cold Snowden's craggy fummits toil,
And muse on ancient favage liberty?
Ill fuit fuch walks with bleak autumnal air,
Say, can November yield the joys of May?

When Jove deforms the blafted year,
Can Wallia boast a chearful day?

The town expects thee.

Hark, around,

Through every street of gay resort,

New chariots rattle with awak'ning found,

And crowd the levees, and befiege the court.
The patriot, kindling as his wars enfue,
Now fires his foul with liberty and fame,
Marshals his threat'ning tropes anew,
And gives his hoarded thunders aim.

Now feats their abfent lords deplore,
Neglected villas empty stand,
Capacious Gro'venor gathers all its store,
And mighty London swallows up the land.
See sportive Vanity her flights begin,
See new-blown Folly's plenteous harvest rise,
See mimic beauties dye their skin,
And harlots roll their venal eyes.
Fashions are fet, and fops return,

And young coquettes in arms appear;
Dreaming of conqueft, how their bofoms burn,
Trick'd in the new fantastry of the year.
Fly then away, nor fcorn to bear a part
In this gay scene of folly amply spread :
Follies well us'd refine the heart,
And pleasures clear the ftudious head;
By grateful interchange of mirth

The toils of study sweeter grow,

As varying seasons recommend the earth,
Nor does Apollo always bend his bow.

AN

WHILE born to bring the Muse's happier days,

A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays :

While nurs❜d by you fhe fees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwither'd o'er his honour'd tomb:

Excufe her doubts, if yet fhe fears to tell

What fecret transports in her bosom swell:

With confcious awe fhe hears the critic's fame,

And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespear's name.

Hard

Hard was the lot those injur'd strains endur'd,
Unown'd by Science, and by years obfcur'd:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing fighs confefs'd
A fixt defpair in every tuneful breast.
Not with more grief th' afflicted fwains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When ling'ring frofts the ruin'd feats invade
Where Peace reforted, and the Graces play'd.
Each rifing art by juft gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves :
The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,
And grac'd with nobleft pomp her earliest stage.
Preferv'd through time, the speaking scenes impart
Each changeful wifh of Phædra's tortur'd heart:
Or paint the curfe that mark'd the Theban's reign,
A bed incestuous, and a father flain.

With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,
Trace the fad tale, and own another's woe.

To Rome remov'd, with wit fecure to please,
The Comic fifters kept their native cafe.
With jealous fear declining Greece beheld
Her own Menander's art almoft excell'd!
But every Mufe effay'd to raise in vain

Some labour'd rival of her Tragic strain;

!

The Edipus of Sophocles.

I

Ilyffus'