While every tender figh to feal our blifs,
Brought a kind vow, and every vow a kiss:
Fair, chafte, and kind, yet now no more can move,
So much my grief is stronger than my love:
Now the dear youth has left the lonely plain,
Andis the grief, who was the grace, of every British fwain.
As when fome cruel hind has borne away
The turtle's neft, and made the young his prey,
Sad in her native grove fhe fits alone,
There hangs her wings, and murmurs out her moan.
So the bright fhepherdefs, who bore the boy,
Beneath a baleful yew does weeping lie;
Nor can the fair the weighty woe fustain,
But bends, like rofes crufh'd with falling rain;
Nor from the filent earth her eyes removes,
That, weeping, languish like a dying dove's.
Not fuch her look (severe reverse of fate!)
When little Loves in every dimple fate;
And all the Smiles delighted to refort
On the calm heaven of her foft checks to fport:
Soft as the clouds mild April evenings wear,
Which drop fresh flowrets on the youthful year.
The fountain's fall can't lull her wakeful woes,
Nor poppy-garlands give the nymph repose:
Through prickly brakes, and unfrequented groves,
O'er hills and dales, and craggy cliffs, fhe roves.
And when the fpies, beneath fome filent fhade,
The daifies prefs'd, where late his limbs were laid,
To the cold print there clofe fhe joins her face,
And all with gufhing tears bedews the grass.
There with loud plaints she wounds the pitying skies,
And, oh! return, my lovely youth, she cries;
Return, Florelio, with thy wonted charms
Fill the foft circle of my longing arms.—
Ceafe, fair affliction, ceafe! the lovely boy
In Death's cold arms must pale and breathlefs lie.
The Fates can never change their first decree,
Or fure they would have chang’d this one for thee.
Pan for his Syrinx makes eternal mean,
Ceres her daughter lost, and thou thy fon.
Thy fon for ever now has left the plain,
And is the grief, who was the grace, of every British swain.
Adieu, ye mofly caves, and fhady groves,
Once happy fcenes of our fuccefsful loves:
Ye hungry herds, and bleating flocks, adieu!
Flints be your beds, and browze the bitter yew.
Two lambs alone fhall be my charge to feed,
For yearly on his grave two lambs fhall bleed.
This pledge of lafting love, dear fhade, receive.
'Tis all, alas, a fhepherd's love can give !
But grief from its own power will fet me free,
Will fend me foon a willing ghoft to thee:
Cropt in the flowery fpring of youth, I'll go
With hafty joy to wait thy fhade below:
In ever-fragrant meads, and jafmine-bowers
We'll dwell, and all Elyfium fhall be ours.
Where citron groves æthereal odours breathe,
And ftreams of flowing cryftal purl beneath;
Where all are ever young, and heavenly fair,
As here above thy fifter Graces are.
WHAT art thou, Life, whose stay we court?
What is thy rival death we fear?
Since we 're but fickle Fortune's fport,
Why fhould the wish t' inhabit here,
And think the race we find fo rough too short?
While in the womb we forming lie,
While yet the lamp of life displays
A doubtful dawn with feeble rays,
New iffuing from Non-entity;
The shell of flesh pollutes with fin
Its gem, the foul, juft enter'd in;
And, by tranfmitted vice defil'd,
The fiend commences with the child.
In this dark region future fates are bred,
And mines of fecret ruin laid:
Hot fevers here long kindling lie,
Prepar'd with flaming whips to rage,
And lafh on lingering destiny,
Whene'er excess has fir'd our riper age.
Here brood in infancy the gout and stone,
Fruits of our fathers' follies, not our own.
Ev'n with our nourishment we death receive,
For here our guiltless mothers give
Poifon for food when firft we live.
Hence noifome humours* fweat through every pore,
And blot us with an undistinguish'd fore:
Nor, mov'd with beauty, will the dire disease
Forbear on faultlefs forms to feize;
But vindicates the good, the gay,
The wife, the young, its common prey.
Had all, conjoin'd in one, had power
The Mufes had not wept o'er Blandford's grave.
The fpark of pure ætherial light
That actuates this fleeting frame,
Darts through the cloud of flesh a fickly flame,
And feems a glow-worm in a winter-night.
But man would yet look wondrous wise,
And equal chains of thought devife;
Intends his mind on mighty fchemes,
Refutes, defines, confirms, declains;
And diagrams he draws, t' explain
The learn'd chimeras of his brain;
And, with imaginary wifdom proud,
Thinks on the goddess while he clips the cloud.
Through Error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil,
Perplex'd with puzzling doubts we roam;
Falfe images our fight beguile,
But ftill we ftumble through the gloom,
And science feek, which still deludes the mind.
Yet, more enamour'd with the race,
With difproportion'd speed we urge the chace :
In vain! the various prey no bounds restrain;
Fleeting it only leaves, t' increase our pain,
A cold unfatisfying fcent behind.
Yet, gracious God! prefumptuous man
With random guesses makes pretence
To found thy fearchlefs providence
From which he first began:
Like hooded hawks we blindly tower,
And circumfcribe, with fancy'd laws, thy power.
Thy will the rolling orbs obey,
The moon, prefiding o'er the fea,
Governs the waves with equal fway:
But man perverfe, and lawless ftill,
Boldly runs counter to thy will;
Thy patient thunder he defies;
Lays down falfe principles, and moves
By what his vicious choice
And, when he's vainly wicked, thinks he 's wife.
Return, return, too long misled!
With filial fear adore thy God:
Ere the vaft deep of heaven was spread,
Or body first in space abode,
Glories ineffable adorn'd his head.
Unnumber'd feraphs round the burning throne,
Sung to th' incomprehenfible Three-One:
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