TO THE MEMORY

OF

'TH E S A M E L A DY.

А MONODY. A. D. 1747.

“ Ipse.cavâ solans ægrum testudine amorem, " Te dulcis conjux, te folo in littore secum, .“. Te veniente die, te. decedente canebat."

I.

a

AT-length escap'd 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 forrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,

And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpaffing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love

Can on th' ennobled mind bestow, "Exceeds the vulgar joys that move Our grofs desires, inelegant and low.

II. Y¢

II.
*Ye tufted groves, ye gently-falling rills,

Ye high o’ershadowing hills,
Ye lawns gay-smiling with eternal green,

Oft have you my Lucy feen!
But never

shall

you now behold her more :
Nor will the now with fond delight
And taste refin’d your rural charms explore.
Clos’d'are those beauteous eyes in endless night,
Those beauteous eyes where beaming us’d to shine
Reason's pure light, and Virtue's fpark divine.

III.

Oft would the Dryads of these woods rejoice

To hear her heavenly voice;
For her defpifing, when the deign'd to sing,

The sweetest songsters of the fpring:
The woodlark and the linnet pleas'd no more;

The nightingale was mute,

And every shepherd's flute
Was cast in filent 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 has stopt that tuneful tongue, Whose music could alone your warbling notes excel.

IV. In Nor by yon

IV.
In vain I look around

O'er all the well-known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to dcicry ;

Where oft we us'd to walk,

Where oft in tender talk
We saw the summer sun go down the sky;

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 eye

Can aught of her efpy,
But the fad sacred earth where her dear relicks lie.

V.
O shades of Hagley, where is now your boast?

Your bright inhabitant is lost.
You the preferr'd to all the gay resorts
Where 'female' vanity might with to shine,
The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts,
Her modest beauties 'hunn'd the public eye :

To your fequefter'd dales

And flower-embroider'd vales
Froin an admiring world she chose to fly :
With Nature there retir'd, and Nature's God,

The filent paths of wisdom trod,
Anil banishid 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 mat.rnal love.
F

VI. Swis

.

VI.
Sweet babes, who, like the little playful Fawns,
Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns

By your delighted mother's fide,

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

Olofs 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!

Now she, alas! is gone,
From folly and from vice their helpless age to save ?

.VII.
Where were ye, Muses, when relentless Fate
From these fond arms.your fair disciple tore;

From these fond arms, that vainly strove

With hapless ineffectual love
To guard her bosom from the mortal blow?

Could not your favcuring power, Aonian maids,
Could not, alas ! your power prolong her date,
For whom so oft in these inspiring shades,
Or under Camden's moss-clad mountains hoar,

You open'd all your facred store,
Whate'er your ancient l'ages taught,

Your ancient bards sublimely thought,
And bade her raptur'd breast with all your fpirit glow?

VIII. Nor

VIII.
Nor then did Pindus or Castalia's plain,
Or Aganippe's fount, your steps detain,
Nor in the Thespian vallies did you play;

Nor then on * Mincio's bank

Beset with ofiers dank,
Nor where + Clitumnus rolls his gentle stream,

Nor where, through hanging woods,
Steep | Anio

pours

his floods,
Nor yet where || Meles or § Ilissus stray.

Ill does it now beseem,

That, of your guardian care bereft,
To dire disease and death your darling should be left.

IX.
Now what avails it that in early bloom,

When light fantastic toys

Are all her sex’s joys,
With she fearch'd the wit of Greece and Rome;

And all that in her latter days
To emulate her ancient praise
F 2

Italia's

you

2

* The Mintio runs by Mantua, the birth-place of Virgil.

+ The Clitumnus is a river of Umbria, the residence of Propertius.

I The Anio runs through Tibur or Tivoli, where Horace had a villa.

# The Meles is a river of Ionia, from whence Homer, fupposed to be born on its banks, is called Melisigenes.

§ The Ilissus is a river at Athens.

a