SONNET LXIV.

Written 15th November, 1811.

THE following Sonnet was written after having finished, in Westmoreland, a translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid into English verse, which the Author began six years before in Warwickshire; and in order to facilitate the performance of which his brother kindly lent him the use of an apartment in his house, as being in a situation less interrupted by noise than the one in which he was stationed.

THIS morn as dismal as the dismal theme, Which weighs my bosom when I think on thee: This morning shrouded in obscurity

Of winds, and blustering rain, and vapours dim; This morn, with weary eye, and languid limb,

The task is done of mimic poesy.

To whom, dear friend, to whose kind sympathy, When in my breast first stirred the wayward whim,

R

Can I ascribe assistance?-Thou art gone!— Thou first whene'er my frail and suffering mind Some effort made, with sweetness all thy own, And flattering promptitude most bland and kind,

To gratulate my toils of little worth!

Thou last to blame!-Thou first to hail their birth!

SONNET LXV.

The same Subject continued.

Written 15th November, 1811.

No, thou wert never known, wert never loved, As heart like thine should have been lov'd and known,

Save by some life-long friends who now must

groan

That they, when thou didst live, so useless proved

The cup of life to sweeten! Friend removed From many a pang which hearts like thine alone

Can feel; which, with acuteness all thy own, Alas! thou feltest! Brother, Friend approved, Farewell! I do not seek with hand profane, The veil that o'er thy heart was drawn to rend: Thou wert a hidden treasure which the vain, The proud, the worldly could not comprehend. 1 mourn for thee, thou ne'er to be forgot! Yet more for those who loved, and see thee not!

SONNET LXVI.

On the Death of Mr. Thomas Lloyd, who died within three weeks of the time when the subject of the last four Sonnets breathed his last.

25th December, 1811.

IF manly honour, and a soul sincere,
Fidelity with delicacy joined,
Immaculate transparency of mind,

And worth too sensitive for this low sphere;
If Thomas, all the virtues that are dear

In scenes domestic, fortitude resigned,

Manners by native elegance refined,

May claim, when lost, the Muse's tuneful tear;
Say, who may more imperiously pretend,
As husband, brother, father, son, and friend,

Than thee, to such recording eulogy?

Yet those thy silent, suffering worth, who knew, Must think this eulogy, though too, too true,

Less emblematic than dumb Grief of thee.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Poems, with a great number of others, had been set aside by the Author, as unworthy of publication; but as he was inclined to think rather more favourably of these than of the others, they had been transcribed in order to be submitted to a friend, on whose judgment the Author relies much more implicitly than on his own, before he finally decided as to what Poems should, and what should not, be introduced into his Volume. However, this friend was on a journey at the critical moment; and the Author preferred rejecting these Poems, to printing them from his own opinion. Before the last proof sheet of this little Volume was completed, another friend, on whom the Author thought he could equally rely, visited him; and on the following Poems being submitted to him, gave it as his opinion, that these might be retained without impropriety.