And, O thou curs'd, infidious coast!
• Are these the blessings thou canst boast ?
• These, Virtue ! these the joys they find,
• Who leave thy heav'n-topt hills behind ?
• Shade me, ye pines; ye caverns, hide
• Ye mountains cover me!' fhe cry'd.

Her trumpet Slander rais'd on high,
And told the tidings to the sky;
Contempt difcharg'd a living dart,
A fide-long viper to her heart;
Reproach breath'd poisons o'er her face,
And foil'd and blafted ev'ry grace;
Officious Shame, her handmaid new,
Still turn'd the mirror to her view;
While those in crimes the deepest dy'd,
Approach'd to whiten at her fide;
And ev'ry lewd, infulting dame,
Upon her folly rofe to fame.

What should she do?-Attempt once more

To gain the late deferted fhore?
So trusting, back the mourner flew,
As fast the train of fiends purfue.

Again the farther fhore's attain'd,
Again the land of Virtue gain'd;
But Echo gathers in the wind,
And fhows her inftant foes behind.
Amaz'd, with headlong speed she tends,
Where late she left an hoft of friends ;
Alas! those shrinking friends decline,
Nor longer own that form divine;
With fear they mark the following cry,
And from the lonely trembler fly;
Or backward drive her on the coast,
Where peace was wreck'd, and honour loft.
From earth thus hoping aid in vain,

To Heav'n not daring to complain,

No

No truce by hoftile clamour giv'n,
And from the face of friendship driv'n,
The nymph funk proftrate on the ground,
With all her weight of woes around.
Enthron'd within a circling sky,
Upon a mount, o'er mountains high,
All radiant fate, as in a farine;
Virtue, firft effluence divine;

Far, far above the fcenes of woe,

That shut this cloud-wrapt world below a
Superior goddess, effence bright,
Beauty of uncreated light 3-
Whom should mortality furveys.
As doom'd upon a certain day,
The breath of frailty must expire,
The world diffolve in living fire;
The gems of heav'n, and folar flame,
Be quench'd by her eternal beam.
And Nature, quick'ning in her eye,ci
To rife a new-born phoenix, die.
Hence, unreveal'd to mortal view, d
A veil around her form she threw,
Which three fad fifters of the fhade,
Pain, Care, and Melancholy made.

Thro' this her all-enquiring eye,
Attentive from her station high,
Beheld, abandon'd to despair,

The ruins of her fav'rite fair;

And with a voice, whofe awful found.

Appall'd the guilty world around, two te
Bid the tumultuous winds be still, i
To numbers bow'd each lift'ning hill,
Uncurl'd the furging of the main,
And smooth'd the thorny bed of pain;
The golden harp of heav'n fhe ftrung,
And thus the tuneful goddess fung.

200

"

⚫ Lovely

• When the fatal trump fhall found, When th' immortals pour around, • Heav'n fhall thy return atteft, Hail'd by myriads of the blefs'd.

Little native of the skies,
Lovely penitent, arife;

• Calm thy bofom, clear thy brow,
Virtue is thy fifter now!

< More delightful are my woes,
Than the rapture pleasure knows;
Richer, far the weeds I bring,
Than the robes that grace a king.

On my wars of fhorteft date,
Crowns of endlefs triumph wait;
On my cares, a period blefs'd;
On my toils, eternal reft.

Come, with Virtue at thy fide;
• Come! be ev'ry bar defy'd,
• Till we gain our native shore;
Sifter, come, and turn no more!'

THE ROSCIAD.

R

BY MR. CHARLES CHURCHILL.

OSCIUS deceas'd, each high-afpiring play'r

Pufh'd all his int'reft for the vacant chair.

The buskin'd heroes of the mimick stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
C-2

The