Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

BY THE COUNTESS OF C

WITHOUT preamble, to my friend,

lines I'm bid to fend,

[blocks in formation]

1

:

The moon did shine serenely bright,
And every star did deck the night,
While Zephyr fann'd the trees;
No more affail'd my mind's repose,
Save that yon stream, which murmuring flows,
Did echo to the breeze.

Enrapt in folemn thought, I fate,
Revolving o'er the turns of Fate,
Yet void of hope or fear;
When, lo! behold an airy throng,
With lightest steps, and jocund song,
Surpriz'd my eye and ear.

t

!

:

A form

A form superior to the rest,

His little voice to me address'd,

And gently thus began :

• I've heard strange things from one of you,

Pray tell me if you think 'tis true,

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

• To light fome flames, and some revive,

• To keep fome others just alive,

• Full oft I am implor'd;

But, with peculiar power to please,

• To fupplicate for nought but ease, ''Tis odd, upon my word !

• Tell her, with fruitless care I've fought;

• And tho' my realms, with wonders fraught,

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

• 'Twould put your mind into a rage,

• And such unequal war to wage

• Suits not my regal duty!

• I dare not change a first decree,

• She's doom'd to please, nor can be free!

• Such is the lot of Beauty.

This faid, he darted o'er the plain,
And after follow'd all his train;

No glimpse of him I find :
But fure I am, the little sprite,
These words, before he took his flight,
Imprinted on my mind,

TO A LADY BEFORE MARRIAGE.

[ocr errors]

H! form'd

BY MR. TICKEL.

by Nature, and rein'd by Art, With charms to win, and sense to fix the heart!

By thousands fought, Clotilda, can'st thou free
Thy crowd of captives, and descend to me?
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life,
A hidden beauty, and a country wife!

O listen while thy fummers are my theme!
Ah, foothe thy partner in his waking dream!

[ocr errors]

In fome small hamlet on the lonely plain,
Where Thames, thro' meadows, rolls his mazy train;
Or where high Windfor, thick with greens array'd,
Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade,
Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat:
Already, round the visionary feat,

Our limes begin to shoot, our flow'rs to fpring.
The brooks to murmur, and the birds to fing.
Where dost thou lie, thou thinly-peopled green;
Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen;
Where fons, contented with their native ground,
Ne'er travel farther than ten furlongs round;
And the tann'd peasant, and his ruddy bride,
Were born together, and together died 1
Where early larks best tell the morning-light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night!
'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rife,
With sweets furrounded of ten thousand dyes;
All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end,
The haunt of echoes shall my woods afcend;
And, O! if Heaven th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove;
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd,

Gush down the steep, and glitter thro' the glade!
What chearing scents those bord'ring banks exhale!
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale!
That thrush, how shrill! his note so clear, so high,
He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky.
Here let me trace, beneath the purpled morn,
The deep-mouth'd beagle, and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well-dissembled flies,
Or fetch the flutt'ring partridge from the skies:
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach, or flavour'd nectarine;
Or rob the bee-hive of it's golden hoard,,
And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board.

Some

Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours,
While from thy needle rise the filken flow'rs;
And thou, by turns, to ease my feeble fight,
Resume the volume, and deceive the night.
O! when I mark thy twinkling eyes oppress'd,
Soft whisp'ring, let me warn my love to rest;

:

:

Then watch thee, charm'd, while sleep locks every sense,

And to sweet Heav'n commend thy innocence.

Thus reign'd our fathers o'er the rural fold,

Wise, hale, and honest, in the days of old;
Till courts arose, where substance pays for show,
And specious joys are bought with real woe.

:

:

See Flavia's pendants, large, well spread, and right;"
The ear that wears them hears a fool each night..
Mark how th' embroider'd col'nel sneaks away,
To shun the with'ring dame that made him gay.
That knave, to gain a title, loft his fame;
That rais'd his credit by a daughter's shame :
This coxcomb's ribband cost him half his land;
And oaks unnumber'd bought that fool a wand. :.
Fond man, as all his forrows were too few,
Acquires strange wants that Nature never knew!!
By midnight-lamps he emulates the day,
And fleeps, perverse, the chearful funs away;
From goblets high emboss'd his wine must glide;
Round his clos'd fight the gorgeous curtain flide;
Fruits, ere their time, to grace his pomp, must rise,
And three untasted courses glut his eyes.

For this are Nature's gentle calls withstood,
The voice of confcience, and the bonds of blood!

This, Wifdom, thy reward for ev'ry pain!
And this, gay Glory, all thy mighty gain !

Fair phantoms, woo'd and scorn'd from age to age,
Since bards began to laugh, or priests to rage:

:

And yet, just curse on man's aspiring kind,
Prone to ambition, to example blind,

:

Our

« ZurückWeiter »