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Sleep, warriors, sleep

In yon billowy deep,

In peace, for no mortal care,

No art can deceive,

No anguish can heave

The heart that once slumbers there.

THE BEGGAR'S PETITION.

SIR JOHN MORRIS.

PITY the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh, give relief, and Heav'n will bless your store!

These tatter'd clothes my poverty bespeak,

These hoary locks proclaim my lengthen'd years; And many a furrow in my grief-worn cheek Has been the channel to a flood of tears.

Yon house, erected on the rising ground,
With tempting aspect drew me from my road;
For Plenty there a residence had found,
And Grandeur a magnificent abode.

Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor!
Here, as I crav'd a morsel of their bread,
A pamper'd menial drove me from the door,
To seek a shelter in a humbler shed.

Oh, take me to your hospitable dome!

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold!

Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,
For I am poor, and miserably old.

Should I reveal the sources of my grief,

If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast, Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, And tears of pity would not be repress'd.

Heav'n sends misfortunes; why should we repine?
'Tis Heav'n has brought me to the state you see;
And your condition may be soon like mine,
The Child of Sorrow and of Misery.

A little farm was my paternal lot;

Then like the lark I sprightly hail'd the morn:
But, ah! oppression forc'd me from my cot;
My cattle died, and blighted was my corn.

My daughter, once the comfort of my age,
Lur'd by a villain from her native home,
Is cast abandon'd on the world's wide stage,
And doom'd in scanty poverty to roam.

My tender wife, sweet soother of my care,
Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell, ling'ring fell, a victim to despair!

And left the world to wretchedness and me.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh, give relief, and Heav'n will bless your store!

THE PASSIONS.

An Ode.

COLLINS.

WHEN Music, heavenly Maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell:
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the Muse's painting,
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fir'd,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspir'd,

From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for Madness rul'd the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid;
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
Ev'n at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings own'd his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair

Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd;

A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She call'd on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at ev'ry close;
And Hope enchanted smil'd, and wav'd her golden
hair:

And longer had she sung-But with a frown
Revenge impatient rose;

He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunderdown,
And with a with'ring look

The war denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe;
And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat; And tho' sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity at his side

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mien, While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd;
Sad proof of thy distressful state;

Of diff'ring themes the veering song was mix'd, And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.

With eyes uprais'd, as one inspir'd,
Pale Melancholy sat retir'd,

And from her wild sequester'd seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet, Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And, dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole;

Or o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,

In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how alter'd was its sprightly tone, When Cheerfulness, a Nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder hung,

Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known; The oak-crown'd Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear,

And Sport leap'd up, and seiz'd his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with ivy crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand address'd;
But soon he saw the brisk awak'ning viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best.
They would have thought who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,
Amid the festal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound :

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