Then is your time to strike the blow,
And let the slaves of Mammon know,
Briton's true sons A BRIBE can scorn,
And die as free as they were born.
VIRTUE again shall take her seat,
And your redemption stand complete.
ADDRESSED TO MISS CAM, OF BRISTOL.
As Spring now approaches with all his gay train, And scatters his beauties around the green plain, Come then, my dear charmer, all scruples remove, Accept of my passion, allow me to love.
Without the soft transports which love must inspire,
Without the sweet torment of fear and desire,
Our thoughts and ideas are never refined,
And nothing but winter can reign in the mind.
But love is the blossom, the spring of the soul,
The frosts of our judgments may check, not control;
In spite of each hind'rance, the spring will return,
And nature with transports refining will burn.
This passion celestial, by Heav'n was design'd,
The only fix'd means of improving the mind,
When it beams on the senses, they quickly display,
How great and prolific, how pleasing the ray.
Then come, my dear charmer, since love is a flame,
Which polishes nature, and angels your frame,
Permit the soft passion to rise in your breast,-
I leave your good nature to grant me the rest.
Shall the beautiful flow'rets all blossom around,
Shall Flora's gay mantle enamel the ground,
Shall the red blushing blossom be seen on the tree,
Without the least pleasure or rapture for me?
And yet, if my charmer should frown when I sing,
Ah! what are the beauties, the glories of spring!
The flowers will be faded, all happiness fly,
And clouds veil the azure of every bright sky.
I have received both your favours The Muse alone must tell my joy.
O'ERWHELM'D with pleasure at the joyful news,
I strung the chorded shell, and woke the Muse.
Begin, O Servant of the Sacred Nine!
And echo joy through ev'ry nervous line;
Bring down th' etherial Choir to aid the Song;
Let boundless raptures smoothly glide along.
My Baker's well! Oh words of sweet delight!
Now! now! my Muse, soar up th' Olympic height.
What wondrous numbers can the Goddess find,
To paint th' extatic raptures of my mind?
I leave it to a Goddess more divine,
The beauteous Hoyland shall employ my line.
FAR distant from Britannia's lofty Isle,
What shall I find to make the Genius smile?
The bubbling fountains lose the power to please,
The rocky cataracts, the shady trees,
The juicy fruitage of enchanting hue,
Whose luscious virtues England never knew:
The variegated Daughters of the Land,
Whose numbers Flora strews with bounteous hand;
The verdant vesture of the smiling fields,
All the rich pleasures Nature's store-house yields,
Have all their powers to wake the chorded string,—
But still they're subjects that the Muse can sing.
Hoyland, more beauteous than the God of Day,
Her name can quicken and awake the lay;
Rouse the soft Muse from indolence and ease,
To live, to love, and rouse her powers to please.
In vain would Phoebus, did not Hoyland rise:
'Tis her bright eyes that gilds the Eastern skies;
'Tis she alone deprives us of the light;
And when she slumbers, then indeed 'tis night.
To tell the sep'rate beauties of her face
Would stretch Eternity's remotest space,
And want a more than man, to pen the line;
I rest-let this suffice, dear Hoyland's all divine.
SWEET are thy charming smiles, my lovely maid,
Sweet as the flow'rs in bloom of spring array'd;
Those charming smiles thy beauteous face adorn,
As May's white blossoms gaily deck the thorn.
Then why, when mild good-nature basking lies
'Midst the soft radiance of thy melting eyes;
When my fond tongue would strive thy heart to move,
And tune its tones to every note of love;
Why do those smiles their native soil disown,
And (chang'd their movements) kill me in a frown?
Yet, is it true, or is it dark despair,
That fears you're cruel whilst it owns you fair?
O speak, dear Hoyland! speak my certain fate,
Thy love enrapt'ring, or thy constant hate.
If death's dire sentence hangs upon thy tongue,
E'en death were better than suspense so long.
From a MS. of Chatterton's, in the British Museum.
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