THOMAS WARTON. BORN 1687.-DIED 1745. THOMAS WARTON, the elder, father of Joseph and Thomas Warton, was of Magdalen College, Oxford, vicar of Basingstoke and Cobham, and twice chosen Poetry Professor. RETIREMENT. AN ODE. ON beds of daisies idly laid, Joy, rose-lipt dryad, loves to dwell The crowded corn-field, blooming mead; While beauty, health, and innocence, Not fresco'd roofs, not beds of state, Nymphs of the groves, in green array'd, Where haunts the lonesome nightingale ; Oh, Teach me St. James's to despise; For what are crowded courts, but schools For fops, or hospitals for fools; Where slaves and madmen, young and old, Meet to adore some calf of gold? VERSES WRITTEN A FTER SEEING WINDSOR CASTLE. FROM beauteous Windsor's high and story'd halls, So the bee ranges o'er the vary'd scenes Of corn, of heaths, of fallows, and of greens, AN AMERICAN LOVE ODE. FROM THE SECOND VOLUME OF MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS. STAY, stay, thou lovely, fearful snake, Then ages hence, when thou no more Thy copy'd beauties shall be seen; THOMAS SOUTHERN Was born in Dublin, in the year 1660, and died in 1746. FROM THE TRAGEDY OF ISABELLA. ACT IV. SCENE II. Isabella meeting with Biron after her marriage with Villeroy. Enter Nurse. Nurse. MADAM, the gentleman's below. Isabella. I had forgot; pray let me speak with him. [Exit Nurse. This ring was the first present of my love To Biron, my first husband; I must blush To think I have a second. Biron died (Still to my loss) at Candy; there's my hope. Oh, do I live to hope that he died there? It must be so: he's dead, and this ring left By his last breath to some known faithful friend, To bring me back again: [BIRON introduced-Nurse retires. That's all I have to trust to My fears were woman's-I have viewed him all: I live again, and rise but from his tomb. Isa. Forgot you! Bir. Then farewell my disguise, and my misfortunes! My Isabella! [He goes to her; she shrieks, and falls in a swoon.] Isa. Ha! Bir. Oh come again! Thy Biron summons thee to life and love; Thy once-loved, ever-loving husband calls- Isa. My husband! Biron! Bir. Excess of love and joy, for my return, Has overpowered her. I was to blame To take thy sex's softness unprepar'd: But sinking thus, thus dying in my arms, This ecstacy has made my welcome more Than words could say: words may be counterfeit, False-coined, and current only from the tongue, Without the mind; but passion's in the soul, And always speaks the heart. Isa. Where have I been? Why do you keep him from me? I know his voice: my life upon the wing, Here's the soft lure that brings me back again, 'Tis he himself, my Biron, the dear man! |