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EPISTLE VIII.

ΤΟ

THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.

ΤΟ

THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.

NEC VENIT AD DUROS MUSA VOCATA GETAS.

OVID. ex Ponto, lib. i. ep. 5.

FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE.

THOU oft hast told me of the fairy hours
Thy heart has number'd, in those classic bowers
Where fancy sees the ghost of ancient wit
'Mid cowls and cardinals profanely flit,

And pagan spirits, by the Pope unlaid,

Haunt every stream and sing through every shade!
There still the bard, who (if his numbers be
His tongue's light echo) must have talk'd like thee,
The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought,
In which the basking soul reclines and glows,
Warm without toil and brilliant in repose.
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern monks with ancient rakes agree;
How mitres hang where ivy wreaths might twine,
And heathen Massic's damn'd for stronger wine!

There too are all those wandering souls of song
With whom thy spirit hath communed so long,
Whose rarest gems are every instant hung
By memory's magic on thy sparkling tongue.
But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake,
As far from thee my lonely course I take,
No bright remembrance o'er the fancy plays,
No classic dream, no star of other days
Has left that visionary glory here,

That relic of its light, so soft, so dear,

Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene, The humblest shed, where genius once has been !

All that creation's varying mass assumes
Qf grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms;
Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow,
Bright lakes expand, and conquering* rivers flow;

* This epithet was suggested by CHARLEVOIX's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi :- "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about half a league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the opposite shore without mixing them: afterwards it gives its colour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea."Letter xxvii.