TO A GARDENER, ON HIS SPOILING SOME BEAUTI FUL TREES.
CAITIFF! in vain, prescient of bitter woe*,
And pangs, and shame, which thou art doom'd to feel,
Revengeful dost thou raise the ruthless steel,
And lay the honours of my garden low!
Though never more my ruin'd groves shall know
Their former pride; nor Spring their wounds shall
Nor birds among them pour their
merry peal;
Yet hope not thou to scape the destin❜d blow.
O malice impotent! For though thy hand,
Arm'd with the felon axe and nerv'd by hate,
Could spread as wide destruction round the land,
And bid each lordly forest bow its state,
Still mocking all thy toil, dark, bare, would stand
One deathful tree, thy terror and thy fate.
« A rogue the gallows as his fate foresees."
ADDRESSED TO THE LYRE OF COWPER.
LYRE of the Bard, who swell'd his lay divine
On the green banks of gentle-flowing Ouse,
Say now what second owner wilt thou chuse
His fingers midst thy widow'd strings to twine?
Vain were the wish, I ween, to call thee mine;
For O! what suitor of the smiling Muse,
Tho' sprinkled oft with Heliconian dews,
Could draw such strains from thee as once were thine?
Still then upon thy native willows hang,
While thro' thy chords the murmuring winds complain,
For him, who once to thy soft numbers sang,
And pour'd with wond'rous art his holy strain, Well-skill'd to sooth affliction's bitter pang,
Or check the growth of Folly's madd'ning reign!
PROUD Pharisee! who oft the midnight oil
Hast wasted to indite the pond'rous page,
Where thou didst thunder with a boundless rage,
The foes of law and kingly state to foil;
How little did we deem thy pious toil,
Thy tender care, to teach us maximis sage, Was meant a nation's patience to engage, That thou might'st riot safely in her spoil! Proud Pharisee! the vices of the poor
So prompt to scourge with unrelenting rod,
How dar'st thou doom them whips and chains, to' endure,
When THOU the paths of fouler guilt hast trod;
How dar'st thou breathe, with lips and heart impure, Proud Pharisee! the sacred name of God!
COCHRANE! who from the Languedocian coast,
Where long thine arms dismay and havoc spread
Return'd, hast now thy gallant squadron led
To where Charente in ocean waves is lost,
As onward press'd thy van, the Gallic host
Shook through its triple line with deepest dread;
To quicksands and to rocks for refuge fled,
And bless'd escape, though ruin was the cost!
If round thy youthful brow such laurels rise,
What triumphs on thy coming years shall wait!
Thy Country, as she turns to thee her eyes,
A second Nelson hails with heart elate: "Heir of his spirit; O be thine," she cries, "An equal glory and a longer date"!
Lucis habitamus opacis,
Riparumque toros, et prata recentia rivis
Incolimus. VIRGIL.
NIGHT o'er the world had spread her sable reign,
And a still silence hushed the sleeping plain;
Lost to the woes and toils that urge the day,
On the soft couch in balmy rest I lay;
Each power inactive slumber'd in her cell,
But wakeful Fancy ply'd her magic spell,
That bids the thin aerial phantoms fly
In pictur'd dreams before the mental eye.
I saw methought a stately waving wood,
Along whose margin pour'd a silver flood;
On the green bank Sophronia mourned alone,
And pitying rocks re-echo'd moan for moan.
At times the tears in copious torrents roll,
Her lost Florello rushing on her soul;
At times celestial hope her grief allay'd;
At times afresh the potent feeling sway'd;
At length in christian fortitude resigned,
She trusts the wisdom of the Almighty mind,
Who makes his favour'd feel the afflicted smart,
And wounds the spirit but to cure the heart!
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