How should her eye the rip'ning mind revise,
And blast the buds of folly as they rise!
How should her hand with industry restrain,
The thriving growth of passion's fruitful train,
Aspiring weeds, whose lofty arms would tower
With fatal shade o'er Reason's tender flow'r.

From low pursuits the ductile mind to save, Creeds that contract, and vices that enslave ; O'er life's rough seas its doubtful course to steer, Unbroke by av'rice, bigotry, or fear!

For this fair Science spreads her light afar,
And fills the bright urn of her eastern star.
The liberal power in no sequester'd cells,
No moonshine courts of dreaming schoolmen
dwells,

Distinguish'd far her lofty temple stands,
Where the tall mountain looks o'er distant lands;
All round her throne the graceful Arts appear,
That boast the empire of the eye or ear.

See favour'd first and nearest to the throne,
By the rapt mjen of musing Silence known.
Fled from herself, the Pow'r of Numbers plac'd
Herwild thoughts watch'd by Harmony and Taste.

There (but at distance never meant to vie) The full-form'd image glancing on her eye, See lively Pamting! On her various face Quick-gliding forms a moment find a place; She looks, she acts the characters she gives, And a new feature in each feature lives.

See attic ease in Sculpture's graceful air, Half loose her robe, and half unbound her hair; To life, to life, she smiling seems to call, And down her fair hands negligently fall.

Last, but not meanest, of the glorious choir, See Music, list'ning to an angel's lyre.

Simplicity, their beauteous handmaid, drest By Nature, bears a field-flower on her breast. O arts divine! O magic powers that move

love!

The springs of truth, enlarging truth and
[ends,
Lost in their charms each mean attachment
And taste and knowledge thus are virtue's friends.
Thus Nature deigns to sympathize with art,
And leads the moral beauty to the heart;
There, only there, that strong attraction lies,
Which wakes the soul, and bids her graces rise;
Lives in those powers of harmony that bind
Congenial hearts, and stretch from mind to mind:
Glow'd in that warmth, that social kindness gave,
Which once-the rest is silence and the grave.

O tears, that warm from wounded friendship
flow!

O thoughts that wake to monuments of woe!
Reflection keen, that points the painful dart;
Mem'ry, that speeds its passage to the heart;
Sad monitors, your cruel power suspend,
And hide, for ever hide, the barried friend:
-In vain-confest I see my Craufurd stand,
And the pen falls-falls from my trembling hand.
F'en Death's dim shadow seeks to hide, in
vain,

That lib'ral aspect, and that smile humane;
E'en Death's dim shadow wears a languid light,
And his eye beams through everlasting night.
'Till the last sigh of genius shall expire,
His keen eye faded, and extinct his fire,
'Till Time, in league with Envy and with Death,
Blast the skill'd hand, and stop the tuneful breath,
My Craufurd still shall claim the mournful song,
So long remembered and bewail'd so long.

AN ODE TO THE RIVER EDEN.

WRITTEN IN 1759.

DELIGHTFUL Eden! parent stream,

Yet shall the maids of Memory say, (When led by Fancy's fairy dream, My young steps trac'd thy winding way) How oft along thy mazy shore, That many a gloomy alder bore,

In pensive thought their poet stray'd; Or, careless thrown thy bank beside, Beheld thy dimply waters glide,

Bright thro' the trembling shade.

Yet shall they paint those scenes again, Where once with infant-joy he play'd, And bending o'er thy liquid plain,

The azure worlds below survey'd : Led by the rosy-handed Hours, When Time trip'd o'er that bank of flowers, Which in thy crystal bosom smil'd : Tho' old the god, yet light and gay, He flung his glass, bis scythe away, And seem'd himself a child.

The poplar tall, that waving near

Would whisper to thy murmurs free;
Yet rustling seems to soothe mine ear,
And trembles when I sigh for thee.
Yet seated on thy shelving brim,
Can Fancy see the Naiads trim

Burnish their green locks in the Sun;
Or at the last lone hour of day,
To chase the lightly glancing fay,
In airy circles run.

But, Fancy, can thy mimic power

Again those happy moments bring? Can'st thou restore that golden hour,

When young Joy wav'd his laughing wing?
When first in Eden's rosy vale,
My full heart pour'd the lover's tale,

The vow sincere, devoid of guile!
While Delia in her panting breast,
With sighs, the tender thought supprest,
And look'd as angels smile.

O goddess of the crystal bow,

That dwell'st the golden meads among ;
Whose streams still fair in memory flow,
Whose murmurs melodise my song!
Oh! yet those gleams of joy display,
Which bright'ning glow'd in fancy's ray,

When, near thy lucid urn reclin'd,
The dryad, Nature, bar'd her breast,
And left, in naked charms imprest,
Her image on my mind.

In vain the maids of Memory fair
No more in golden visions play;
No friendship smoothes the brow of Care,
No Delia's smile approves my lay.
Yet, love and friendship lost to me,
'Tis yet some joy to think of thee,

And in thy breast this moral find;
That life, though stain'd with sorrow's showers,
Shall flow serene, while Virtue pours
Her sunshine on the mind.

AUTUMNAL elegy.

TO MISS CRACROFT. 1763.

WHILE yet my poplar yields a doubtful shade, Its last leaves trembling to the Zephyr's sigh; On this fair plain ere every verdure fade,

Or the last smiles of golden Autumn die ; Wilt thou, my Nancy, at this pensive hour, O'er Nature's ruin hear thy friend complain : While his heart labours with th' inspiring power,

And from his pen spontaneous flows the strain? Thy gentle breast shall melt with kindred sighs, Yet haply grieving o'er a parent's bier; Poets are Nature's children; when she dies,

Affection mourns, and Duty drops a tear. Why are ye silent, brethren of the grove,

Fond Philomel, thy many-chorded lyre So sweetly tun'd to tenderness and love,

Shall love no more, or tenderness inspire? O mix once more thy gentle lays with mine; For well our passions, well our notes agree: An absent love, sweet bird, may soften thine: An absent love demands a tear from me. Yet, ere ye slumber, songsters of the sky, Thro' the long night of winter wild and drear: O let us tune, ere Love and Fancy die,

One tender farewell to the fading year. Farewell ye wild hills, scatter'd o'er with spring! Sweet solitudes, where Flora smil'd unseen! Farewell each breeze of balmy-burthen'd wing! The violet's blue bank, and the tall wood green! Ye tuneful groves of Belvidere, adieu! Kind shades that whisper o'er my Craufurd's

rest!

From courts, from senates, and from camps to you,
When Fancy leads him, no inglorious gues.!
Dear shades adieu! where late the moral Muse
Led by the dryad, Silence, oft reclin❜d,
Taught Meanness to extend her little views,

And look on Nature to enlarge her mind.
Farewell the walk along the woodland-vale ;
Flower-feeding rills in murmurs drawn away!
Farewell the sweet breath of the early gale!
And the dear glories of the closing day!
The nameless charms of high poetic thought,
That Spring's green hours to Fancy's children
The words divine, Imagination wrote [bore;

On Slumber's light leaf by the murmuring shore

All, all adieu! from Autumn's sober power Fly the dear dreams of Spring's delightful reign; Gay Summer strips her rosy-mantled bower,

And rude winds waste the glories of her train. Yet Autumn yields her joys of humbler kind; Sad o'er her golden ruins as we stray, Sweet Melancholy soothes the musing mind, And Nature charms, delightful in decay, All-bounteous power, whom happy worlds adore! With every scene some grateful change she brings

In Winter's wild snows, Autumn's golden store, In glowing summers and in blooming springs!

O most belov'd! the fairest and the best
Of all her works! may still thy lover find
Fair Nature's frankness in thy gentle breast;
Like her be various, but like her be kind.
Then, when the Spring of smiling youth is o'er;
When Summer's glories yield to Autumn's sway;
When golden Autumn sinks in Winter hoar,

And life declining yields its last weak ray;
In thy lov'd arms my fainting age shall close,
On thee my fond eye bend its trembling light:
Rememb'rance sweet shall soothe my last repose,
And my soul bless thee in eternal night.

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1763.

WHEN pale beneath the frowning shade of death, No soothing voice of love, or friendship nigh, While strong convulsions seiz'd the lab'ring breath,

And life suspended left each vacant eye; Where, in that moment, fled th' immortal mind? To what new region did the spirit stray?. Found it some bosom hospitably kind,

Some breast that took the wanderer in its way ? To thee, my Nancy, in that deathful hour,

To thy dear bosom it once more return'd; And wrapt in Hackthorn's solitary bower,

The ruins of its former mansion mourn'd. But, didst thou, kind and gentle as thou art,

O'er thy pale lover shed the generous tear? From those sweet eyes did Pity's softness start, When Fancy laid him on the lowly bier? Didst thou to Heaven address the forceful prayer, Fold thy fair hands, and raise the mournful eye, Implore each power benevolent to spare,

And call down Pity from the golden sky? O born at once to bless me and to save, Exalt my life, and dignify my lay! Thou too shalt triumph o'er the mouldering grave, And on thy brow shall bloom the deathless bay. Dear shades of genius! heirs of endless fame!

That in your laureate crowns the myrtle wove, Snatch'd from oblivion Beauty's sacred name, And grew immortal in the arms of Love! O may we meet you in some happier clime, Some safer vale beneath a genial sky; Whence all the woes that load the wing of Time, Disease, and death, and fear, and frailty fly!

TO MISS CRACROFT.

THE COMPLAINT OF HER RING-DOVE. 1759. FAR from the smiles of blue hesperian skies,

Far from those vales, where flowery pleasures

dwell, (Dear scenes of freedom lost to these sad eyes!) How hard to languish in this lonely cell! When genial gales relume the fires of love,

When laughing Spring leads round the jocund

year;

Ah! view with pity, gentle maid, your dove, From every heart-felt joy secluded here!

To me no more the laughing Spring looks gay;
Nor annual loves relume my languid breast;
Time slowly drags the long, delightless day,
Thro' one dull scene of solitary rest.
Ah! what avails that dreaming Fancy roves
Thro' the wild beauties of her native reign!
Breathes in green fields, and feeds in freshening
groves,

To wake to anguish in this hopeless chain?
Tho' fondly sooth'd with Pity's tenderest care,
Tho' still by Nancy's gentle hand carest,
For the free forest, and the boundless air,

The rebel, Nature, murmurs in my breast. Ah let not Nature, Nancy, plead in vain!

For kindness sure should grace a form so fair: Restore me to my native wilds again,

To the free forest, and the boundless air.

WRAPPED ROUND A NOSEGAY OF VIOLETS.
1761.

DEAR object of my late and early prayer!
Source of my joy! and solace of my care!
Whose gentle friendship such a charm can give,
As makes me wish, and tells me how to live.
To thee the Muse with grateful hand would bring
These first fair children of the doubtful Spring.
O may they, fearless of a varying sky,
Bloom on thy breast, and smile beneath thine eye!
In fairer lights their vivid blue display,
And sweeter breathe their little lives away!

TO MISS CRACROFT.

ON THE MORAL REFLECTIONS

CONTAINED IN HER ANSWER TO THE ABOVE VERSES. 1761.

SWEET moralist! whose moving truths impart
At once delight and anguish to my heart!
Tho' human joys their short-liv'd sweets exhale,
Like the wan beauties of the wasted vale;

more.

WRITTEN IN A COLLECTION OF MAPS.

1765.

REALMS of this globe, that ever-circling run,
And rise alternate to embrace the Sun;
Shall 1 with envy at my lot repine,
Because I boast so small a portion mine?
If e'er in thought of Andalusia's vines,
Golconda's jewels, or Potosi's mines;
In these, or those, if vanity forgot
The humbler blessings of my little lot;
Then may thestream that murmurs near my door,
The waving grove that loves its mazy shore,
Withhold each soothing pleasure that they gave,
No longer murmur, and no longer wave!

THEODOSIUS TO CONSTANTIA,
1760.

LET others seek the lying aids of art,
And bribe the passions to betray the heart;
Truth, sacred truth, and faith unskill'd to feign,
Fill my foud breast, and prompt my artless strain.
Say, did thy lover, in some happier hour,
Each ardent thought, in wild profusion pour;
With eager fondness on thy beauty gaze,
And talk with all the ecstacy of praise?
The heart sincere its pleasing tumult prov'd;
All, all declar'd that Theodosius lov'd.

Let raptur'd fancy on that moment dwell,
When thy dear vows in trembling accents fell;
When love acknowledg'd wak'd the tender sigh,
Swell'd thy full breast, and fill'd thy melting eye.
O! blest for ever be th' auspicious day,
Dance all its hours in pleasure's golden ray!
Pale sorrow's gloom from every eye depart!
And laughing joy glide lightly thro' the heart!
Let village-maids their festive brows adorn,
And with fresh garlands meet the smiling morn;
Each happy swain, by faithful love repaid,
Pour his warm vows, and court his village maid.

Yet shall the scene to ravish'd memory rise; Constantia present yet shall meet these eyes; On her fair arm her beauteous head reclin'd, Her locks flung careless to the sportful wind. While love, and fear, contending in her face, Flush every rose, and heighten every grace.

O, never, while of life and hope possest, May this dear image quit my faithful breast! The painful hours of absence to beguile, May thus Constantia look, Constantia smile!

ELEGY. 1760.

THE eye ofNature never rests from care;
She guards her children with a parent's love :
And not a mischief reigns in earth or air,
But time destroys, or remedies remove.

In vain no ill shall haunt the walks of life,

No vice in vain the human heart deprave. The pois'nous flower, the tempest's raging strife From greater pain, from greater ruin save. Lavinia, form'd with every powerful grace, With all that lights the flame of young desire; Pure ease of wit, and elegance of face,

A soul all fancy, and an eye all fire: Lavinia !— Peace, my busy fluttering breast! Nor fear to languish in thy former pain: At length she yields-she yields the needful rest; And frees her lover from his galling chain. The golden star, that leads the radiant morn, Looks not so fair, fresh-rising from the main; But her bent eye-brow bears forbidding scorn,But Pride's fell furies every heart-string strain. Lavinia, thanks to thy ungentle mind;

I now behold thee with indifferent eyes; And Reason dares, tho' Love as Death be blind, Thy gay, thy worthless being to despise. Beauty may charm without one inward grace, And fair proporticos win the captive heart; But let rank pride the pleasing form debase,

And Love disgusted breaks his erring dart. The youth that once the sculptur'd nymph

admir'd,

INSCRIPTION

ON THE DOOR OF A STUDY,

O THOU that shalt presume to tread
This mansion of the mighty dead,
Come with the free, untainted mind;
The nurse, the pedant leave behind;
And all that superstition, fraught
With folly's lore, thy youth has taught-
Each thought that reason can't retain,-
Leave it, and learn to think again.
Yet, while thy studious eyes explore,
And range these various volumes o'er,
Trust blindly to no fav'rite pen,
Rememb❜ring authors are but men.
Has fair Philosophy thy love?
Away! she lives in yonder grove.
If the sweet Muse thy pleasure gives ;—
With her in yonder grove she lives:
And if Religion claims thy care;
Religion, fled from books, is there.
For first from Nature's works we drew
Our knowledge, and our virtue too.

TO LORD GRANBY.

In spite of all the rusty fools
That glean old nonsense in the schools;
Nature, a mistress never coy,

Has wrote on all her works-Enjoy.
Shall we then starve, like Gideon's wife,
And die to save a makeweight's life?
No, friend of Nature, you disdain
So fair a hand shou'd work in vain.

But, my good lord, make her your guide,
And err not on the other side:
Like her, in all you deign to do,
Be liberal, but be sparing too.
When sly sir Toby, night by night,
With his dear bags regales his sight;
And conscience, reason, pity sleep,
Tho' virtue pine, tho' merit weep;
I see the keen reproaches fly
Indignant from your honest eye;
Each bounteous wish glows unconfin'd,
And your breast labours to be kind.

At this warm hour, my lord, beware The servile flatterer's specious snare, The fawning sycophant, whose art Marks the kind motions of the heart: Each idle, each insidious knave,

That acts the graceful, wise, or brave.

With festive board, and social eye,
You've seen old Hospitality;
Mounted astride the moss-grown wall,
The genius of the ancient hall.
So reverend, with such courtly glee,
He serv'd your noble ancestry;
And turn'd the hinge of many a gate,
For Russel, Rous, Plantagenet,
No lying porter levied there
His dues on all imported ware ;
There, rang'd in rows, no liveried train
E'er begg'd their master's beef again;
No flatterer's planetary face

Plied for a bottle, or a place;
Toad-eating France, and fiddling Rome,
Kept their lean rascals starv'd at home.
"Thrice happy days!"

In this, 'tis true,

Old times were better than the new ; Yet some egregious faults you'll see In ancient Hospitality.

See motley crowds, his roof beneath, Put poor Society to death!

Priests, knights, and 'squires, debating wild,
On themes unworthy of a child;
"Till the strange compliment commences,
To praise their host, and lose their senses.
Go then, my lord! keep open hall;
Proclaim your table free for all;
Go, sacrifice your time, your wealth,
Your patience, liberty, and health,
To such a thought- renouncing crew,
Such foes to care-e'en care for you.

"Heav'ns! and are these the plagues that wait Around the hospitable gate ?—

Let tenfold iron bolt my door,

And the gaunt mastiff growl before;
There, not one human creature nigh,
Save, dear sir Toby, you and I,
In cynic silence let us dwell;
Ye plagues of social life, farewell!"