HORACE IN LONDON.

BOOK II. ODE IX.

TO A YOUNG WIDOW.

Non semper imbres nubibus hispidos, &e.

Nor for ever bleak November

Chills the gayly-dancing hours; Rolling time, dear girl, remember,

Decks the bright parterre with flowers.

Ice the Serpentine may cover,

Oaks their leafless boughs display;

What care I? the winter over,

Soon shall follow laughing May.

Why should'st thou, all joy denying,
Still in tears thy 'kerchief steep?
Pale Aurora hears thy sighing,

Setting Phoebus sees thee weep.
Clad in bombazeen and camblet,
Gertrude wept a monarch dead,
See her soon, forgetting Hamlet,
Take his brother to her bed.

Dido, torn from poor Sichæus, Thus repining sought relief; "Anna! don't you think Æneas

Might contrive to heal my grief!"

Thy good man in sleep reposes,
Soon thou wilt another choose;
Widow's weeds all turn to roses,
When a comely suitor woos.
Give the hours to joyous greeting,
Vulgar sorrows far above;
Youth and beauty, O how fleeting!
O how fleeting woman's love!
Let us sing the song you relish,
Who at Brighton bears the bell,
Walking Barclay, racing Mellish,
Fun, and vive la bagatelle!
Tears from Pluto's dark dominion
Cannot now thy husband keep;

If they could, 'tis my opinion,

Those bright eyes would cease to weep.

HORACE IN LONDON.

BOOK II. ODE XV.

NEW BUILDINGS.

Jam pauca aratro jugera regiæ, &c.

St. George's Fields are fields no more,
The trowel supersedes the plough;
Huge inundated swamps of yore

Are changed to civic villas now.

J.

The whistling plane, the builder's hod,
Wide and more wide extending still,
Usurp the violated sod,

From Lambeth Marsh to Balaam Hill.
Pert poplars, yew trees, water tubs,
No more at Clapham meet the eye;
But velvet lawns, Acacian shrubs,
With perfume greet the passer by.
Thy carpets, Persia, deck our floors,
Chintz curtains shade the polish'd pane,
Virandas guard the darken'd doors,

Where dunning Phoebus knocks in vain.
Not thus acquir'd was GRESHAM's hoard,
Who founded London's mart of trade;
Not such thy life, Grimalkin's lord,
Who Bow's recalling peal obey'd.

In Mark or Mincing Lane confin'd,
In cheerful toil they pass'd the hours;
'Twas theirs to leave their wealth behind,
To lavish, while we live, is ours.
They gave no treats to thankless kings,
Many their gains, their wants were few,
They built no house with spacious wings
To give their riches pinions too.

Yet sometimes, leaving in the lurch
Sons, to luxurious folly prone,
Their funds rebuilt the parish church:
Oh! pious waste, to us unknown!

We from our circle never roam,
Nor ape our sires' eccentric sins,
Our charity begins at home,

And mostly ends where it begins!

FUTURITY.

"Tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity
"To those you left behind disclose the secret?
"O! that some courteous ghost would blab it out!"

Blair's Grave.

RISE, spectres, rise! some pitying ghost appear,
And pour the grave's dread secret in mine ear!
Ye live, ye live! Yes, by the generous glow
Of Virtue struggling through a night of woe;
By the fell tyrant on his blood-stain'd throne;
By nameless wretchedness that dies alone;
By lovely Hope who sooths the parting sigh;
By Faith bright beaming from the death-fixed eye,
Ye live! From forth the narrow dark abode
The spirit steals some viewless unknown road;-
Then, each fond tie to earth and matter broke
By the free soul, disdainful of the yoke,
Shall it not soar on vigorous pens away

Beyond the ken of thought and golden eye of day?
Or, by fierce flames from mortal dross refined,
Shall it not mingle with the mass of mind,
Absorbed and lost the old familiar store
Of treasuring Memory's many-coloured lore?
Or does this self, this conscious self, remain
Awake to human joys, to human pain?
Hangs the fond mother o'er her orphan's head?
Cheers the loved spouse the widow's sorrowing bed?
In airy watch do guardian spirits stand,

And guide our faultering steps, an angel band?

Or, senseless, hushed in lone sepuchral gloom,
Sleeps the regardless tenant of the tomb,
"Till the dread blast shall rouse the silent earth,
And joyful Nature start to second birth,
All nations waken from the awful trance,
And realms and times in wondering gaze advance,
While Memory's voice renews its tuneful sound,
And marshals all the tribes of earth around,
Bids fresh reviving scenes salute their eyes,
And friends with friends to virtuous bliss arise?
Cease, curious thoughts! too thick the shades of night
Veil the dread future from our anxious sight;
The boldest thoughts here urge their course in vain,
Nor pass one bulwark of the drear domain.
Then, when the last faint panting heaves my heart
And weary life stands fluttering to depart,
One beam of joy shall warm my trembling soul
And Doubt's dun clouds to awful distance roll,
Truth's angel form my fleeting spirit own,
And spring to clasp her in the world unknown.

EPITAPH FOR OPIE.

THE forms which Nature doom'd to fail,
Thy stronger hand would bid endure
The hour of her revenge is come
Still thy creations shall prevail,
To thee an equal date insure,

And save thee from oblivion's tomb,
VOL. VII.

Le