'Twas gold instructed coward hearts In angry mood Whence is this wild ungrateful rant? cloak to carry on the trade; Their crimes on gold shall Misers lay, TO THE MEMORY OF DAVID GARRICK, Esq. JANUARY 20, 1779. Thou great teviver of the Attic fire! Thou noblest patron of the tuneful lyre! Thine was the power, and thine the gentle art, To swell the passions, and subdue the heart! For thee the fairest breast has heav'd a sigh, And the tear started from the brightest eye! Learning and wit alike havę bow'd the knee, And hermits left their cells to gaze on thee ! On thee shall charm'd remembrance love to rest; Come every Muse, and strive to praise him best! For, ah! my lute the tribute canuot pay, And the big tear has blotted out the lay! Ye skilful Nine, who shall the chaplet weave? Hail his bright day!-nor mourn his tranquil eve! Your Garrick hail!-he breathes, he lives again, Lives in the thought, and breathes in every strain! Triumphant Fame enrols. his acts on high, And tells the mourner-Garrick cannot die! A CONTEMPLATION ON NIGHT. BY GAY Whether amid the gloom of Night I stray, When the gay sun first breaks the shades of Night, weep, in dewy tears, their beauty lost : No distant landscapes draw our curious eyes, Wrapt in Night's robe the whole creation lies : Yet still, even now, while darkness clothes the land, We view the traces of th’Almighty hand; Millions of stars in heaven's wide vault appear, And with new glories hang the boundless sphere: The silver moon her western couch forsakes, And o'er the skies her nightly circle makes; Her solid globe beats back the sumy rays, And to the world her borrow'd light repays. Whether those stars, that twinkling lustre send, Are suns, and rolling worlds those suns attend, Mau may conjectures, and new scheines declareYet all his systems but conjectures are; But this we know, that Heav'n's eternal King, Who bid this universe from nothing spring, Can at his word, bid num'rous worlds appear, And rising worlds th’all-powerful word shall hear. When to the western main the sun descends, When the pure soul is from the body flown, No more shall Night's alternate reign be kuown; The sun no more shall rolling light bestow, But from the Almighty streams of glory flow. Oh! may some nobler thought my soul employ, Than empty, transient, sublunary joy. The stars shall drop, the sun shall lose his flame, But tbou, O God! for ever shine the same. MAY-EVE, OR KATE OF ABERDEEN. BY CUNNINGHAM. The silver moon's enamour'd beam, Steals softly through the night; And kiss reflected light. 'Tis where you've seldom been; With Kate of Aberdeen. Upon the green the virgins wait, In rosy chaplets gay; And gives the promis’d May. The promis’d May, wben seen, As Kate of Aberdeen. Strike up the tabor's boldest notes, We'll rouse the nodding grove; And hail the maid I love. He quits the tufted green; 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen. |