Stay, bloody soldier! stay thy hand,
Nor take the shepherd's gentle breath:
Thy rage let innocence withstand;
Let music sooth the thirst of death.'
He frown'd-he bade the arrow fly-
The arrow smote the tuneful swain;
No more its tone his lip shall try,
Nor wake its vocal soul again.
Cephisus, from his sedgy urn,
With woe beheld the sanguine deed; He mourn'd, and as they heard him mourn, Assenting sigh'd each trembling reed. 'Fair offspring of my waves, (he cried) That bind my brows, my banks adorn ; Pride of the plains, the rivers' pride,
For music, peace, and beauty born;
Ah! what, unheedful, have we done?
What demons here in death delight?
What fiends that curse the social sun?
What furies of infernal night?
See, see my peaceful shepherds bleed;
Each heart in harmony that vied,
Smote by its own melodious reed,
Lies cold, along my blushing side.
Back to your urn, my waters, fly;
Or find in earth some secret way;
For horror dims yon conscious sky,
And hell has issued into day.'
Through Delphi's holy depth of shade
The sympathetic sorrows ran;
While in his dim and mournful glade
The Genius of her groves began:
'In vain Cephisus sighs to save
The swain that loves his watery mead,
And weeps to see his reddening wave,
And mourns for his perverted reed:
'In vain my violated groves
Must 1 with equal grief bewail,
While desolation sternly roves,
And bids the sanguine hand assail.
'God of the genial stream behold
My laurel shades of leaves so bare!
Those leaves no poet's brows unfold,
Nor bind Apollo's golden hair.
'Like thy fair offspring, misapplied,
Far other purpose they supply;
The murderer's burning cheek to hide,
And on his frownful temples die.
'Yet deem not these of Pluto's race,
Whom wounded Nature sues in vain;
Pluto disclaims the dire disgrace,
And cries, indignant, THEY ARE MEN.'
THE GARDEN-ROSE AND THE WILD
As Dee, whose current free from stain,
Glides fair o'er Merioneth's plain,
By mountains forc'd his way to steer
Along the lake of Pimble Mere,
Darts swiftly through the stagnant mass,
His waters trembliag as they pass,
And leads his lucid waves below,
Unmix'd, unsullied as they flow
So clear through life's tumultuous tide,
So free could Thought and Fancy glide;
Could Hope as sprightly hold her course,
As first she left her native source,
Unsought in her romantic cell
The keeper of her dreams might dwell.
But ah! they will not, will not last-
When life's first fairy stage is past,
The glowing hand of Hope is cold;
And Fancy lives not to be old.
Darker, and darker all before;
We turn the former prospect o'er,
And find in Memory's faithful eye
Our little stock of pleasures lie.
Come, then; thy kind recesses ope,
Fair keeper of the dreams of Hope!
Come with thy visionary train;
And bring my morning scenes again!
To Enon's wild and silent shade,
Where oft my lonely youth was laid;
What time the woodland-genius came,
And touch'd me with his holy flame.-
Or, where the hermit, Bela, leads
Her waves through solitary meads;
And only feeds the desert-flower,
Where once she sooth'd my slumbering hour:
Or rous'd by Stainmore's wintry sky,
She wearies echo with her cry;
And oft, what storms her bosom tear,
Her deeply-wounded banks declare.—
Where Eden's fairer waters flow,
By Milton's bower, or Osty's brow,
Or Brockley's alder-shaded cave,
Or, winding round the Druid's grave,
Silently glide, with pious fear
To sound his holy slumbers near.
To these fair scenes of Fancy's reign,
O memory! bear me once again :
For, when life's varied scenes are past,
'Tis simple Nature charms at last.
'Twas thus of old a poet pray'd;
The' indulgent power his pray'r approv❜d, And, ere the gather'd rose could fade, Restor'd him to the scenes he lov'd.
A Rose, the poet's favourite flower,
From Flora's cultur'd walks he bore;
No fairer bloom'd in Esher's bower,
Nor Prior's charming Chloe wore.
No fairer flowers could Fancy twine
To hide Anacreon's snowy hair;
For there Almeria's bloom divine,
And Elliot's sweetest blush was there.
When she, the pride of courts, retires,
And leaves for shades, a nation's love,
With awe the village maid admires,
How Waldegrave looks, how Waldegrave moves.
So marvell'd much in Enon's shade
The flowers that all uncultur'd grew, When there the splendid Rose display'd Her swelling breast and shining hue.
Yet one, that oft adorn'd the place
Where now her gaudy rival reign'd,
Of simpler bloom, but kindred race,
The pensive Eglantine complain'd.--
'Mistaken youth, (with sighs she said)
From Nature and from me to stray! The bard, by splendid forms betray'd, No more shall frame the purer lay.
'Luxuriant, like the flaunting Rose,
And gay
the brilliant strains may be,
But far, in beauty far from those,
That flow'd to Nature and to me.'
The poet felt, with fond surprise,
The truths the silvan critic told;
And, though this courtly Rose (he cries)
Is gay, is beauteous to behold;
'Yet, lovely flower, I find in thee
Wild sweetness which no words express,
And charms in thy simplicity,
That dwell not in the pride of dress.'
THE VIOLET AND THE PANSY.
SHEPHERD, if near thy artless breast
The god of fond desires repair;
Implore him for a gentle guest,
Implore him with unwearied prayer.
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