ΤΟ

AND hast thou mark'd the pensive shade,
That many a time obscures my brow,
'Mid all the blisses, darling maid,

Which thou can'st give, and only thou?

Oh! 'tis not that I then forget

The endearing charms, that round me twine

There never throb'd a bosom yet

Could feel their witchery, like mine!

When bashful on my bosom hid,

And blushing to have felt so blest, Thou dost but lift thy languid lid, Again to close it on my breast!

Y

Oh! these are minutes all thine own,

Thine own to give, and mine to feel, Yet ev❜n in them, my heart has known The sigh to rise, the tear to steal.

For I have thought of former hours,
When he who first thy soul possess'd,
Like me awak'd its witching powers,

Like me was lov'd, like me was blest!

Upon his name thy murmuring tongue
Perhaps hath all as sweetly dwelt;
For him that snowy lid hath hung
In ecstasy, as purely felt!

For him-yet why the past recall

To wither blooms of present bliss? Thou'rt now my own, I clasp thee all, And heaven can grant no more than this!

Forgive me, dearest, oh! forgive;

I would be first, be sole to thee, Thou should'st have but begun to live, The hour that gave thy heart to me.

Thy book of life till then effac'd,
Love should have kept that leaf alone,
On which he first so dearly trac'd

That thou wert, soul and all, my own!

EPISTLE VI

ΤΟ

LORD VISCOUNT FORBES,

FROM WASHINGTON.

Και μη θαύμασης μητ' ει μακροτέραν γεγραφα την επιστολην, μητ' ει τι περιεργότερον η πρεσ βυτικωτερον ειρηκαμεν εν αυτή.

ISOCRAT. Epist. iv.

IF former times had never left a trace
Of human frailty in their shadowy race,
Nor o'er their pathway written, as they ran,
One dark memorial of the crimes of man;
If every age, in new unconscious prime,
Rose, like a phoenix, from the fires of time,
To wing its way unguided and alone,
The future smiling and the past unknown;

Then ardent man would to himself be new,
Earth at his foot and heaven within his view,
Well might the novice hope, the sanguine scheme
Of full perfection prompt his daring dream,
Ere cold experience, with her veteran lore,
Could tell him, fools had dream'd as much before!
But, tracing as we do, through age and clime
The plans of virtue midst the deeds of crime,
The thinking follies and the reasoning rage
Of man, at once the ideot and the sage;
When still we see, through every varying frame
Of arts and polity, his course the same,
And know that antient fools but died, to make
A space on earth for modern fools to take;
'Tis strange, how quickly we the past forget;
That wisdom's self should not be tutor'd yet,
Nor tire of watching for the monstrous birth
Of pure perfection midst the sons of earth!

Oh! nothing but that soul which God has given, Could lead us thus to look on earth for heaven; O'er dross without to shed the flame within, And dream of virtue while we gaze on sin!