And canst thou bid me then despair?
Ah no! to winds I fear consign:
If love and truth be worth thy care,
I sure shall one day call thee mine!
SEE where yon crag's imperious height
The funny highland crowns,
And, hideous as the brow of night,
Above the torrent frowns.
So scowls the chief whose will is law,
Regardless of our state;
While millions gaze with painful awe,
With fear allied to hate.
GAY child of Spring, the garden's queen,
Yon peach-tree charms the roving sight;
Its fragrant leaves, how richly green!
Its blossoms, how divinely bright!
So softly smiles the blooming bride,
By Love and conscious Virtue led
O'er her new mansion to preside,
And placid joys around her spread.
To strike the mind the Scenic Muse essays,
And levels her attacks a thousand ways,
Suspence, surprise, sad dirges, thrilling airs,
Diction that glitters, Pageantry that glares;-
These are the Muse's feather'd shafts she flings,
To tickle judgment with the arrow's wings;
But when the Voice of Nature prompts her art,
She points the barb, and penetrates the heart.
These truths, from heavenly nature, Shakspeare
knew ;
She spoke, he echoed; she design'd, he drew!
Born in her school, bright Genius, from the bowers
Of Fancy, wreath'd his cradle round with flowers:
Now, Nature's pupil, fled by Nature's doom,
Leaves taste to scatter laurel on his tomb.
Since, then, our Drama's sun can cheer, us yet,
With beams of glory from his golden set,
May not a lowly bard still catch a ray,
To light his feeble steps through Nature's way?
May not a lowly bard adopt a tale,
With truth and feeling fraught, tho' genius fail,
And make the Voice of Nature still prevail?
Where, where is nature with more force exprest,
Than in the fond babe-plunder'd mother's breast?
Where is a breast more dead to nature prov'd
Than his who sees that mother's pangs unmov'd!
That cause assails the human heart by storm,
Which pleads the ties of all in human form:
The grief-wrung female for her infant wild,
Harrows each parent, and affects each child;
Beneath your roofs her pictured anguish glides,
And brings the interest to your own fire-sides.
Britons!-to whom (though adamant in arms) Domestic duties yield peculiar charms ;
Who, were those duties with less ardour known, Might learn a sweet example from the Throne.Give your applause, to-night!—at least, be mild! A Play, remember, is a Poet's Child.
WINE, women, warmth, against our lives combine; But what is life without warmth, women, wine?
TO HIM WHO SAYS HE LOVES.
You tell me that you truly love;
Ah! know you well what love does mean?
Does neither whim nor fancy move
The rapture of your transient dream?
Tell me, when absent, do you think
O'er every look, o'er every sigh ?
Do you in melancholy sink,
And doubt, and fear, you know not why ?
you, when near her, die to say,
How much you love, yet cannot tell? Does a look melt your soul away,
A touch, your nerves with transport swell?
Could you for her, fame; wealth despise ?
In poverty and toil feel blest,
Drink sweet delusion from her eyes,
Òr smile at ruin on her breast?
The charms of every other fair,
With coldness, could you learn to view?
Fondly unchang'd to her repair,
With transports ever young and new?
And tell me, at her loss or hate,
Would death your only refuge prove?
Ah! if in aught you hesitate,
Coward! you dare not say you love.
QUEEN of every moving measure!
Sweetest source of purest pleasure!
Music! why thy powers employ
Only for the sons of Joy?
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour;
Bid be still the throbbing hearts
Of those whom Death or Absence parts;
And with some softly-whispered air
Smooth the brow of dumb Despair.
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