With more delight those pleasing shades I view,

Where Condé from an envious court withdrew ;

Where, sick of glory, faction, power, and pride,

(Sure judge how empty all, who all had tried!)

Beneath his palms the weary chief reposed,
And life's great scene in quiet virtue closed.
With shame that other fam'd retreat I
see,

Adorn'd by art, disgraced by luxury:
Where Orleans wasted every vacant hour,
In the wild riot of unbounded power;
Where feverish debauch and impious love
Stain'd the mad table and the guilty grove.
With these amusements is thy friend de-
tain'd,

Pleased and instructed in a foreign land;
Yet oft a tender wish recalls my mind
From present joys to dearer left behind.
O native isle, fair Freedom's happiest seat!
At thought of thee, my bounding pulses beat;
At thought of thee, my heart impatient burns,
And all my country on my soul returns.
When shall I see thy fields, whose plenteous
grain

No power can ravish from th' industrious

swain ?

When kiss, with pious love, the sacred earth That gave a Burleigh or a Russell birth? When, in the shade of laws, that long have stood,

Propt by their care, or strengthen'd by their blood,

Of fairless independence wisely vain,

The proudest slave of Bourbon's race disdain ?

Yet, oh! what doubt, what sad presaging voice,

Whispers within, and bids me not rejoice; Bids me contemplate every state around, From sultry Spain to Norway's icy bound; Bids their lost rights, their ruin'd glory see: And tells me, These, like England, once were free!"

Lord Lyttelton.-Born 1709, Died 1773.

906.-TO THE MEMORY OF THE FIRST LADY LYTTELTON.

At length escaped from every human eye,
From every duty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,

Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;

Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,

This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love
Can on th' ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

No more my mournful eye
Can aught of her espy,

But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

O shades of Hagley, where is now your boast?

Your bright inhabitant is lost. You she preferr'd to all the gay resorts Where female vanity might wish to shine, The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts. Her modest beauties shunn'd the public eye: To your sequester'd dales

And flower-embroider'd vales

From an admiring world she chose to fly : With Nature there retired, and Nature's God,

The silent paths of wisdom trod, And banish'd every passion from her breast, But those, the gentlest and the best, Whose holy flames with energy divine The virtuous heart enliven and improve, The conjugal and the maternal love.

Whate'er your ancient sages taught,
Your ancient bards sublimely thought,
And bade her raptured breast with all your
spirit glow?

Nor then did Pindus or Castalia's plain,
Or Aganippe's fount your steps detain,
Nor in the Thespian valleys did you
play;

Nor then on Mincio's bank

Beset with osiers dank,

Nor where Clitumnus rolls his gentle

stream,

Nor where through hanging woods
Steep Anio pours his floods,
Nor yet where Meles or Ilissus stray.
Ill does it now beseem,

That, of your guardian care bereft, To dire disease and death your darling should be left.

Now what avails it that in early bloom, When light fantastic toys

Are all her sex's joys,

With you she search'd the wit of Greece and Rome;

And all that in her latter days
To emulate her ancient praise
Italia's happy genius could produce;
Or what the Gallic fire

Bright sparkling could inspire,

By all the Graces temper'd and refined; Or what in Britain's isle,

Most favour'd with your smile,

The powers of Reason and of Fancy join'd To full perfection have conspired to raise ? Ah! what is now the use

Of all these treasures that enrich'd her

And made each charm of polish'd courts

agree

With candid Truth's simplicity,

And uncorrupted Innocence!

Tell how to more than manly sense

She join'd the softening influence
Of more than female tenderness :

How, in the thoughtless days of wealth and joy,

Which oft the care of others' good destroy, Her kindly-melting heart,

To every want and every woe, To guilt itself when in distress, The balm of pity would impart, And all relief that bounty could bestow ! Ev'n for the kid or lamb that pour'd its life Beneath the bloody knife,

Her gentle tears would fall,

Tears from sweet Virtue's source, benevolent to all.

Not only good and kind,

But strong and elevated was her mind:
A spirit that with noble pride
Could look superior down
On Fortune's smile or frown;
That could without regret or pain
To Virtue's lowest duty sacrifice

Or Interest or Ambition's highest prize;
That, injured or offended, never tried
Its dignity by vengeance to maintain,
But by magnanimous disdain.

A wit that, temperately bright,

With inoffensive light

All pleasing shone; nor ever past

The decent bounds that Wisdom's sober
hand,

And sweet Benevolence's mild command,
And bashful Modesty, before it cast.
A prudence undeceiving, undeceived,
That nor too little nor too much believed,
That scorn'd unjust Suspicion's coward
fear,

And without weakness knew to be sincere.
Such Lucy was, when, in her fairest days,
Amidst th' acclaim of universal praise,
In life's and glory's freshest bloom,
Death came remorseless on, and sunk her to
the tomb.

O best of wives! O dearer far to me
Than when thy virgin charms
Were yielded to my arms,

How can my soul endure the loss of thee?

How in the world, to me a desert grown,
Abandon'd and alone,
Without my sweet companion can I
live?

Without thy lovely smile,

The dear reward of every virtuous toil, What pleasures now can pall'd Ambition give?

Ev'n the delightful sense of well-earn'd

praise,

Unshared by thee, no more my lifeless thoughts could raise.

For my distracted mind What succour can I find?

Rise then, my soul, with hope elate, And seek those regions of serene delight, Whose peaceful path and ever-open gate No feet but those of harden'd Guilt shall miss.

There death himself thy Lucy shall restore, There yield up all his power ne'er to divide

you more.

Lord Lyttelton.-Born 1709, Died 1773.

907.-ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights the expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey;
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers

among

Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way!

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain:

I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast scen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,

The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which inthral

What idle progeny succeed

To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply
'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty;

Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:

Still as they run, they look behind;
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,

Less pleasing when possess'd; The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast. Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer of vigour born;

The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly the approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;

No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day;
Yet see how all around 'em wait
The ministers of human fate,

And black Misfortune's baleful train.

Ah! show them where in ambush stand,

To seize their prey, the murth'rous band; Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,

And Shame that skulks behind;

Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;

And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning Infamy.

The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,

The painful family of Death,

More hideous than their queen :

This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:

Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,

The unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?

Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

Gray.-Born 1716, Died 1771.

908.-HYMN TO ADVERSITY. Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge, and torturing hour, The bad affright, afflict the best!

When first thy sire to send on earth

Virtue, his darling child, design'd, To thee he gave the heavenly birth,

And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged nurse, thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity received,

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom, in sable garb array'd,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend :
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,

And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen),

With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, oh goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there,

To soften, not to wound, my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive;
Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are, to feel, and know myself a

man.

Gray.-Born 1716, Died 1771.

909.-THE BARD.

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless king,
Confusion on thy banners wait;

Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail