But thou forgive-delinquents, who confess,
And pray forgiveness, merit anger less;
From timid foes, the lion turns away,
Nor yawns upon or rends a crouching prey :
Even pike-wielding Thracians learn to spare,
Won by soft influence of a suppliant prayer;
And heav'n's dread thunderbolt arrested stands
By a cheap victim, and uplifted hands.
Long had he wish'd to write, but was withheld,
And writes at last, by love alone compell'd,
For fame, too often true, when she alarms,
Reports thy neighbouring fields a scene of arms;
Thy city against fierce besiegers barr'd,
And all the Saxon chiefs for fight prepar'd.
Enyo wastes thy country wide around,
And saturates with blood the tainted ground;
Mars rests contented in his Thrace no more,
But goads his steeds to fields of German gore.
The ever verdant olive fades and dies,
And peace, the trumpet-hating goddess, flies,
Flies from that earth which justice long had left,
And leaves the world of its last guard bereft.
Thus horrour girds thee round. Meantime alone Thou dwell'st, and helpless in a soil unknown; Poor and receiving from a foreign hand The aid denied thee in thy native land. Oh, ruthless country, and unfeeling more Than thy own billow-beaten chalky shore! Leav'st thou to foreign care the worthies, giv'n By Providence to guide thy steps to Heav'n? His ministers commission'd to proclaim Eternal blessings in a Saviour's name! Ah then most worthy, with a soul unfed, In Stygian night to lie for ever dead. So once the venerable Tishbite stray'd An exil'd fugitive from shade to shade,
When, flying Ahab, and his fury wife,
In long Arabian wilds he shelter'd life;
So, from Philippi, wander'd forth forlorn
Cilician Paul, with sounding scourges torn;
And Christ himself so left, and trod no more,
The thankless Gergesenes' forbidden shore.
But thou take courage! strive against despair!
Quake not with dread, nor nourish anxious care!
Grim war indeed on every side appears,
And thou art menac'd by a thousand spears;
Yet none shall drink thy blood, or shall offend,
E'en the defenceless bosom of
my friend.
For thee the Ægis of thy God shall hide,
Jehovah's self shall combat on thy side;
The same, who vanquish'd, under Sion's tow'rs
At silent midnight, all Assyria's pow'rs,
The same who overthrew in ages past,
Damascus' sons that laid Samaria waste!
Their king he fill'd, and them with fatal fears,
By mimick sounds of clarions in their ears.
Of hoofs, and wheels, and neighings from afar,
Of clashing armour, and the din of war.
Thou, therefore, (as the most afflicted) may Still hope, and triumph o'er the evil day! Look forth, expecting happier times to come And to enjoy, once more, thy native home!
Written in the Author's 20th Year.
TIME, never wand'ring from his annual round,
Bids Zephyr breathe the spring, and thaw the ground;
Bleak winter flies, new verdure clothes the plain,
And earth assumes her transient youth again.
Dream I, or also to the spring belong
Increase of genius, and new pow'rs of song?
Spring gives them, and how strange soe'er it seems,
Impels me now to some harmonious themes.
Castalia's fountain and the forked hill
By day, by night, my raptur'd fancy fill;
My bosom burns and heaves, I hear within
A sacred sound, that prompts me to begin.
Lo! Phœbus comes, with his bright hair he blends
The radiant laurel wreath; Phœbus descends;
I mount, and, undepress'd by cumb rous clay,
Through cloudy regions win my easy way;
Rapt through poetick shadowy haunts I fly :
The shrines all open to my dauntless eye,
My spirit searches all the realms of light,
And no Tartarean gulfs elude my sight.
But this ecstatick trance-this glorious storm
Of inspiration--what will it perform?
Spring claims the verse, that with his influence glows, And shall be paid with what himself bestows.
Thou, veil'd with op'ning foliage, lead'st the throng Of feather'd minstrels, Philomel! in song;
Let us, in concert, to the season sing,
Civick, and sylvan heralds of the spring!
With notes triumphant, spring's approach declare To spring, ye Muses, annual tribute bear! The Orient left, and Ethiopia's plains,
The sun now northward turns his golden reins;
Night creeps not now; yet rules with gentle sway;
And drives her dusky horrours swift away;
Now less fatigued, on this ethereal plain
Bootes follows his celestial wain;
And now the radiant sentinels above,
Less num'rous, watch around the courts of Jove,
For, with the night, force, ambush, slaughter fly,
And no gigantick guilt alarms the sky.
Now haply says some shepherd, while he views,
Recumbent on a rock, the redd'ning dews,
This night, this surely, Phœbus iniss'd the fair,
Who stops his chariot by her am'rous care.
Cynthia, delighted by the morning's glow,
Speeds to the woodland, and resumes her bow;
Resigns her beams, and glad to disappear,
Blesses his aid, who shortens her career.
Come-Phoebus cries-Aurora come-too late
Thou ling rest slumb'ring with thy wither'd mate!
Leave him, and to Hymettu's top repair!
Thy darling Cephalus expects thee there.
The goddess, with a blush, her love betrays,
But mounts, and driving rapidly, obeys.
Earth now desires thee, Phœbus! and t' engage
Thy warm embrace, casts off the guise of age;
Desires thee, and deserves; for who so sweet,
When her rich bosom courts thy genial heat?
Her breath imparts to ev'ry breeze that blows,
Arabia's harvest, and the Paphian rose.
Her lofty front she diadems around
With sacred pines, like Ops on Ida crown'd:
Her dewy locks, with various flow'rs new-blown,
She interweaves, various, and all her own.
For Proserpine, in such a wreath attir'd,
Tænarian Dis himself with love inspir'd.
Fear not, lest, cold and coy, the nymph refuse!
Herself, with all her sighing Zephyrs, sues;
Each courts thee, fanning soft his scented wing,
And all her groves with warbled wishes ring.
Now, unendow'd and indigent, aspires,
The am'rous Earth to engage thy warm desires,
But, rich in balmy drugs, assist thy claim,
Divine Physician! to that glorious name,
If splendid recompense, if gifts can move
Desire in thee, (gifts often purchase love,)
She offers all the wealth her mountains hide,
And all that rests beneath the boundless tide.
How oft, when headlong from the heav'nly steep,
She sees thee playing in the western deep,
How oft she cries-" Ah Phœbus! why repair
Thy wasted force, why seek refreshment there!
Can Tethys win thee? wherefore shouldst thou lave
A face so fair in her unpleasant wave?
Come, seek my green retreats, and rather choose
To cool thy tresses in my crystal dews,
The grassy turf shall yield thee sweeter rest;
Come, lay thy evening glories on my breast,
And breathing fresh, through many a humid rose,
Soft whispering airs shall lull thee to repose!
No fears I feel like Semele to die,
Nor let thy burning wheels approach too nigh,
For thou canst govern them, here therefore rest
And lay thy evening glories on my breast?"
Thus breathes the wanton earth her am'rous flame, And all her countless offspring feel the same;
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