Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine;
About thee sports sweet Liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell!
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.

ON EOLUS'S HARP.

ETHEREAL race, inhabitants of air,

Who hymn your God amid the secret grove; Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair,

And raise majestic strains, or melt in love. Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid,

With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart! Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid,

Who died for love, these sweet complainings part. But hark! that strain was of a graver tone,

On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws; Or he, the sacred Bard,' who sat alone

In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.

Such was the song which Zion's children sung,

When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint;

And to such sadly solemn notes are strung

Angelic harps, to soothe a dying saint.

Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,

Through Heaven's high dome their awful anthem raise; Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire

To swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise.

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,

Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string,

Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd,
For till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing.

(1) Jeremiah

TO AMANDA.

АH, urged too late! from beauty's bondage free,
Why did I trust my liberty with thee?--
And thou, why didst thou, with inhuman art,
If not resolved to take, seduce my heart?
Yes, yes, you said, for lover's eyes speak true;
You must have seen how fast my passion grew:
And, when your glances chanced on me to shine,
How my fond soul ecstatic sprung to thine!
But mark me, fair one-what I now declare
Thy deep attention claims and serious care:
It is no common passion fires my breast;
I must be wretched, or I must be bless'd!
My woes all other remedy deny;

Or, pitying, give me hope, or bid me die!

TO AMANDA,

WITH A COPY OF THE “ SEASONS."

ACCEPT, loved Nymph, this tribute due
To tender friendship, love, and you:
But with it take what breathed the whole,
O! take to thine the poet's soul.
If Fancy here her power displays,
And if a heart exalts these lays-
You fairest in that fancy shine,
And all that heart is fondly thine.

SONG.

UNLESS with my Amanda bless'd,
In vain I twine the woodbine bower;
Unless to deck her sweeter breast,
In vain I rear the breathing flower.
Awaken'd by the genial year,

In vain the birds around me sing;
In vain the freshening fields appear:
Without my love there is no Spring.

SONG.

TELL me, thou soul of her I love,
Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;
To what delightful world above,
Appointed for the happy dead?
Or dost thou, free, at pleasure, roam,
And sometimes share thy lover's woe;
Where, void of thee, his cheerless home
Can now, alas! no comfort know?
Oh! if thou hoverest round my walk,
While, under every well-known tree,
I to thy fancied shadow talk,

And

every tear is full of thee: Should then the weary eye of grief, Beside some sympathetic stream, In slumber find a short relief,

Oh, visit thou my soothing dream !

SONG.

FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between, and bid us part;

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish, and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the love of life is gone?

But busy, busy still art thou,
To bind the loveless, joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;
All other blessings I resign,

Make but the dear Amanda mine.

SONG.

O NIGHTINGALE, best poet of the grove,
That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee,
Bless'd in the full possession of thy love:

O lend that strain, sweet Nightingale, to me!
"Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate:
I love a maid who all my bosom charms,
Yet lose my days without this lovely mate;
Inhuman fortune keeps her from my arms.
You, happy birds! by nature's simple laws
Lead your soft lives, sustain'd by nature's fare;
You dwell wherever roving fancy draws,

And love and song is all your pleasing care:

But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride,

Dare not be bless'd, lest envious tongues should blame: And hence, in vain I languish for my bride!

O mourn with me, sweet bird, my hapless flame.

SONG.

HARD is the fate of him who loves,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,

But to the sympathetic groves,

But to the lonely listening plain.

Oh! when she blesses next your shade,
Oh! when her footsteps next are seen

In flowery tracts along the mead,
In fresher mazes o'er the green:

Ye gentle spirits of the vale,

To whom the tears of love are dear,

From dying lilies waft a gale,

And sigh my sorrows in her car.

Oh! tell her what she cannot blame,
Though fear my tongue must ever bind;

Oh, tell her, that my virtuous flame
Is, as her spotless soul, refined.

Not her own guardian-angel eyes
With chaster tenderness his care,
Not purer her own wishes rise,
Not holier her own sighs in prayer.
But if, at first, her virgin fear

Should start at love's suspected name, With that of friendship soothe her ear— True love and friendship are the same.

SONG.

ONE day the god of fond desire,

On mischief bent, to Damon said, 'Why not disclose your tender fire, Not own it to the lovely maid? ”

The shepherd mark'd his treacherous art,
And, softly sighing, thus replied:
""Tis true, you have subdued my heart,
But shall not triumph o'er my pride.

"The slave, in private only bears

Your bondage, who his love conceals; But when his passion he declares, You drag him at your

chariot-wheels."

SONG.

COME, gentle god of soft desire,
Come and possess my happy breast,
Not fury-like in flames and fire,

Or frantic Folly's wildness dress'd;
But come in Friendship's angel-guise ;
Yet dearer thou than Friendship art,
More tender spirit in thy eyes,

More sweet emotions at the heart.

O, come with goodness in thy train,
With peace and pleasure void of storm,

And wouldst thou me for ever gain,
Put on Amanda's winning form.