280

INVITATION TO THE REDBREAST.

Then, soon as the swell of the buds

Bespeaks the renewal of spring, Fly hence, if thou wilt, to the woods,

Or where it shall please thee to sing: And shouldst thou, compell'd by a frost, Come again to my window or door, Doubt not an affectionate host,

Only pay as thou paid'st me before.

Thus music must needs be confess'd
To flow from a fountain above;
Else how should it work in the breast

Unchangeable friendship and love? And who on the globe can be found, Save your generation and ours,

That can be delighted by sound,

Or boasts any musical powers?

ODE ON THE DEATH OF A LADY,

WHO LIVED ONE HUNDRED YEARS, AND

A

(PAGE 120.)

NCIENT dame, how wide and vast

To a race like ours appears,

Rounded to an orb at last,
All thy multitude of years!

We, the herd of human kind,

Frailer and of feebler

powers;

We, to narrow bounds confined,
Soon exhaust the sum of ours.

Death's delicious banquet-we

Perish even from the womb,

Swifter than a shadow flee,

Nourish'd but to feed the tomb.

Seeds of merciless disease

Lurk in all that we enjoy ; Some that waste us by degrees,

Some that suddenly destroy.

282

ON THE DEATH OF A LADY.

And, if life o'erleap the bourn
Common to the sons of men,
What remains, but that we mourn,
Dream, and dote, and drivel then?

Fast as moons can wax and wane
Sorrow comes; and while we groan,
Pant with anguish, and complain,
Half our years are fled and gone.

If a few (to few 'tis given),

Lingering on this earthly stage,
Creep and halt with steps uneven
To the period of an age,

Wherefore live they, but to see
Cunning, arrogance, and force,
Sights lamented much by thee,
Holding their accustom'd course?

Oft was seen, in ages past,

All that we with wonder.view;

Often shall be to the last;

Earth produces nothing new.

Should propitious Heaven design

Life for us as calmly spent,

Though but half the length of thine.

RECIPROCAL KINDNESS THE PRI

A

MARY LAW OF NATURE.

(PAGE 127.)

NDROCLES, from his injured lord, in dread Of instant death, to Libya's desert fled. Tired with his toilsome flight, and parch'd with

heat,

He spied at length a cavern's cool retreat;
But scarce had given to rest his weary frame,
When, hugest of his kind, a lion came:
He roar'd approaching: but the savage din
To plaintive murmurs changed-arrived within,
And with expressive looks, his lifted paw
Presenting, aid implored from whom he saw.
The fugitive, through terror at a stand,
Dared not awhile afford his trembling hand;
But bolder grown, at length inherent found
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound.
The cure was wrought; he wiped the sanious blood,
And firm and free from pain the lion stood.
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day
Regales his inmate with the parted prey.

284

RECIPROCAL KINDNESS.

Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepared,
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shared.
But thus to live-still lost-sequester'd still-
Scarce seem'd his lord's revenge a heavier ill.
Home! native home! O might he but repair!
He must-he will, though death attends him there.
He goes, and doom'd to perish on the sands
Of the full theatre unpitied stands :
When lo! the selfsame lion from his cage
Flies to devour him, famish'd into rage.
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey
The man, his healer, pauses on his way,
And, soften'd by remembrance into sweet
And kind composure, crouches at his feet.

Mute with astonishment, the assembly gaze:
But why, ye Romans? Whence your mute amaze?
All this is natural: nature bade him rend
An enemy; she bids him spare a friend.