Tho' bright in arms while hosts around him bleed
With martial pride he prest his foaming steed.
No pomps like these my humble vows require ;
With thee I'll live and in thy arms expire.
Thee may my closing eyes in death behold!
Thee may my fault'ring hand yet strive to hold!
Then Delia! then thy heart will melt in wo,
Then o'er my breathless clay thy tears will flow,
Thy tears will flow, for gentle is thy mind,
Nor dost thou think it weakness to be kind :
But ah! fair Mourner! I conjure thee spare
Thy heaving breasts and loose dishevell’d hair;
Wound not thy form, least on th' Elysian coast
Thy anguish should disturb my peaceful ghost. 60
But now nor death nor parting should employ
Our sprightly thoughts or damp our bridal joy :
We'll live, my Delia ! and from life remove
All care, all bus'ness, but delightful love.
Old age in vain those pleasures would retrieve 65
Which youth alone can taste, alone can give:
Then let us snatch the moment to be blest;
This hour is Love's-be Fortune's all the rest. 68
Sent to a Friend in a Lady's Name. SAY, my Cerinthus ! does thy tender breast Feel the same fev'rish heats that mine molest?
Alas! I only wish for health again
Because I think my lover shares my pain;
For what would health avail to wretched me
If you could unconcern'd my illness see?
I'M weary of this tedious dull deceit;
Myself I torture while the world I cheat :
Tho' prudence bids me strive to guard my fame,
Love sees the low hypocrisy with shame;
Love bids me all confess, and call thee mine,
Worthy my heart as I am worthy thine:
Weakness for thee I will no longer hide;
Weakness for thee is woman's noblest pride.
CATO'S SPEECH TO LABIENUS.
IN THE NINTH BOOK OF LUCAN.
Quid quæri, Labiene, jubes, &c.
WHAT, Labienus! would thy fond desire
Of horned Jove's prophetic shrine inquire
Whether to seek in arms a glorious doom
Or basely live and be a king in Rome ?
If life be nothing more than death's delay,
If impious Force can honest minds dismay,
Or Probity may Fortune's frown disdain,
If well to mean is all that Virtue can,
And right dependant on itself alone
Gains no addition from success-'Tis known
Fix'd in my heart these constant truths I bear,
And Ammon cannot write them deeper there.
Our souls, ally'd to God, within them feel
The secret dictates of th' Almighty will :
This is his voice, be this our oracle.
When first his breath the seeds of life instill'd,
All that we ought to know was then reveal'd.
Nor can we think the Omnipresent Mind
Has Truth to Lybia's desert sands confin'd,
There known to few obscur'd and lost to lie.- 20
Is there a temple of the Deity
Except earth, sea, and air, yon' azure pole,
And chief his holiest shrine the virtuous soul?
Where'er the eye can pierce the feet can move,
This wide, this boundless universe, is Jove.
Let abject minds that doubt because they fear
With pious awe to juggling priests repair;
I credit not what lying prophets tell—
Death is the only certain oracle.
Cowards and brave must die one destin'd hour-
This Jove has told, he needs not tell us more.
IN IMITATION OF PASTOR FIDO.
O primavera gioventu del anno.
WRITTEN ABROAD IN MDCCXXIX.
PARENT of blooming flow'rs and gay desires,
Youth of the tender year, delightful Spring!
At whose approach inspir'd with equal fires
The am'rous nightingale and poet sing;
Again dost thou return, but not with thee
Return the smiling hours I once possest;
Blessings thou bringst to others, but to me
The sad remembrance that I once was blest.
III.
Thy faded charms which Winter snatch'd away,
Renew'd in all their former lustre shine,
But ah! no more shall hapless I be gay,
Or know the vernal joys that have been mine. 12
IV.
Tho' linnets sing, tho' flow'rs adorn the green, 1
Tho' on their wings soft Zephirs fragrance bear,
Harsh is the musick, joyless is the scene,
The odour faint, for Delia is not there.
Cheerless and cold I feel the genial sun,
From thee while absent I in exile rove;
Thy lovely presence, fairest light! alone
Can warm my heart to gladness and to love.
On good Humour, written at Eaton School in
To the Mem. of the same Lady. A Monody,
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