Alas! again no more we meet, No more our former looks repeat; Then let me breathe this parting prayer, The dictate of my bosom's care:

May Heaven so guard my lovely Quaker,
That anguish can ne'er o'ertake her;
That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her,
But bliss be aye her neart's partaker!
Oh! may the happy mortal fated
To be, by dearest ties, related,

For her each hour new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover!
May that fair bosom never know
What 'tis to feel the restless woe
Which stings the soul, with vain regret,
Of him who never can forget!

TO LESBIA. 1. 覆

Lesbia! since far from you I've ranged,
Our souls with fond affection glow not:
You say 'tis I, not you, have changed,
I'd tell why, but yet I know not.

2.

Your polish'd brow no cares have crost;
And, Lesbia! we are not much older,
Since trembling first my heart I lost,

Or told my love, with hope grown bolder.

3.

Sixteen was then our utmost age,

Two years have lingering past away, love! And now new thoughts our minds engage, At least I feel disposed to stray, love!

4.

'Tis I that am alone to blame,

I, that am guilty of love's treason; Since your sweet breast is still the same, Caprice must be my only reason.

5.

I do not, love! suspect your truth,
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not;
Warm was the passion of my youth,

One trace of dark deceit it leaves not.
6.

No, no, my flame was not pretended,
For, oh! I loved you most sincerely;
And-though our dream at last is ended-
My bosom still esteems you dearly.

7.

No more we meet in yonder bowers;
Absence has made me prone to roving;
But older, firmer hearts than ours
Have found monotony in loving.

8.

Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd, New beauties still are daily bright'ning, Your eye for conquest beams prepared, The forge of love's resistless lightning.

9.

Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed, Many will throng to sigh like me, love! More constant they may prove, indeed; Fonder, alas! they ne'er can be, love!

ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT
PUBLIC SCHOOL.

WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own,
When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail'd a barbarian in her Cæsar's place,
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate,
And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate.
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control;
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd,
With florid jargon, and with vain parade;
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules,
Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools
Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws,
He governs, sanction'd but by self-applause.
With him the same dire fate attending Rome,
Ill-fated Ida! soon must stamp your doom:
Like her o'erthrown, for ever lost to fame,
No trace of science left you but the name.

July, 1805.

CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS.

"I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most dear to me."

WHEN slow Disease, with all her host of pains,
Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins;
When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing,
And flies with every changing gale of spring;
Not to the aching frame alone confined,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind:
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of woe,
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow,
With Resignation wage relentless strife,
While Hope retires appall'd and clings to life.
Yet less the pang when through the tedious hour
Remembrance sheds around her genial power,
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture given,
When love was bliss, and Beauty form'd our heaven;
Or, dear to youth, portrays each childish scene,
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been.
As when through clouds that pour the summer storm
The orb of day unveils his distant form,
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain,
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery plain;
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The sun of memory, glowing through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays;
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway,
The past confounding with the present day.

Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought,
Which still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought;
My soul to Fancy's fond suggestion yields,
And roams romantic o'er her airy fields;
Scenes of my youth, develop'd, crowd to view,
To which I long have bade a last adieu!
Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes;
Friends lost to me for aye except in dreams;
Some who in marble prematurely sleep,
Whose forms I now remember but to weep;
Some who yet urge the same scholastic course
Of early science, future fame the source;
Who, still contending in the studious race,
In quick rotation fill the senior place!
These with a thousand visions now unite,
To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight.
IDA! blest spot, where Science holds her reign,
How joyous once I join'd thy youthful train!

Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire,
Again I mingle with thy playful quire;
Our tricks of mischief, every childish game,
Unchanged by time or distance, seem the same;
Through winding paths, along the glade, I trace
The social smile of ev'ry welcome face;

My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe,
Each early boyish friend or youthful foe,
Our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past:-
I bless the former, and forgive the last.

Hours of my youth! when, nurtured in my breast,
To love a stranger, friendship made me blest:-
Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth,
When every artless bosom throbs with truth;
Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign,
And check each impulse with prudential rein;
When all we feel, our honest souls disclose-
In love to friends, in open hate to foes;
No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat,
No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit.
Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years,
Matured by age, the garb of prudence wears.
When now the boy is ripen'd into man,
His careful sire chalks forth some wary plan;
Instructs his son from candour's path to shrink,
Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to think;
Still to assent, and never to deny-

A patron's praise can well reward the lie:
And who, when Fortune's warning voice is heard,
Would lose his opening prospects for a word?
Although against that word his heart rebel,
And truth, indiguant, all his bosom swell.

Away with themes like this hot mine the task
From flattering fiends to tear the hateful mask;
Let keener bards delight in satire's sting;
My fancy soars not on Detraction's wing:
Once, and but once, she aim'd a deadly blow.
To hur! defiance on a secret foe;

But when that foe, from feeling or from shame,
The cause unknown, yet still to me the same,
Warn'd by some friendly hint, perchance, retired,
With this submission all her rage expired.
From dreaded pangs that feeble foe to save,
She hush'd her young resentment, and forgave;
Or, if my muse a pedant's portrait drew,
Pomposus' virtues are but known to few:
I never fear'd the young usurper's nod,
And he who wields must sometimes feel the rod.
If since on Granta's failings, known to all
Who share the converse of a college hall,
She sometimes trifled in a lighter strain,
'Tis past, and thus she will not sin again.
Soon must her early song for ever cease,
And all may rail when I shall rest in peace.

Here first remember'd be the joyous band
Who hail'd me chief, obedient to command;
Who join'd with me in every boyish sport-
Their first adviser, and their last resort;
Nor shrunk beneath the upstart pedant's frown,
Or all the sable glories of his gown;
Who, thus transplanted from his father's school-
Unfit to govern, ignorant of rule-
Succeeded him whom all unite to praise,
The dear preceptor of my early days;
Probus, the pride of science, and the boast,
TO IDA now, alas! for ever lost.
With him for years we search'd the classic page.
And fear'd the master, though we loved the sage
Retired at last, his small yet peaceful seat

| From learning's labour is the blest retreat