more the Muse obtrudes her thin disguise,
No more with awkward fallacy complains
How ev'ry fervour from my bosom flies,
And reason in her loathsome palace reigns.
Ere the chill winter of our days arrive,
No more fhe paints the breast from paffion free;
I feel, I feel one loit'ring wish survive-
Ah! need I, Florio, name that wish to thee?..
The star of Venus ushers in the day,
The first, the loveliest of the train that shine!
The star of Venus lends her brightest ray,
When other stars their friendly beams resign.
Still in my breast one soft desire remains,
Pure as that star, from guilt, from int'rest, free;
Has gentle Delia tripp'd across the plains,
And need I, Florio, name that wish to thee?
While, cloy'd to find the scenes of life the same,
I tune with careless hand my languid lays,
Some secret impulse wakes my former flame,
And fires my strain with hopes of brighter days. 20
Volume I.
I slept not long beneath yon' rural bow'rs,
And, lo! my crook with flow'rs adorn'd I see;
Has gentle Delia bound my crook with flow'rs,
And need I, Florio, name my hopes to thee?
To a friend, on some slight occasion estranged from him.
HEALTH
EALTH to my friend, and many a cheerful day!
Around his seat may peaceful shades abide !
Smooth flow the minutes, fraught with smiles, away,
And till they crown our union gently glide!
Ah me! too swiftly fleets our vernal bloom!
Lost to our wonted friendship, lost to joy!
Soon may thy breaft the cordial wish resume,
Ere wintry doubt its tender warmth destroy!
Say, were it ours, by Fortune's wild command,
By chance to meet beneath the Torrid Zone,
Wouldst thou reject thy Damon's plighted hand?
Wouldst thou with scorn thy once-lov'd friend disown?
Life is that stranger land, that alien clime;
Shall kindred souls forego their social claim?
Launch'd in the vaft abyss of space and time,
Shall dark suspicion quench the gen'rous flame?
Myriads of souls, that knew one parent mould,
See sadly sever'd by the laws of Chance!
Miriads, in Time's perennial list enroll'd,
Forbid by Fate to change one tranfient glance!
But we have met where ills of ev'ry form,
Where passions rage, and hurricanes descend;
Say, shall we nurse the rage, assist the storm,
And guide them to the bosom-of a friend?
Yes, we have met thro' rapine, fraud, and wrong: Might our joint aid the paths of peace explore! 26 Why leave thy friend amid the boist❜rous throng, Ere death divide us, and we part no more?
For, oh! pale Sickness warns thy friend away;
For me no more the vernal roses bloom!
I see stern Fate his ebon wand display,
And point the wither'd regions of the tomb.
Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start,
Sad as thou follow'st my untimely bier;
"Fool that I was-if friends so soon must part, "To let suspicion intermix a fear."
Declining an invitation to visit foreign countries, he takes occasion to intimate the advantages of his own. To Lord
HILE others, lost to friendship, lost to love,
Waste their best minutes on a foreign strand,
Be mine with British nymph or swain to rove,
And court the Genius of my native land.
Deluded Youth! that quits these verdant plains, 5
To catch the follies of an alien soil!
To win the vice his genuine soul disdains,
Return exultant, and import the spoil!
In vain he boasts of his detested prize;
No more it blooms, to British climes convey'd ; 10
Cramp'd by the impulse of ungenial skies,
See its fresh vigour in a moment fade!
Th' exotic folly knows its native clime,
An awkward stranger, if we waft it o'er ;
Why then these toils, this costly waste of time,
To spread soft poison on our happy shore?
I covet not the pride of foreign looms;
In search of foreign modes I scorn to rove;
Nor for the worthless bird of brighter plumes
Would change the meanest warbler of my grove. 20
No distant clime shall servile airs impart,
Or form these limbs with pliant ease to play;
Trembling I view the Gaul's illusive art
That steals my lov'd rusticity away.
'Tis long since Freedom fled th' Hesperian clime, 25 Her citron groves, her flow'r-embroider'd shore; She saw the British oak aspire sublime,
And soft Campania's olive charms no more.
Let partial suns mature the western mine,
To shed its lustre o'er th' Iberian maid;
Mien, beauty, shape, O native soil! are thine;
Thy peerless daughters ask no foreign aid.
Let Ceylon's envy'd plant * perfume the seas,
Till torn to season the Batavian bowl;
Ours is the breast whose genuine ardours please, 35
Nor need a drug to meliorate the soul.
Let the proud Soldan wound th' Arcadian groves,
Or with rude lips th Aonian fount profane;
The Muse no more by flow'ry Ladon roves,
She seeks her Thomson on the British plain.
Tell not of realms by ruthless war dismay'd;
Ah! hapless realms! that war's oppression feel!
In vain may Austria boast her Noric blade,
If Austria bleed beneath her boasted steel.
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