Again with transport hear
Her voice soft whispering in my ear;
May steal once more a balıny kiss,
And taste at least of visionary bliss.
But, ah! th' unwelcome morn's obtruding light
Will all my shadowy schemes of bliss depose,
Will tear the dear illusion from my sight,
And wake me to the sense of all my woes :
If to the verdant fields I stray.

Alas! what pleasures now can these convey?

[lead? Her lovely form pursues where'er I go,
And darkens all the scene with woe.

Dare not to ask what Heaven's high will de- By Nature's lavish bounties cheer'd no more,

When years thy judgement shall mature,
And Reason shows those ills it cannot cure,
Wilt thou a father's grief t' assuage,
For virtue prove the Phenix of the earth
(Like her, thy mother died to give thee birth)
And be the comfort of my age?

When sick and languishing I lie,
Wilt thou my Emma's wonted care supply?
And oft as to thy listening ear
Thy mother's virtues and her fate I tell,

Say wilt thou drop the tender tear,
Whilst on the mournful theme Ldwell?
Then, fondly stealing to thy father's side,
Whene'er thou seest the soft distress,

Which I would vainly seek to hide,

Say, wilt thou strive to make it less?
To sooth my sorrows all thy cares employ,
And in my cup of grief, infuse one drop of joy?

And, oh ! in that auspicious hour,
When fate resigns her persecuting pow't,
"With duteous zeal her hand shall close,
"No more to weep, mysorrow-streamingeres,
"When death gives misery repose,
"And opes a glorious passage to the skies."
Vain thought! it must not be-she too is dead,
The flattering scene is o'er;
My hopes for ever, ever fled;

And vengeance can no more.
Crush'd by misfortune, blasted by disease,
And none none left to bear å friendly part!
To meditate my welfare, health, or ease,

Or sooth the anguish of an aching heart!
Now all one gloomy scene, till welcome death,
With lenient hand (oh falsely deeni'd severe),
Shall kindly stop my grief-exhausted breath,
And dry up ev'ry tear.
Perhaps, obsequious to my will,

But ah! from my affections far remov'd!
The last sad office strangers my fulfil,

if I ne'er had been belov'd;
As if unconscious of poetic fire,
I ne'er had touch'd the trembling lyre;
As if my niggard hand ne'er dealt relief,
Nor my heart melted at another's grief.
Yet, while this weary life shall last,
While yet my tongue can form th'impassion'd
In piteous accents shall the muse complain,
And dwell with fond delay on blessings past:
For

For oh, how grateful to a wounded heart
The tale of misery to impart!
From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow,
And raise esteen upon the base of woe!
Ev'n He*, the noblest of the tuneful throng,
Shall deign my love-lorn tale to hear,
Shall catch the soft contagion of my song.

And pay my pensive Muse the tribute of a tear.

§ 104. Ar Ode to Narcissa. THY fatal shafts unerring move; I bow before thine alta., Love! I feel thy soft resistless flame

SMOLLET.

Glide swift thro' all my vital frame!
For while I gaze my bosom glows,
My blood in tides impetuous Hows;
Hope, fear, and joy, alternate roll,
And floods of transport whelm my soul!
My fault'ring tongue attempts in vain
In soothing murmurs to complain;
My tongue some secret magic ties,
My murmurs sink in broken sighs!
Condemn'd to nurse eternal care,
And ever drop the silent tear;
Unheard I mourn, unknown I sigh,
Unfriended live, unpitied die !

$105. Elegy in Imitation of Tibullus. SMOLLET.
WHERE now are all my flatt'ring dreains of

joy?
Monimia, give my soul her wonted rest :
Since first thy beauty fix'd my roving eye,
Heart-gnawing cares corrode my pensive breast.
Let happy lovers fly where pleasures call,
With festive songs beguile the fleeting hour,
Lead beauty thro' the mazes of the ball,
Or press her wanton in love's roseate bow'r.
For me, no more I'll range thempurpled mead,
Where shepherds pipe and virgins dance around,
Nor wander thro' the woodbine's fragrant shade,
To hear the music of the grove resound.

I'll seek some lonely church, or dreary hall,
Where fancy paints the glimm'ring taper blue,
Where damps hang mould'ring on the ivy'd wall,
And sheeted ghosts drink up the midnight dew:
There, leagu'd with hopeless anguish and des-
Awhile in silence o'er my fate repine :
[pair,
Then, with a long farewel to love and care,
To kindred dust my weary limbs consign.
Wilt thon, Monimia, shed a gracious tear
On the cold grave where all my sorrows rest;
Strew vernal flow'rs, applaud iny love sincere,
And bid the turf lie easy on my breast ?

$106. The Propagation of the Gospel in Greenland.

Fir'd with zeal peculiar, they defy
The rage and rigor of a polar sky,
And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose
On icy plains, and in eternal snows.
Oh, blest within th' inclosure of your rocks,
For herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks;
No fertilizing streams your fields divide.
That show revers'd the villas on their side;
No groves have ye; no cheerful sound of bird,
Or voice of turtle, in your land is heard;
Nor grateful eglantine regales the smell
Of those that walk at ev'ning where you dwell:
But winter, arm'd with terrors here unknown,
Sits absolute on his unshaken throne;
Piles up his stores amidst the frozen waste,
And bids the mountains he has built stand fast;
Beckons the legions of his storms away
From happier scenes, to make your land a prey;
Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won,
And scorns to share it with the distant sun.

Yet truth is yours, reinote, unenvied isle;
And peace, the genuine offspring of her smile:
The pride of letter'd ignorance, that binds
In chains of error our accomplish'd minds;
That decks with all the splendor of the true
A false religion - is unknown to you.
Nature indeed vouchsafes for our delight
The sweet vicissitudes of day and night';
Soft airs and genial moisture feed and cheer
Field, fruit, and flow'r, and ev'ry creature here,
But brighter beams than his who fires the skies
Have ris'n at length on your admiring eyes,
That shoot into your darkest caves the day
From which our nicer optics turn away.

§ 107. On Slavery, and the Slave Trade. CoWPER.
Bur, ah! what wish can prosper, or what

pray'r,

For merchants, rich in cargoes of despair,
Who drive a loathsome traffic, gage and span,
And buy the muscles and the bones of man?
The tender ties of father, husband, friend,
All bonds of nature in that moment end;
And each endures while yet he draws his breath,
A stroke as fatal as the scythe of death.
The sable warrior, frantic with regret
Of her he loves, and never can forget,
Loses in tears the far receding shore,
But not the thought, that they inust meet no
Depriv'd of her and freedom at a blow, [more.
What has he left that he can yet forego?
Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resign'd,
He feels his body's bondage in his mind;
Puts off his gen'rous nature, and to suit
His manners with his fate, puts on the brute..
Oh most degrading of all ills that wait
On man, a mourner in his best estate!

All other sorrows virtue may endure,
And find submission more than half a cure;
Grief is itself a medicine, and bestow'd
COWPER. T' improve the fortitude that bears a load;
AND still it spreads. See Germany send forth To teach the wand'rer, as his woes increase,
Her sons, to pour it on the farthest north↑: The path of wisdom, all whose paths are peace.

* Lord Lyttleton.

↑ The Moravian missionaries in Greenland. Vide Krantz."

But

Wait for the dawning of a brighter day,

To quit the bliss thy rural scenes bestow
To seek a nobler, amidst scenes of woe; [home,
To traverse seas, range kingdoms, and bring
Not the proud monuments of Greece or Rome,
But knowledge, such as only dungeons teach,

And snap the chain the moment when you may. And only sympathy like thine could reach;

Nature imprints upon whate'er we see,

That has a heart, and life in it, Be free!
The beasts are charter'd-neither age nor force
Can quell the love of freedom in a horse:
He breaks the cord that held him at the rack,
And, conscious of an unencumber'd back,
Snuffs up the morning air, forgets the rein,
Loose fly his forelock and his ample mane;
Responsive to the distants neigh he neighs,
Nor stops till, overleaping all delays,
He finds the pasture where his fellows graze..

}

§108. On Liberty, and in Praise of Mr. Howard.

COWPER.

Он could I worship ought beneath the skies
That earth had seen, or fancy could devise,
Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand,
Built by no mercenary, vulgar hand.
With fragrant turf, and flow'rs as wild and fair
As ever dress'd a bank, or scented summer air.
Duly as ever on the mountain's height
The peep of morning shed a dawning light;
Again, when evening in her sober vest
Drew the grey curtain of the fading West;
My soul should yield thee willing thanks and
For the chief blessings of my fairest days: [praise
But that were sacrilege - praise is not thine,
Buthis who gave thee, and preserves thee mine:
Else I would say, and as I spake bid fly
A captive bird into the boundless sky,
This triple realm adores thee - thou art come
From Sparta hither, and art here at home;
We feel thy force still active, at this hour
Enjoy immunity from priestly pow'r;
While conscience, happier than in antient years,
Owns no superior but the God shé fears.
Propitious Spirit! yet expunge a wrong
Thy rites have suffer'd, and our land, too long;
Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts that share
The fears and hopes of a commercial care:
Prisons expect the wicked, and were built
To bind the lawless, and to punish guilt;
Butshipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood,
Are mighty mischiefs, not to be withstood :
And honest merit stands on slipp'ry ground
Where covert guile, and artifice abound:
Let just restraint, for public peace design'd,
Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind;
The foe of virtue has no claim to thee,
But let insolvent innocence go free.

Patron of else the most despis'd of men,
Accept the tribute of a stranger's pen;
Verse, like the laurel, its immortal meed,
Should be the guerdon of a noble deed :
I may alarm thee, but I fear the shame
(Charity chosen as my theme and aim)
I must incur, forgetting Howard's name.
Blest with all wealth can give thee - to resign
Joys, doubly sweet to feelings quick as thine;

}

That grief, sequester'd from the public stage,
Might smooth her feathers, and enjoy her cage
Speaks a divine ambition, and a zeal
The boldest patriot might be proud to feel.
Oh that the voice of clamor and debate,
That pleads for peace till it disturbs the state,
Were hush'd, in favor of thy gen'rous plea,
The poor thy clients, and Heaven's smile thy fee!
§109. On Domestic Happiness, as the Friend
of Virtue; and of the false Good-nature of
the Age.
COWPER.
DOMESTIC happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has surviv'd the fall!
Tho' few now taste the unimpair'd and pure,
Or, tasting, long enjoy thee; too infirm
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets
Unmix'd with drops of bitter, which neglect
Or temper sheds into thy chrystal cup.
Thou art the nurse of virtue. In thine arms
She similes, appearing, as in truth she is,
Heaven-born, and destin'd to the skies again.
Thou art not known where Pleasure is ador'd,
That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist
And wand'ring eyes, still leaning on the arm
Of Novelty, her fickle, frail support;
For thou art meek and constant, hating change,
And finding in the calm of truth-tied love
Joys that her stormy raptures never yield.
Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made
Of honor, dignity, and fair renown,
Till prostitution elbows us aside
In all our crowded streets, and senates seem
Conven'd for purposes of einpire less
Than to release th' adult'ress from her bond!
Th' adult'ress! what a theme for angry verse,
What provocation to the indignant heart
That feels for injur'd love! But I disdain
The nauseous task to paint her as she is,
Cruel, abandon'd, glorying in her shame.
No. Let her pass; and, charioted along,
In guilty splendor shake the public ways:
The frequency of crimes has wash'd them white,
And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch
Whom matrons now, of character unsmirch'd,
And chaste themselves, are not asham'd to own.
Virtues and vice had bound'ries in old time
Not to be pass'd: and she that had renoune'd
Her sex's honor, was renoune'd herself
By all that priz'd it; not for Prudery's sake,
But Dignity's resentful of the wrong.
'Twas hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif
Desirous to return, and not receiv'd;
But was an wholesome rigor in the main,
And taught th' unblemished to preserve with
That purity, whose loss was loss of all. [care
Men too were nice in honor in those days,
And judg'd offenders well: and he that sharp'd
And pocketed a prize by fraud obtain'd,

Was

Was mark'd, and shunn'dasodious. He that sold | Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon

The price of his default. Be now-yes, now, News from all nations lumb'ring at his back.

We are become so candid and so fair,
So liberal in construction and so rich

In Christian charity, a good-natur'd age!
That they are safe: sinners of either sex [bred,
Transgress what laws they may. Welldress'd, well
Well equipag'd, is ticket good enough
To pass us readily through ev'ry door.
Hypocrisy, detest her as we may,
(And no man's hatred ever wrong'd her yet)
May claim his merit still, that she admits
The worth of what she mimics with such care,
And thus gives virtue indirect applause :
But she has burnt her masks, not needed here,
Where vice has such allowance, that her shifts
And specious semblances have lost their use.