Of bookish schoolmen, beings over rife,
Whose pia-mater studious is filled

With unconnected matter, half distilled

From lettered page, shall bare for thee the knife,
Beneath whose edge the poet ofttimes sinks:
But fear not! for thy modest work contains
The germ of worth; thy wild poetic strains,
How sweet to him, untutored bard, who thinks
Thy verse "has power to please, as soft it flows
Through the smooth murmurs of the frequent close."

1803.

TO THE MEMORY OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

BY A LADY.

IF worth, if genius, to the world are dear,
To Henry's shade devote no common tear;
His worth on no precarious tenure hung,
From genuine piety his virtues sprung;
If pure benevolence, if steady sense,
Can to the feeling heart delight dispense:
If all the highest efforts of the mind,
Exalted, noble, elegant, refined,
Call for fond sympathy's heart-felt regret,
Ye sons of genius, pay the mournful debt:
His friends can truly speak how large his claim,

And "Life was only wanting to his fame.”

Art thou, indeed, dear youth, for ever fled?
So quickly numbered with the silent dead?
Too sure I read it in the downcast eye,
Hear it in mourning friendship's stifled sigh.
Ah! could esteem or admiration save
So dear an object from the untimely grave,
This transcript faint had not essayed to tell
The loss of one beloved, revered so well;
Vainly I try, even eloquence were weak,
The silent sorrow that I feel to speak.

No more my hours of pain thy voice will cheer,
And bind my spirit to this lower sphere;
Bend o'er my suffering frame with gentle sigh,
And bid new fire relume my languid eye:
No more the pencil's mimic art command,
And with kind pity guide my trembling hand;
Nor dwell upon the page in fond regard,
To trace the meaning of the Tuscan bard.
Vain all the pleasures thou canst not inspire,
And "in my breast the imperfect joys expire."
I fondly hoped thy hand might grace my shrine,
And little dreamed I should have wept o'er thine:
In fancy's eye methought I saw thy lyre
With virtue's energies each bosom fire;
I saw admiring nations press around,
Eager to catch the animating sound:

And when, at length, sunk in the shades of night,
To brighter worlds thy spirit wing'd its flight,
Thy country hailed thy venerated shade,
And each graced honour to thy memory paid.

Such was the fate hope pictured to my view-
But who, alas! e'er found hope's visions true?
And, ah! a dark presage, when last we met,
Sadden'd the social hour with deep regret;
When thou thy portrait from the minstrel drew,
The living Edwin starting on my view
Silent, I asked of Heaven a lengthened date;
His genius thine, but not like thine his fate.
Shuddering I gazed, and saw too sure revealed,
The fatal truth, by hope till then concealed.
Too strong the portion of celestial flame
For its weak tenement the fragile frame;
Too soon for us it sought its native sky,
And soar'd impervious to the mortal eye,
Like some clear planet, shadowed from our sight,
Leaving behind long tracks of lucid light:
So shall thy bright example fire each youth

With love of virtue, piety, and truth.

Long o'er thy loss shall grateful Granta mourn,

And bid her sons revere thy favoured urn.

When thy loved flower "spring's victory makes known,"

The primrose pale shall bloom for thee alone:
Around thy urn the rosemary well spread,

Whose "tender fragrance," — emblem of the deadShall "teach the maid, whose bloom no longer

lives,"

That "virtue every perished grace survives." Farewell! sweet Moralist; heart-sickening grief Tells me in duty's path to seek relief,

With surer aim on faith's strong pinions rise, And seek hope's vanished anchor in the skies. Yet still on thee shall fond remembrance dwell, And to the world thy worth delight to tell; Though well I feel unworthy thee the lays That to thy memory weeping friendship pays.

STANZAS,

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE

OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

BY A LADY.

YE gentlest gales! oh, hither waft,
On airy undulating sweeps,
Your frequent sighs so passing soft,

Where he, the youthful Poet, sleeps!
He breathed the purest tenderest sigh,
The sigh of sensibility.

And thou shalt lie, his favourite flower,
Pale primrose, on his grave reclined;
Sweet emblem of his fleeting hour,

And of his pure, his spotless mind!
Like thee he sprung in lowly vale;
And felt, like thee, the trying gale.

APR 18 1917

Nor hence thy pensive eye seclude,
O thou, the fragrant rosemary,
Where he, "in marble solitude,
So peaceful and so deep" doth lie
His harp prophetic sung to thee
In notes of sweetest minstrelsy.

Ye falling dews, Oh! ever leave

Your crystal drops these flowers to steep

At earliest morn, at latest eve,

Oh let them for their poet weep! For tears bedewed his gentle eye, The tears of heavenly sympathy.

Thou western Sun, effuse thy beams;
For he was wont to pace the glade,
To watch in pale uncertain gleams,
The crimson-zoned horizon fade
Thy last, thy setting radiance pour,
Where he is set to rise no more.

THE END.