And counsel sage adhere to;
With me, henceforward, join the crowd,
And like the rest proclaim aloud,
That money is all virtue !
Then may we both, in time, retreat
To some fair villa, sweetly neat,
To entertain the muses;
And then life's noise and trouble leave-
Supremely blest, we'll never grieve
At what the world refuses.
Now had the beam of Titan gay
Usher'd in the blissful May,
Scattering from his pearly bed,
Fresh dew on every mountain's head;
Nature mild and debonair,
To thee, fair maid, yields up her care.
May, with gentle plastic hand,
Clothes in flowery robe the land;
O'er the vales the cowslips spreads,
And eglantine beneath the shades;
Violets blue befringe each fountain,
Woodbines lace each steepy mountain;
Hyacinths their sweets diffuse,
And the rose its blush renews ;
With the rest of Flora's train,
Decking lowly dale or plain.
Through creation's range, sweet May!
Nature's children own thy sway-
Whether in the crystal flood,
Amorous, sport the finny brood;
Or the feather'd tribes declare,
That they breathe thy genial air,
While they warble in each grove
Sweetest notes of artless love;
Or their wound the beasts proclaim,
Smitten with a fiercer flame;
Or the passions higher rise,
Sparing none beneath the skies,
But swaying soft the human mind
With feelings of ecstatic kind—
10*
Through wide creation's range, sweet May!
All nature's children own thy sway.
Oft will I, (e'er Phosphor's light
Quits the glimmering skirts of night)
Meet thee in the clover field,
Where thy beauties thou shalt yield
To my fancy, quick and warm,
Listening to the dawn's alarm,
Sounded loud by Chanticleer,
In peals that sharply pierce the ear.
And, as Sol his flaming car
Urges up the vaulted air,
Shunning quick the scorching ray,
I will to some covert stray,
Coolly bowers or latent dells,
Where light-footed silence dwells,
And whispers to my heaven-born dream,
Fair Schuylkill, by thy winding stream!
There I'll devote full many an hour,
To the still-finger'd Morphean power,
And entertain my thirsty soul
With draughts from Fancy's fairy bowl;
Or mount her orb of varied hue,
And scenes of heaven and earth review.
Nor in milder eve's decline,
As the sun forgets to shine,
And sloping down the ethereal plain,
Plunges in the western main,
Will I forbear due strain to pay
To the song-inspiring May;
But as Hesper 'gins to move
Round the radiant court of Jove,
(Leading through the azure sky
All the starry progeny,
Emitting prone their silver light,
To re-illume the shades of night)
Then, the dewy lawn along,
I'll carol forth my grateful song,
Viewing with transported eye
The blazing orbs that roll on high,
Beaming lustre, bright and clear,
O'er the glowing hemisphere.
Thus from the early blushing morn,
Till the dappled eve's return,
Will I, in free unlabor'd lay,
Sweetly sing the charming May!
VERSES FOR THE NEW YEAR, 1762.
STILL as emerges from the womb of time,
Each circling year, you claim our humble rhyme;
But where's the muse, whose fiery numbers best
Shall rouse heroic ardor in each breast?
To wing the flight where conquest leads the way,
Transcends our song, and mocks the feeble lay.
Such themes sublime best suit a rapturous lyre,
And bards transported with poetic fire-
Yet when inspired with Britain's glorious fame,
What bosom glows not with the hallow'd flame?
When angry Gallia pour'd her hostile train,
Intent on plunder, o'er th' Atlantic main;
Strangers to arms, we knew no murderous art,
Nor crimson falchion, nor the poisonous dart,
From earliest youth, instructed to abhor
The deadly engines of destructive war;
The cannon's sound, as dire assail'd our ears,
As Jove's red thunder, when he shakes the spheres.
Yet to our aid when mighty Brunswick came,
It kindled in each breast the martial flame;
Undaunted as our warlike troops advance,
To walls, inglorious, shrink the sons of France;
Their cities storm'd, their chiefs in fetters bound,
And their proud ramparts levell'd with the ground.
O'er this new world, thus have Britannia's arms
Restored lost peace, and exiled war's alarms;
Again rich commerce crowns the merchant's toil,
And smiling Ceres paints the pregnant soil.
Thus the good shepherd, when he views from far
The deadly wolves beset his fleecy care,
Quick to their help his guardian crook he wields,
And soon the prowling throng is scatter'd o'er the fields. Yet not to us is Britain's care confined,
Her fame is wafted to remotest Ind;
By justice call'd, her chiefs, with matchless swords,
Have humbled mighty Asia's proudest lords;
Far distant scenes her martial deeds proclaim,
And Pondicherry bows to Britain's name.
See the sad chance of all destructive war
See Lally captived at the victor's car;
Lally, whose soul the maddening furies claim,
And cursed with longings for the voice of fame.
So when a tyger, flush'd with reeking blood,
Ramps o'er the plains, and tears the leafy wood,
A lion spies him from his secret cave,
Bursts from his stand, to seize the insulting slave;
Then hunts him, generous, from the neighboring fields,
And peace and safety to the forest yields.
O'er Europe too, great George's arms prevail,
And on its seas his fleets triumphant sail;
Witness Belleisle, around whose wave-worn shore
His navies ride, and his loud cannons roar.
Oh! could we boast the seeds of epic song,
Immortal Frederick should the verse prolong;
The chief should shine, inclosed with fields of dead,
And guardian angels hovering round his head.
There, in dread chains the barbarous Russ should bow,
And here, submissive, kneel the Hungarian foe;
There should be seen to bend, the sons of Gaul,
Here lesser troops, his enemies, should fall.
Thus firm a rock, begirt with raging waves,
Stands the fierce charge, though all the tempest raves;
Now round his summit dash the broken tides,
And vainly beat his adamantine sides!
But these we leave to deck the historic page,
And wake the wonder of a future age.
Now let our muse the Paphian trumpet blow,
Beauty's the theme, and melting strains shall flow.
See Neptune, mounting with his nereid train,
To smooth the surface of the azure main;
As conscious of his charge, he joys to please
The beauteous Charlotte, mistress of the seas!
The jovial sailors ply their shining oars,
And now they reach fair Albion's white-cliff shores;
With warbling flutes, and hautboy's pleasing sound,
They spread sweet music's silver notes around.
On Cydnus' stream, so once array'd was seen
Fair Cleopatra, Egypt's beauteous queen.
But here we fix, rejoiced to see you bless'd,
And Britain's glory in each clime confess'd!
ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF MR THOMAS GODFREY.
O DEATH! thou victor of the human frame!
The soul's poor fabric trembles at thy name!
How long shall man be urged to dread thy sway,
For those whom thou untimely tak'st away?
Life's blooming spring just opens to our eyes,
And strikes the senses with a sweet surprise,
When thy fierce arm uplifts the fatal blow
That hurls us breathless to the earth below.
Sudden, as darts the lightning through the sky, Around the globe thy various weapons fly. Here war's red engines heap the field with slain, And pallid sickness there extends thy reign; Here the soft virgin weeps her lover dead, There maiden beauty sinks the graceful head; Here infants grieve their parents are no more, There reverend sires their children's deaths deplore; Here the sad friend-O! save the sacred name, Yields half his soul to thy relentless claim; O pardon, pardon the descending tear! Friendship commands, and not the muses, here. O say, thou much loved, dear departed shade, To what celestial region hast thou stray'd? Where is that vein of thought, that noble fire, Which fed thy soul, and bade the world admire? That manly strife with fortune to be just, That love of praise? an honorable thirst! The soul, alas! has fled to endless day, And left its house a mouldering mass of clay.
There, where no fears invade, nor ills molest,
Thy soul shall dwell immortal with the blest;
In that bright realm, where dearest friends no more
Shall from each other's throbbing breasts be tore,
Where all those glorious spirits sit enshrined,
The just, the good, the virtuous of mankind.
There shall fair angels in a radiant ring,
And the great Son of heaven's eternal King,
Proclaim thee welcome to the blissful skies,
And wipe the tears for ever from thine eyes.
How did we hope-alas! the hope how vain!
To hear thy future more enripen'd strain;
When fancy's fire with judgment had combined
To guide each effort of the enraptured mind.
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