181

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

LINES TO W. L., ESQ.,

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC.

*

WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues,

And I have many friends who hold me dear,
L! methinks, I would not often hear

Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose
All memory of the wrongs and sore distress
For which my miserable brethren weep!
But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
My daily bread in tears and bitterness;
And if at death's dread moment I should lie

[guide,

With no beloved face at my bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks such strains, breathed by my angelWould make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN
AT THE THEATRE.t

MAIDEN, that with sullen brow

Sitt'st behind those virgins gay,

* Printed in the second volume of The Annual Anthology, Bristol, 1800.

† Annual Anthology, Bristol, 1800. Sufferer-1800.

Like a scorch'd and mildew'd bough,
Leafless 'mid the blooms of May!

Him who lured thee and forsook,
Oft I watch'd with angry gaze,
Fearful saw his pleading look,
Anxious heard his fervid phrase.

Soft the glances of the youth,

Soft his speech, and soft his sigh;
But no sound like simple truth,

But no true love in his eye.

Loathing thy polluted lot,

*

Hie thee, Maiden,† hie thee hence !
Seek thy weeping Mother's cot,

With a wiser innocence.

Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt, that vice is woe :

With a musing melancholy

Inly arm'd, go, Maiden! go.

* The second and third stanzas have replaced the following

in the original version :

"Inly gnawing, thy distresses

Mock those starts of wanton glee,
And thy inmost soul confesses

Chaste affliction's majesty."

Sufferer-1800.

Mother sage of self-dominion,

Firm thy steps, O Melancholy!
The strongest plume in Wisdom's pinion
Is the memory of past folly.

Mute the sky-lark * and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes,

That had skimm'd the tender corn,
Or the beanfield's odorous blooms.

Soon with renovated wing

Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upward to the day-star spring,
And embathe in heavenly light.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT

NOR

ROOM.†

OR cold, nor stern, my soul! yet I detest
These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy
throng,

Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast
In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign
To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint,

But when the long-breathed singer's uptrill'd strain
Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment.

*The lavrock-1800.

† Morning Post, September 24, 1799.

Hark! the deep buzz of vanity and hate!

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,

While the pert captain, or the primmer priest, Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene * released,
To hear our old musician, blind and gray,
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kiss'd,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake? O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees,
For round their roots † the fisher's boat is tied,
On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed

Makes the cock shrilly in the rain-storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of shipwreck'd sailor floating dead, Whom his own true-love buried in the sands!

* Loathsome scene 1799.

† Around whose roots-il.