EPITAPH ON MISS STANLEY. HERE, Stanley, rest! escap'd this mortal strife, Above the joys, beyond the woes of life. Fierce pangs no more thy lively beauties stain, And sternly try thee with a year of pain: No more sweet patience, feigning oft relief, Lights thy sick eye, to cheat a parent's grief: With tender art, to save her anxious groan, No more thy bosom presses down its own: Now well-earn'd peace is thine, and bliss sincere : Ours be the lenient, not unpleasing tear!

O born to bloom, then sink beneath the storm; To show us virtue in her fairest form; To show us artless reason's moral reign, What boastful science arrogates in vain; The' obedient passions knowing each their part; Calm light the head, and harmony the heart!

Yes, we must follow soon, will glad obey; When a few suns have roll'd their cares away, Tir'd with vain life, will close the willing eye: "Tis the great birthright of mankind to die. Blest be the bark! that wafts us to the shore, Where death-divided friends shall part no more: To join thee there, here with thy dust repose, Is all the hope thy hapless mother knows.

A PARAPHRASE

ON THE LATTER PART OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF
ST. MATTHEW.

WHEN
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;

my breast labours with oppressive care,

A PARAPHRASE ON ST. MATTHEW.

While all my warring passions are at strife,
O, let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt HIS doctrine did impart,

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And thus HE rais'd from earth the drooping heart:
Think not, when all, your scanty stores afford,
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While, on the roof, the howling tempest bears,
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again.
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?

Behold! and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air :
To them, nor stores, nor granaries, belong,
Nought, but the woodland, and the pleasing song;
Yet, your kind heavenly father bends his eye
On the least wing, that flits along the sky.
To him they sing, when Spring renews the plain,
To him they cry, in Winter's pinching reign;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain :
He hears the gay, and the distressful call,
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
Observe the rising lily's snowy grace,
Observe the various vegetable race;

They neither toil, nor spin, but careless grow,
Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare!
What king so shining! or what queen so fair!
If ceaseless thus the fowls of heaven he feeds,
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads;
Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say?
Is he unwise? or, are ye less than they?

ON EOLUS'S HARP.

ETHEREAL race, inhabitants of air,

Who hymn your God amid the secret grove; Ye unseen beings to my harp repair,

And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.

Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid, With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart! Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid,

Who died for love, these sweet complainings part.

But hark! that strain was of a graver tone,
On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws ;
Or he, the sacred Bard', who sat alone

In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.

Such was the song which Zion's children sung, When by Euphrates' stream they made their And to such sadly solemn notes are strung [plaint; Angelic harps, to soothe a dying saint.

Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,

[raise;

Through heaven's high dome their awful anthem Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire To swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise.

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,

Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string, Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd, For till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing.

1 Jeremiah.

HYMN ON SOLITUDE.

HAIL, mildly pleasing Solitude,
Companion of the wise and good;
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh! how I love with thee to walk, And listen to thy whisper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease, And still in every shape you please. Now wrapt in some mysterious dream, A lone philosopher you seem; Now quick from hill to vale you fly, And now you sweep the vaulted sky; A shepherd next, you haunt the plain, And warble forth your oaten strain. A lover now, with all the grace Of that sweet passion in your face: Then, calm'd to friendship, you assume The gentle-looking Hertford's bloom, As, with her Musidora, she

(Her Musidora fond of thee) Amid the long withdrawing vale, Awakes the rival'd nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Just as the dew-bent rose is born; And while meridian fervors beat, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;

But chief, when evening scenes decay,
And the faint landskip swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.

Descending angels bless thy train,
The virtues of the sage, and swain;
Plain Innocence in white array'd,
Before thee lifts her fearless head;
Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine:
About thee sports sweet Liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.

TO SERAPHINA.

THE wanton's charms, however bright,
Are like the false illusive light,
Whose flattering unauspicious blaze

To precipices oft betrays:

But that sweet ray your beauties dart, Which clears the mind, and cleans the heart,