IMVITATION TO PETER HEAD. YE, who for sweets that never cloy Can quit wild pleasure's toilsome strife; Whom languor, or whom pain, alarms, Who gaze in rapture ; hither speed. Here Health her bath's enlivening tide, While cool gales fan the quiet shores. What, though for us no tainted breeze No rivulet glance through whispering trees, * There are no woods in this neighbourhood, and very few trees. Fatemur: at non talia poscimus ; Gaudet, nec humenti sub umbra Sed non fluenti florea ripa non Non luna curru argentea lucido Non flamma matutina Phœbi Per tremulum radiata pontum. Sublime quæras; hic tumidum mare, Hic æstuantum verbera fluctuum Cernes, resultantumque in auras Nubila cana abiisse rorum. Hic risus, hic convivia læta sunt, Quæcunque tristi, vel jocoso, Philosopho, aut placeant poeta. Th' expanded plain Health joys to tread, To drink heaven's free, fresh-blowing breath, Not pent in woods and watery shade Exhaling pestilence and death. Nor daisied bank of silver stream, Nor moon, in solemn splendor born Or seek ye greatness? See the tide Here Friendship warms, here smiles engage, OD E.* POWER of these awful regions, hail! O'er the wild mountain's stormy waste, More bright we view the present God. More bright, than if in glittering state The pride of Phidian art confess'd. * Supposed to have been written on occasion of visiting the wild and magnificent scenery of the cliffs of Kinnoull, on the banks of the Tay near Perth. The Author has in these lines not unsuccessfully imitated that noble ode of Mr. Gray, which begins thus: 0 Tu, severi Religio loci, &c. Hail, Power sublime! thy votary shield; O listen to my lay, and yield A young, but weary, wanderer, rest. But if, from rest and silence torn, Grant me, secure from toil and strife, And all the rabble's feverish rage, At least to pass, in freedom sweet, |