NARCISSA.

TO HER GRACE

THE DUCHESS OF P——1

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.-VIRG.

1 'P' Portland.

NIGHT THIRD.

NARCISSA.

FROM dreams, where thought in fancy's maze runs mad,
To reason, that heaven-lighted lamp in man,

Once more I wake; and at the destined hour,
Punctual as lovers to the moment sworn,

I keep my assignation with my woe.
Oh! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul!
Who think it solitude to be alone.

Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian angel, and our God!

Then nearest these, when others most remote ;
And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these.
How dreadful, then, to meet them all alone,
A stranger! unacknowledged, unapproved!

Now woo them, wed them, bind them to thy breast;
To win thy wish, creation has no more.

Or if we wish a fourth, it is a friend—

But friends, how mortal! dangerous the desire.

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Take Phoebus to yourselves, ye basking bards!
Inebriate at fair fortune's fountain-head ;
And reeling through the wilderness of joy ;

Where sense runs savage, broke from reason's chain,
And sings false peace, till smother'd by the pall.
My fortune is unlike; unlike my song;
Unlike the deity my song invokes.

I to Day's soft-eyed sister pay my court
(Endymion's rival !), and her aid implore;
Now first implored in succour to the Muse.
Thou, who didst lately borrow1 Cynthia's form,
And modestly forego thine own! O thou,
Who didst thyself at midnight hours inspire!
Say, why not Cynthia patroness of song?
As thou her crescent, she thy character
Assumes; still more a goddess by the change.
Are there demurring wits, who dare dispute
This revolution in the world inspired?
Ye train Pierian! to the lunar sphere,

In silent hour address your ardent call
For aid immortal; less her brother's right.
She, with the spheres harmonious, nightly leads
The mazy dance, and hears their matchless strain ;
A strain for gods, denied to mortal ear.
Transmit it heard, thou silver Queen of Heaven !
What title, or what name, endears thee most?
Cynthia! Cyllene! Phœbe! -or dost hear
With higher gust, fair Pd of the skies?
Is that the soft enchantment calls thee down,
More powerful than of old Circean charm?
Come; but from heavenly banquets with thee bring
The soul of song, and whisper in my ear
The theft divine; or in propitious dreams

Didst lately borrow:' at the Duke of Norfolk's masquerade.

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