F

When Heaven to all thy joys bestows,
And graves upon our hearts-be free!-
Shall coward man those joys resign,
And dare reverse this great decree?
Submit him to some idol-king,
Some selfish, passion-guided thing,
Abhorring man, by man abhorr'd,
Around whose throne stands trembling Doubt,
Whose jealous eyes still roll about;
And Murder, with his reeking sword?

Where trampling Tyranny with Fate;
And black Revenge gigantic goes;
Hark, how the dying infants shriek,
How hopeless age is sunk in woes!
Fly, mortals, from that faded land,
Though rivers roll o'er golden sand,
Though birds in shades of cassia sing,
Harvests and fruits spontaneous rise,
No storms disturb the smiling skies,
And each soft breeze rich odours bring.

Britannia watch!-remember peerless Rome,
Her high-tower'd head dash'd meanly to the ground;
Remember, freedom's guardian, Grecia's doom,
Whom, weeping, the despotic Turk has bound;
May ne'er thy oak-crown'd hills, rich meads and
down,

(Fame, virtue, courage, property, forgot)
Thy peaceful villages, and busy towns,

Be doom'd some death-dispensing tyrant's lot;
On deep foundations may thy freedom stand,
Long as the surge shall lash thy sea-encircled land.

TO HEALTH.

WRITTEN ON A RECOVERY FROM THE SMALL-POX.

O WHETHER with laborious clowns,
In meads and woods thou lov'st to dwell;
In noisy, merchant-crowded towns,

Or in the temperate Brachman's cell;
Who from the meads of Ganges' fruitful flood,
Wet with sweet dews, collects his flowery food.

In Bath or in Montpellier's plains,
Or rich Bermuda's balmy isle,

Or the cold North, whose fur-clad swains
Ne'er saw the purple Autumn smile,
Who over alps of snow, and deserts drear,
By twinkling star-light drive the flying deer.

O lovely queen of mirth and ease,
Whom absent, beauty, banquets, wine,
Wit, music, pomp, nor science please,
And kings on ivory couches pine;

Nature's kind nurse, to whom by gracious Heav'n,
To soothe the pangs of toilsome life 'tis giv'n.

To aid a languid wretch repair,
Let pale-ey'd Grief thy presence fly,
The restless demon, gloomy Care,
And meagre Melancholy die;

Drive to some lonely rock the giant Pain,

And bind him howling with a triple chain!

O come, restore my aching sight,
Yet let me not on Laura gaze;
Soon must I quit that dear delight,
O'erpower'd by Beauty's piercing rays;
Support my feeble feet, and largely shed
Thy oil of gladness on my fainting head.

How nearly had my spirit pass'd, Till stop'd by Metcalf's skilful hand, To Death's dark regions, wide and waste, And the black river's mournful strand; Or to those vales of joy and meadows bless'd, Where sages, heroes, patriots, poets rest:

Where Maro and Musæus sit

Listening to Milton's loftier song,
With sacred silent wonder smit;
While, monarch of the tuneful throng,
Homer in rapture throws his trumpet down,

And to the Briton gives his amaranthine crown.

TO SUPERSTITION.

HENCE to some Convent's gloomy aisles, Where cheerful daylight never smiles: Tyrant! from Albion haste, to slavish Rome; There by dim tapers' livid light,

At the still solemn hours of night,

In pensive musings walk o'er many a sounding tomb.

Thy clanking chains, thy crimson steel, Thy venom'd darts, and barbarous wheel, Malignant fiend, bear from this isle away, Nor dare in error's fetters bind

One active, freeborn, British mind;

[sway.

That strongly strives to spring indignant from thy

Thou bad'st grim Moloch's frowning priest Snatch screaming infants from the breast, Regardless of the frantic mother's woes; Thou led'st the ruthless sons of Spain

To wondering India's golden plain, From deluges of blood where tenfold harvests rose.

But lo! how swiftly art thou fled,
When Reason lifts his radiant head;
When his resounding, awful voice they hear,
Blind Ignorance, thy doting sire,

Thy daughter, trembling Fear, retire;
And all thy ghastly train of terrors disappear.

So by the Magi hail'd from far,

When Phoebus mounts his early car,

The shrieking ghosts to their dark charnels flock; The full gorg'd wolves retreat; no more

The prowling lionesses roar,

[rock.

But hasten with their prey to some deep-cavern'd

Hail then, ye friends of Reason, hail!

Ye foes to Mystery's odious veil,

To Truth's high temple guide my steps aright,
Where Clarke and Wollaston reside,

With Locke and Newton by their side,
While Plato sits above enthron'd in endless light.

TO A GENTLEMAN,

UPON HIS TRAVELS THROUGH ITALY.

WHILE I with fond officious care,
For you my chorded shell prepare,
And not unmindful frame an humble lay;
Where shall this verse my Cynthio find,
What scene of art now charms your mind,
Say, on what sacred spot of Roman ground you
stray?

Perhaps you cull each valley's bloom;
To strew o'er Virgil's laurell'd tomb,
Whence oft at midnight echoing voices sound;
For at that hour of silence, there

The shades of ancient bards repair,
To join in choral song his hallow'd urn around;

Or wander in the cooling shade

Of Sabine bowers where Homer stray'd,