Ah! should I lose thee, my too lovely maid,
Couldst thou forget thy heart was ever mine,
Fear not thy letters should the change upbraid;
My hand each dear memorial shall resign:

Not one kind word shall in my power remain,
A painful witness of reproach to thee;
And lest my heart should still their sense retain,
My heart shall break, to leave thee wholly free.

A PRAYER TO VENUS.

IN HER TEMPLE AT STOW.

TO THE SAME.

FAIR Venus, whose delightful shrine surveys
Its front reflected in the silver lake,
These humble offerings, which thy servant pays,
Fresh flowers, and myrtle wreaths, propitious take.

If less my love exceeds all other love,

Than Lucy's charms all other charms excel, Far from my breast each soothing hope remove, And there let sad Despair for ever dwell.

But if my soul is fill'd with her alone;

No other wish nor other object knows : Oh! make her, goddess, make her all my own, And give my trembling heart secure repose!

No watchful spies I ask, to guard her charms, No walls of brass, no steel-defended door: Place her but once within my circling arms, Love's surest fort, and I will doubt no more.

TO THE SAME.

YOUR shape, your lips, your eyes, are still the same,
Still the bright object of my constant flame;
But where is now the tender glance, that stole,
With gentle sweetness, my enchanted soul?
Kind fears, impatient wishes, soft desires,
Each melting charm that love alone inspires?
These, these are lost; and I behold no more
The maid my heart delighted to adore.
Yet, still unchang'd, still doating to excess,
I ought, but dare not try, to love you less;
Weakly I grieve, unpitied I complain;
But not unpunish'd shall your change remain;
For you, cold maid, whom no complaints can move,
Were far more blest, when you like me could love.

TO THE SAME.

WHEN I think on your truth, I doubt you no more,
I blame all the fears I gave way to before:
I say to my heart, "Be at rest, and believe
That whom once she has chosen she never will
leave."

But, ah! when I think on each ravishing grace That plays in the smiles of that heavenly face; My heart beats again; I again apprehend Some fortunate rival in every friend.

These painful suspicions you cannot remove, Since you neither can lessen your charms nor my love;

But doubts caus'd by passion you never can blame; For they are not ill founded, or you feel the same.

Is it glad Summer's balmy breath, that blows
From the fair jasmine and the blushing rose?
Her balmy breath, and all her blooming store
Of rural bliss, was here before:

Oft have I met her on the verdant side
Of Norwood-hill, and in the yellow meads,
Where Pan the dancing Graces leads,
Array'd in all her flowery pride.

No sweeter fragrance now the gardens yield,
No brighter colours paint th' enamel'd field.

Is it to Love these new delights I owe?
Four times has the revolving Sun
His annual circle through the zodiac run;
Since all that Love's indulgent power
On favour'd mortals can bestow,
Was given to me in this auspicious bower.

Here first my Lucy, sweet in virgin charms,
Was yielded to my longing arms;
And round our nuptial bed,
Hovering with purple wings, th' Idalian boy
Shook from his radiant torch the blissful fires
Of innocent desires,

While Venus scatter'd myrtles o'er her head.

Whence then this strange increase of joy? He, only he, can tell, who, match'd like me, (If such another happy man there be)

Has by his own experience tried How much the wife is dearer than the bride.

TO THE

MEMORY OF THE SAME LADY.

A MONODY. A. D. 1747.

Ipse cavà solans ægrum testudine amorem, Te dulcis conjux, te solo in littore secum, Te veniente die, te decedente canebat.

Ar length escap'd from every human eye,、
From every daty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry;
Beneath the gloom of this embowering shade,
This lone retreat, for tender sorrow made,
I now may give my burden'd heart relief,
And pour forth all my stores of grief;
Of grief surpassing every other woe,
Far as the purest bliss, the happiest love
Can on th' ennobled mind bestow,
Exceeds the vulgar joys that move
Our gross desires, inelegant and low.

Ye tufted groves, ye gently-falling rills,
Ye high o'ershadowing hills,
Ye lawns gay-smiling with eternal green,
Oft have you my Lucy seen!
But never shall you now behold her more:
Nor will she now with fond delight
And taste refin'd your rural charms explore.
Clos'd are those beauteous eyes in endless night,
Those beauteous eyes where beaming us'd to shine
Reason's pure light and Virtue's spark divine.

Oft would the Dryads of these woods rejoice To hear her heavenly voice;

For her despising, when she deign'd to sing,
The sweetest songsters of the spring:
The woodlark and the linnet pleas'd no more;
The nightingale was mute,

And every shepherd's flute
Was cast in silent scorn away,
While all attended to her sweeter lay.
Ye larks and linnets, now resume your song,
And thou, melodious Philomel,

Again thy plaintive story tell;

For Death has stopt that tuneful tongue, Whose music could alone your warbling notes excel

In vain I look around

O'er all the well-known ground,

My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry ;
Where oft we us'd to walk,

Where oft in tender talk

We saw the summer Sun go down the sky;
Nor by yon fountain's side,

Nor where its waters glide

Along the valley, can she now be found:

In all the wide-stretch'd prospect's ample bound No more my mournful eye

Can aught of her espy,

But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie.

O shades of Hagley, where is now your boast? Your bright inhabitant is lost.

You she preferr'd to all the gay resorts Where female vanity might wish to shine, The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts. Her modest beauties shunn'd the public eye: To your sequester'd dales

And flower embroider'd vales

From an admiring world she chose to fly:
With Nature there retir'd, and Nature's God,
The silent paths of wisdom trod,
And banish'd every passion from her breast,
But those, the gentiest and the best,
Whose holy flames with energy divine
The virtuous heart enliven and improve,
The conjugal and the maternal love.

And made each charm of polish'd courts agree
With candid Truth's simplicity,

And uncorrupted Innocence !
Tell how to more than manly sense

She join'd the softening influence

Of more than female tenderness: How, in the thoughtless days of wealth and joy,

Which oft the care of others' good destroy,
Her kindly-melting heart,
To every want and every woe,
To guilt itself when in distress,
The balm of pity would impart,

And all relief that bounty could bestow!
Ev'n for the kid or lamb that pour'd its life
Beneath the bloody knife,

Her gentle tears would fall,

Tears from sweet Virtue's source, benevolent to all.

Not only good and kind,

But strong and elevated was her mind:
A spirit that with noble pride
Could look superior down

On Fortune's smile or frown;
That could without regret or pain
To Virtue's lowest duty sacrifice

Or Interest or Ambition's highest prize;
That, injur'd or offended, never tried
Its dignity by vengeance to maintain,
But by magnanimous disdain.
A wit that, temperately bright,
With inoffensive light

All pleasing shone; nor ever past
The decent bounds that Wisdom's sober hand,
And sweet Benevolence's mild command,
And bashful Modesty, before it cast.

A prudence undeceiving, undeceiv'd,
That nor too little nor too much believ'd,
That scorn'd unjust Suspicion's coward fear,
And without weakness knew to be sincere.
Such Lucy was, when, in her fairest days,
Amidst th' acclaim of universal praise,
In life's and glory's freshest bloom,
Death came remorseless on, and sunk her to the
tomb.

So, where the silent streams of Liris glide,
In the soft bosom of Campania's vale,
When now the wintry tempests all are fled,
And genial Summer breathes her gentle gale,
The verdant orange lifts its beauteous head:
From every branch the balmy flowerets rise,
On every bough the golden fruits are seen;
With odours sweet it fills the smiling skies,
The wood-nymphs tend, and th' Idalian queen.
But, in the midst of all its blooming pride,
A sudden blast from Apenninus blows,
Cold with perpetual snows:

The Clitumnus is a river of Umbria, the residence of Propertius.

The Anio runs through Tibur or Tivoli, where Horace had a villa.

4 The Meles is a river of Ionia, from whence Homer, supposed to be born on its banks, is called Melisigenes.

The Ilissus is a river at Athens.

dies.

Arise, O Petrarch, from th' Elysian bowers,
With never-fading myrtles twin'd,
And fragrant with ambrosial flowers,
Where to thy Laura thou again art join'd;
Arise, and hither bring the silver lyre,

Tun'd by thy skilful hand,

To the soft notes of elegant desire,
With which o'er many a land

Was spread the fame of thy disastrous love; To me resign the vocal shell, And teach my sorrows to relate Their melancholy tale so well, As may ev'n things inanimate, Rough mountain oaks and desert rocks, to pity move.

What

were, alas! thy woes compar'd to mine? To thee thy mistress in the blissful band

Of Hymen never gave her hand;

The joys of wedded love were never thine:
In thy domestic care

She never bore a share,
Nor with endearing art

Would heal thy wounded heart

Of every secret grief that fester'd there: Nor did her fond affection on the bed Of sickness watch thee, and thy languid head Whole nights on her unwearied arm sustain, And charm away the sense of pain: Nor did she crown your mutual flame With pledges dear, and with a father's tender name.

Unjustly for thy partial good detain?
No-rather strive thy groveling mind to raise
Up to that unclouded blaze,

That heavenly radiance of eternal light,
In which enthron'd she now with pity sees
How frail, how insecure, how slight,

Is every mortal bliss;

Ev'n love itself, if rising by degrees
Beyond the bounds of this imperfect state,
Whose fleeting joys so soon must end,
It does not to its sovereign good ascend.

Rise then, my soul, with hope elate,
And seek those regions of serene delight,
Whose peaceful path and ever-open gate
No feet but those of harden'd Guilt shall miss.
There Death himself thy Lucy shall restore,
There yield up all his power ne'er to divide you more.

ON THE SAME LADY.
To the

Memory of Lucy Lyttelton,

Daughter of Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh
In the county of Devon, esq.
Father to the present earl of Clinton,
By Lucy his wife,

The daughter of Matthew lord Aylmer, Who departed this life the 19th of Jan. 1746-7, Aged twenty-nine,

Having employed the short time assigned to
her bere

In the uniform practice of religion and virtue.

Made to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes;
Though meek, magnanimous; though witty, wise;
Polite, as all her life in courts had been;
Yet good, as she the world had never seen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentle female tenderness combin'd.
Her speech was the melodious voice of Love,
Her song the warbling of the vernal grove;
Her eloquence was sweeter than her song,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong;
Her form each beauty of her mind express'd,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces dress'd.

When balmy breezes fann'd the vernal sky, /
On doubtful pinions left his parent nest,
In slight essays his growing force to try,
While inborn courage fir'd his generous breast;

Then, darting with impetuous fury down,

The flocks he slaughter'd, an unpractis'd foe; Now his ripe valour to perfection grown

The scaly snake and crested dragon know:

Or, as a lion's youthful progeny,

Wean'd from his savage dam and milky food, The gazing kid beholds with fearful eye,

Doom'd first to stain his tender fangs in blood:

Such Drusus, young in arms, his foes beheld, The Alpine Rhæti, long unmatch'd in fight: So were their hearts with abject terrour quell'd; So sunk their haughty spirit at the sight. Tam'd by a boy, the fierce barbarians find

How guardian Prudence guides the youthful flame, And how great Cæsar's fond paternal mind

Each generous Nero forms to early fame;

A valiant son springs from a valiant sire :
Their race by mettle sprightly coursers prove;
Nor can the warlike eagle's active fire

Degenerate to form the timorous dove.

But education can the genius raise,

And wise instructions native virtue aid; Nobility without them is disgrace,

And honour is by vice to shame betray'd. Let red Metaurus, stain'd with Punic blood, Let mighty Asdrubal subdued, confess How much of empire and of fame is ow'd By thee, O Rome, to the Neronian race. Of this be witness that auspicious day, Which, after a long, black, tempestuous night, First smil'd on Latium with a milder ray, [light. And cheer'd our drooping hearts with dawning Since the dire African with wasteful ire

Rode o'er the ravag'd towns of Italy;

As through the pine-trees flies the raging fire,
Or Eurus o'er the vext Sicilian sea.

From this bright era, from this prosperous field,
The Roman glory dates her rising power;
From hence 'twas given her conquering sword to
wield,

Raise her fall'n gods, and ruin'd shrines restore.

Thus Hannibal at length despairing spoke : "Like stags to ravenous wolves an easy prey, Our feeble arms a valiant foe provoke,

Whom to elude and 'scape were victory: "A dauntless nation, that from Trojan fires, Hostile Ausonia, to thy destin'd shore Her gods, her infant sons, and aged sires, Through angry seas and adverse tempests bore: "As on high Algidas the sturdy oak,

Whose spreading boughs the axe's sharpness feel, Improves by loss, and, thriving with the stroke, Draws health and vigour from the wounding steel.

to Jupiter by an eagle, according to the Poetical History.

"Not Hydra sprouting from her mangled head So tir'd the baffled force of Hercules; Nor Thebes, nor Colchis, such a monster bred, Pregnant of hills, and fam'd for prodigies. "Plunge her in ocean, like the morning Sun, Brighter she rises from the depths below: To earth with unavailing ruin thrown, Recruits her strength, and foils the wondering foe. "No more of victory the joyful fame Shall from my camp to haughty Carthage fly; Lost, lost, are all the glories of her name! With Asdrubal her hopes and fortune die! "What shall the Claudian valour not perform Which Power Divine guards with propitious care, Which Wisdom steers through all the dangerous storm,

[war?" Through all the rocks and shoals of doubtful

VIRTUE AND FAME.

TO THE COUNTESS OF EGREMONT.

VIRTUE and Fame, the other day,
Happen'd to cross each other's way;
Said Virtue, "Hark ye! madam Fame,
Your ladyship is much to blame;
Jove bids you always wait on me,
And yet your face I seldom see:
The Paphian queen employs your trumpet,
And bids it praise some handsome strumpet;
Or, thundering through the ranks of war,
Ambition ties you to her car."
Saith Fame, "Dear madam, I protest,
I never find myself so blest
As when I humbly wait behind you!
But 'tis so mighty hard to find you!
In such obscure retreats you lurk !
To seek you is an endless work."

Well," answer'd Virtue, "Lallow
Your plea. But bear, and mark me now.
I know (without offence to others)

I know the best of wives and mothers;
Who never pass'd an useless day
In scandal, gossiping, or play :
Whose modest wit, chastis'd by sense,
Is lively cheerful innocence;
Whose heart nor envy knows, nor spite,
Whose duty is her sole delight;
Nor rul'd by whim, nor slave to fashion,
Her parents' joy, her husband's passion."

Fame smil'd and answer'd, "On my life, This is some country parson's wife, Who never saw the court nor town, Whose face is homely as her gown; Who banquets upon eggs and bacon-" "No, madam, no-you're much mistakenI beg you'll let me set you right— Tis one with every beauty bright; Adorn'd with every polish'd art That rank or fortune can impart : 'Tis the most celebrated toast That Britain's spacious isle can boast; 'Tis princely Petworth's noble dame; 'Tis Egremont-Go, tell it, Fame."