TO A VOICE THAT HAD BEEN LOST. Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor? Aeris et linguæ sum filia; Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. ONCE more, enchantress of the soul, AUSONIUS. Perhaps to many a desert shore, Thy triumphs who shall dare explore? And there awhile to thee was given And nursed thy infant years with many a strain from heaven ! *The late Mrs. Sheridan's. FRAGMENTS FROM EURIPIDES. DEAR is that valley to the murmuring bees, There is a streamlet issuing from a rock. At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul! K WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT. 1786. WHILE through the broken pane the tempest sighs, VERSES WRITTEN TO BE SPOKEN BY MRS. SIDDONS.* YES, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain! I wake, I breathe, and am myself again. Still in this nether world; no seraph yet! Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set, With troubled step to haunt the fatal board, Where I died last, by poison or the sword; Blanching each honest cheek with deeds of night, Done here so oft by dim and doubtful light. -To drop all metaphor, that little bell Called back reality and broke the spell. * After a tragedy, performed for her benefit, at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, April 27, 1795. No heroine claims your tears with tragic tone; Can she, with fiction, charm the cheated mind, Is here no other actress? let me ask. Believe me, those, who best the heart dissect, Acts in the drama, till the curtain falls. First how her little breast with triumph swells, When the red coral rings its golden bells! To play in pantomime is then the rage, Along the carpet's many-coloured stage; Or lisp her merry thoughts with loud endeavor, Now here, now there, in noise and mischief ever! A school girl next, she curls her hair in papers, And mimics father's gout and mother's vapors ; Discards her doll, bribes Betty for romances; Playful at church, and serious when she dances; Tramples alike on customs and on toes, And whispers all she hears to all she knows; Terror of caps and wigs, and sober notions! A romp! that longest of perpetual motions! -Till tamed and tortured into foreign graces, She sports her lovely face at public places; And with blue, laughing eyes, behind her fan, First acts her part with that great actor, MAN. Too soon a flirt, approach her and she flies! Frowns when pursued, and, when entreated, sighs; Plays with unhappy men as cats with mice; Till fading beauty hints the late advice. Her prudence dictates what her pride disdained, And now she sues to slaves herself had chained. Then comes that good old character, a wife, With all the dear, distracting cares of life; A thousand cards a day at doors to leave, And in return, a thousand cards receive; Rouge high, play deep, to lead the ton aspire, With nightly blaze set PORTLAND-PLACE on fire; Snatch half a glimpse at concert, opera, ball, A meteor, traced by none, though seen by all, And, when her shattered nerves forbid to roam, In very spleen-rehearse the girls at home. Last the grey dowager, in ancient flounces, With snuff and spectacles the age denounces; Boast how the sires of this degenerate isle Knelt for a look, and duelled for a smile. The scourge and ridicule of Goth and Vandal, Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal ; With modern belles eternal warfare wages, Like her own birds that clamor from their cages ; And shuffles round to bear her tale to all, Like some old ruin, 'nodding to its fall!' Thus WOMAN makes her entrance and her exit; Not least an actress, when she least suspects it, Yet nature oft peeps out and mars the plot, Each lesson lost, each poor pretence forgot; Full oft, with energy scorns control, At once lights up the features of the soul; |