ANNA SEWARD. Now young-ey'd Spring, on gentle breezes borne, Mid the deep woodlands, hills, and vales, and bowers, A form like his; and, should thy gifts be mine, I tremble lest a kindred influence drear Steal on my mind; but pious Hope benign, And gild existence in her dim decline. ANNA SEWARD. TO SYLVIA, ON HER APPROACHING NUPTIALS. HOPE comes to Youth, gliding through azure skies, Marks it afar. From Waning Life she flies The shining texture of her spotless vest Gilds; and the Month that gives the early day, The scent odorous, and the carol blest, ROBERT SOUTHEY. A WRINKLED, crabbed man they picture thee, Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey Blue-lipt, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose; Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, Old Winter! seated in thy great arm'd-chair, Watching the children at their Christmas mirth, Or circled by them as thy lips declare Some merry jest or tale of murder dire, Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night, WILLIAM COWPER. TO MRS. UNWIN. MARY! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new In verse as musical as thou art true, And that immortalizes whom it sings. But thou hast little need. There is a book, By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look, There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine, And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. WILLIAM CROWE. TO PETRARCH. O FOR that shell, whose melancholy sound, That banks the impetuous Rhone; and like a steam Of desolate Hesperia did rebound, And gently wak'd the Muses!—so might I, So might I, hopeless now, have power to strike |