TO A YOUNG LADY, With a POEM on the FRENCH REVOLUTION. Much on my early youth I love to dwell, Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell, Aye as the star of evening flung its beam In broken radiance on the wavy stream, My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom. Mourn'd with the breeze, O *LEE Boo! o'er thy tomb. Breath'd from the heart and glisten'd in the tear: Thus to sad sympathies I sooth'd my breast, With giant fury burst her triple chain! Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glow'd; *LEE BOO, the son of ABBA THULE, Prince of the Pelew Islands, came over to England with Captain Wilson, died of the small-pox, and is buried in Greenwich Church-yard. See Keate's Account. Southey's Retrospect. Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies And swept with wilder hand th' Alcœan lyre : Fall'n is th' oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low, Where peaceful Virtue weaves the MYRTLE braid. Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul; If SMILES more winning, and a gentler MIEN, Than the love-wilder'd Maniac's brain hath seen Shaping celestial forms in vacant air, If these demand th' empassion'd Poet's care If MIRTH, and soften'd SENSE, and WIT refin'd, Then haply shall my trembling hand assign From Flatt'ry's night-shade: as he feels, he sings. September, 1794. |