Each happy moment to improve,

And fill the perfect year with love,

Come, thou delight of heaven and earth!
To whom all creatures owe their birth;
Oh, come, sweet smiling! tender, come!
And yet prevent our final doom.
For long the furious god of war
Has crush'd us with his iron car,
Has rag'd along our ruin'd plains,
Has foil'd them with his cruel stains,
Has funk our youth in endless sleep,
And made the widow'd virgin weep.
Now let him feel thy wonted charms;
Oh, take him to thy twining arms!
And, while thy bofom heaves on his,
While deep he prints the humid kiss,
Ah, then! his ftormy heart control,
And figh thyself into his soul.

Nightingale, best poet of the grove,

That plaintive ftrain can ne'er belong to thee,

Bleft in the full poffeffion of thy love:

O lend that strain, fweet nightingale, to me!

'Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate :

I love a maid who all my bofom charms, Yet lofe my days without this lovely mate; Inhuman fortune keeps her from my arms.

You,

You, happy birds! by nature's fimple laws
Lead your foft lives, fuftain'd by nature's fare;
You dwell whereever roving fancy draws,

And love and fong is all your pleasing care:

But we, vain flaves of intereft and of pride,
Dare not be bleft left envious tongues should blame :
And hence, in vain I languish for my bride;

O mourn with me, sweet bird, my hapless flame.

то

SERAPHIN A.

O D E.

'HE wanton's charms, however bright,

ΤΗ

Are like the falfe illufive light,

Whofe flattering unaufpicious blaze

To precipices oft betrays :

But that fweet ray your beauties dart,

Which clears the mind, and cleans the heart,

Is like the facred queen of night,

Who pours a lovely gentle light

Wide o'er the dark, by wanderers bleft,
Conducting them to peace and rest.

A vicious love depraves the mind,
'Tis anguish, guilt, and folly join'd;
But Seraphina's eyes difpenfe
A mild and gracious influence;
Such as in vifions angels fhed
Around the heaven-illumin'd head.

Το

192

To love thee, Seraphina, fure
Is to be tender, happy, pure;
'Tis from low paffions to escape,
And woo bright virtue's fairest shape;
'Tis extasy with wisdom join'd;

And heaven infus'd into the mind.

E

THEREAL race, inhabitants of air,

Who hymn your God amid the secret grove;

Ye unfeen beings, to my harp repair,

And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.

II.

Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid,
With what foft woe they thrill the lover's heart!
Sure from the hand of fome unhappy maid,

Who dy'd of love, these sweet complainings part.

III.

But, hark! that strain was of a graver tone,

On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws; Or he the facred Bard +; who fat alone,

In the drear wafte, and wept his people's woes.

* Eolus's Harp is a musical instrument, which plays with the wind, invented by Mr. Ofwald; its properties are fully described in the Castle of Indolence.

† Jeremiah.

IV. Such

IV.

Such was the fong which Zion's children fung,
When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint;
And to fuch fadly folemn notes are ftrung

Angelic harps, to footh a dying faint.

V.

Methinks I hear the full celeftial choir,

[raife;

Through heaven's high dome their aweful anthem Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire To fwell the lofty hymn, from praise to praise. VI.

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,

Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the fring, Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd, For till you cease, my Muse forgets to fing.

HYMN ON

SOLITUDE.

HAIL, mildly pleafing Solitude,

Companion of the wife and good,
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And liften to thy whifper'd talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.
A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in fome mysterious dream,
A lone philofopher you feem;
O

VOL. II.

Now

Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you fweep the vaulted sky,
A fhepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain.
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet paffion in your face :
Then, calm'd to friendship, you assume
The gentle-looking Harford's bloom,
As, with her Mufidora, fhe
(Her Mufidora fond of thee)
Amid the long withdrawing vale,
Awakes the rival'd nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Juft as the dew-bent rofe is born;
And while meridian fervors beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening fcenes decay,
And the faint landskip swims away,
Thine is the doubtful foft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.
Defcending angels blefs thy train,
The virtues of the fage, and swain ;
Plain Innocence in white array'd,
Before thee lifts her fearless head:
Religion's beams around thee fhine,
And chear thy glooms with light divine:
About thee sports sweet Liberty;

And rapt Urania fings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy fecret cell! And in thy deep receffes dwell;

Perhaps