SONG. THE heavy hours are almost past But how, my Delia, will you meet The man you've lost so long? Will love in all your pulses beat, And tremble on your tongue? Will you in every look declare Your heart is still the same; And heal each idly-anxious care Our fears in absence frame? Thus, Delia, thus I paint the scene, But, if the dream that soothes my mind All I of Venus ask, is this; No more to let us join : But grant me here the flattering bliss, To die, and think you mine. SONG. SAY, Myra, why is gentle love A stranger to that mind, Which pity and esteem can move, Which can be just and kind? Is it, because you fear to share Alas! by some degree of woe We every bliss must gain: The heart can ne'er a transport know, That never feels a pain. TO THE MEMORY OF THE FIRST LADY LYTTELTON. A MONODY. Ipse cavà solans ægrum testudine amorem, AT length escap'd from every human eye, That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share, I now may give my burden'd heart relief, Ye tufted groves, ye gently-falling rills, Oft would the Dryads of these woods rejoice For her despising, when she deign'd to sing, And every shepherd's flute Ye larks and linnets, now resume your song, 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 in tender talk We saw the summer Sun go down the sky; Nor where its waters glide Along the valley, can she now be found: 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 gentlest and the best, Whose holy flames with energy divine The virtuous heart enliven and improve, The conjugal and the maternal love. Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns By your delighted mother's side, Who now your infant steps shall guide? Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care To every virtue would have form'd your youth, And strew'd with flowers the thorny ways of truth? O loss beyond repair! O wretched father! left alone, To weep their dire misfortune, and thy own! From folly and from vice their helpless age to save? Where were ye, Muses, when relentless Fate To guard her bosom from the mortal blow? Could not, alas! your power prolong her date, Nor then did Pindus or Castalia's plain, Beset with osiers dank, Nor where Clitumnust rolls his gentle stream, Nor yet where Meles or Ilissus | stray. Ill does it now beseem, That, of your guardian care bereft, To dire disease and death your darling should be left. Now what avails it that in early bloom, When light fantastic toys Are all her sex's joys, With you she search'd the wit of Greece and And all that in her latter days Bright sparkling could inspire, By all the Graces temper'd and refin'd; Most favor'd with your smile, Of all these treasures that enrich'd her mind, To black Oblivion's gloom for ever now consign'd. *The Mincio runs by Mantua, the birth-place of Virgil. †The Clitumnus is a river of Umbria, the residence of Propertius. The Anio runs through Tibur or Tivoli, where Hor. ace had a villa. § 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. At least, ye Nine, her spotless name Thou, plaintive Muse, whom o'er his Laura's un O come, and to this fairer Laura pay Tell how each beauty of her mind and face Through her expressive eyes her soul distinctly spoke She join'd the softening influence And all relief that bounty could bestow! Her gentle tears would fall, Not only good and kind, But strong and elevated was her mind: On Fortune's smile or frown; All pleasing shone; nor ever past In life's and glory's freshest bloom, Death came remorseless on, and sunk her to the tomt So, where the silent streams of Liris glide. With odors sweet it fills the smiling skies, The tender blighted plant shrinks up its leaves, and dies. Arise, O Petrarch, from th' Elysian bowers, With never-fading myrtles twin'd, Tun'd by thy skilful hand, To the soft notes of elegant desire, Was spread the fame of thy disastrous love; 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 Support me, every friend; Your kind assistance lend, To bear the weight of this oppressive woe. Alas! each friend of mine, My dear departed love, so much was thine, That none has any comfort to bestow. My books, the best relief In every other grief, Are now with your idea sadden'd all: Each favorite author we together read My tortur'd memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead. We were the happiest pair of human-kind : And saw our happiness unchang'd remain : Harmonious Concord did our wishes bind: O fatal, fatal stroke, That all this pleasing fabric Love had rais'd Of rare felicity, On which ev'n wanton Vice with envy gaz'd, And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd, With soothing hope, for many a future day, In one sad moment broke! Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay; Or against his supreme decree With impious grief complain. That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade, Of sickness watch thee, and thy languid head Was his most righteous will-and be that will Whole nights on her unwearied arm sustain, And charm away the sense of pain: With pledges dear, and with a father's tender name. O best of wives! O dearer far to me How can my soul endure the loss of thee? Without my sweet companion can I live? The dear reward of every virtuous toil, For my distracted mind What succor can I find? On whom for consolation shall I call? 86 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, an eminent poet, and a mis- [uncommon favor. Although this was a gainfo! cellaneous writer, was born in 1729, according to year to him, yet thoughtless profusion, and a habi one account, at Elphin; according to another, at of gaming, left him at its close considerably index Pallas, in the county of Longford, Ireland. From In the two succeeding years he supplied the book his father, who was a clergyman, he received a sellers with a "Grecian History," and "A History literary education, and was sent at an early period of the Earth and Animated Nature," the to Dublin College. Thence he was removed as a chiefly taken from Buffon. He had planned som medical student to the University of Edinburgh, other works, but these were cut off by his untimely where he continued from 1751 to the beginning of death. In March 1774 he was attacked with the 1754. From the slight tincture of science which symptoms of a low fever; and having taken, upu he seems to have acquired, it is probable that he his own judgment, an over-dose of a powerta. paid little attention to the studies of the place; and medicine, he sunk under the disease, or the reme his necessity for quitting Edinburgh to avoid paying dy, and died on the tenth day, April 4th. He s a debt, said to have been contracted by a fellow-buried, with little attendance, in the Temple student, augurs but little for his moral character. Church; but a monument has since been riset With these unfavorable beginnings, in the midst of to his memory, with a Latin inscription by It. penury, he resolved to indulge his curiosity in a Johnson. visit to the continent of Europe; and after a long Goldsmith was a man of little correctness eier ramble, and various fortunes, he found means to get in his conduct or his opinions, and is rather adback to England in 1758. For a considerable mired for his genius, and beloved for his benery time he supported himself by his pen, in an obscure lence, than solidly esteemed. The best part of bis situation, when, in 1765, he suddenly blazed out as character was a warmth of sensibility, which made a poet, in his "Traveller; or, A Prospect of Socie-him ready to share his purse with the indigent, ty." It was at the instigation of Dr. Johnson that in his writings rendered him the constant advocaz he enlarged this piece, and finished it for publica- of the poor and oppressed. The worst feature tion; and that eminent critic liberally and justly a malignant envy and jealousy of successful nak said of it, that "there had not been so fine a poem which he often displayed in a manner not less since Pope's time." It was equally well received diculous than offensive. by the public; and conferred upon Goldsmith a celebrity which introduced him to some of the most distinguished literary characters of the time. He was one of those wh are happier in the use of the pen than the tongue his conversation being generally confused, and seldom absurd; so that the wits with whom he kep The poet continued to pursue his career, and, company seem rather to have made him their batt in 1766, was published his novel of "The Vicar of than to have listened to him as an equal. Yet Wakefield," which was received with deserved ap- perhaps, no writer of his time was possessed of plause, and has ever since borne a distinguished more true humor, or was capable of more po rank among similar compositions. Some of his nancy in marking the foibles of individuals. Th most pleasing and successful works in prose were talent he has displayed in a very amusing manner given to the world about this time; and he paid his in his unfinished poem of Retaliation," writ respects to the Theatre, by a comedy entitled "The as a kind of retort to the jocular attacks made up Good-Natured Man," acted at Covent-Garden in him in the Literary Club. Under the mask a 1768, which, however, defects of plot, and igno- Epitaphs, he has given masterly sketches of some rance of dramatic effect, rendered not very success- of the principal members, with a mixture of seriou ful. His poetical fame reached its summit in 1770, praise and good-humored raillery. It may indee by the publication of "The Deserted Village," a be said that the latter sometimes verges into tart delightful piece, which obtained general admiration. ness, which is particularly the case with his delinea The price offered by the bookseller, amounting to tion of Garrick. nearly five shillings a couplet, appeared to Gold- On the whole, his literary fame must be consid smith so enormous, that he at first refused to take ered as rising the highest in the character of a poek - it, but the sale of the poem convinced him that he for it would be difficult, in the compass of English might fairly appropriate to himself that sum out of verse, to find pieces which are read with more the profits. In 1772 he produced another comedy, gratification than his Traveller and his Deserted entitled "She Stoops to Conquer; or, The Mistakes Village. There are, besides, his elegant ballad of of a Night;" and though in character and plot it The Hermit, his stanzas on Woman, and some short made a near approach to farce, yet such were its humorous and miscellaneous pieces, which are comic powers that the audience received it with never without interest. THE TRAVELLER. OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY. REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd, But me, not destin'd such delights to share, [crown'd, As some lone miser, visiting his store, Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, But let us try these truths with closer eyes, Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast, But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, Where my worn soul, each wand'ring hope at rest, All evils here contaminate the mind, But where to find that happiest spot below, That opulence departed leaves behind; |