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O THOU! Who sitt'st a smiling bride
By Valour's arm'd and awful side,
Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best ador'd:
Who oft, with songs, divine to hear,

Winn'st from his fatål grasp the spear,

And hid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!

Thou who, amidst the deathful field,

By godlike chiefs alone beheld,

Oft with thy bosom bare art found,

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himself," and deprived the world of many great things he had planned, and to the execution of which he was competent. His fate was a sad one; "while he studied to live, he felt no evil but poverty;" but when he lived to study, his life was assailed by more dreadful calamities-disease and insanity."

The poetical productions of Collins fill but a few pages. Of late years they have been justly classed among the finest and most perfect compositions in the language. It is singular that his merit should not have been appreciated by his contemporaries. Cowper never heard of him until after his death; and Dr. Johnson, who knew and loved him, appears to be in no way surprised that fame should not have followed his publications. Posterity has made ample amends for the neglect it was his destiny to experience.

The autograph of Collins is copied from a deed signed by him and his two sisters, dated May 1, 1747, assigning to a person of the name of Crowcher; their interest in the house and premises

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O THOU! Who sitt'st a smiling bride
By Valour's arm'd and awful side,
Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best ador'd:
Who oft, with songs, divine to hear,

Winn'st from his fatal grasp the spear,

And hid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!

Thou who, amidst the deathful field,

By godlike chiefs alone beheld,

Oft with thy bosom bare art found,

See, Mercy, see! with pure and loaded hands, Before thy shrine my country's Genius stands, And decks thy altar still, though pierc'd with many a wound!

ANTISTROPHE.

When he whom e'en our joys provoke,
The fiend of Nature, join'd his yoke,

And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey:
Thy form, from out thy sweet abode,

O'ertook him on his blasted road,

And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away.

I see recoil his sable steeds,

That bore him swift to savage deeds,

Thy tender melting eyes they own;

O maid! for all thy love to Britain shewn,
Where Justice bars her iron tower,

To thee we build a roseate bower,

Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne!

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd Sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat,
With short shrill shriek flits on by leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid compos'd,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport

Beneath thy lingering light:

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
And rudely rends thy robes:

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,

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