TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON. AN INVITATION INTO THE COUNTRY. I. THE Swallows in their torpid state And bees in hives as idly wait The call of early Spring. II. The keenest frost that binds the stream, Are neither felt nor fear'd by them, Secure of their repose. III. But man, all feeling and awake, The gloomy scene surveys; With present ills his heart must ake, Old Winter, halting o'er the mead, Bids me and Mary mourn; But lovely Spring peeps o'er his head, And whispers your return. V. Then April, with her sister May, And, if a tear, that speaks regret A glimpse of joy, that we have met, CATHARINA. ADDRESSED TO MISS STAPLETON. (NOW MRS. COURTNEY.) SHE came-she is gone-we have met- And meet perhaps never again; The sun of that moment is set, And seems to have risen in vain. Catharina has fled like a dream- The last ev'ning ramble we made, Our progress was often delay'd By the nightingale warbleing nigh. We paus'd under many a tree, And much she was charm'd with a tone Less sweet to Maria and me, Who so lately had witness'd her own. My numbers that day she had sung, As only her musical tongue Could infuse into numbers of mine. The longer I heard, I esteem'd The work of my fancy the more, And ev❜n to myself never seem'd Though the pleasures of London exceed In number the days of the year, Catharina, did nothing impede, Would feel herself happier here; For the close woven arches of limes Than aught that the city can show. So it is, when the mind is endu'd Since then in the rural recess May it still be her lot to possess The scene of her sensible choice! |