Stanzas addressed to an absent Friend

"Tell me that beauty fascinates the heart,

v. 13.

And binds each captive sense in thraldom sweet; That genius mocks the sting of envious art;

That baseness only cherishes deceit :

Tell me that falsehood candour's mask can wearYet tell me not that Absence cures despair

"Tell me that reason comes with sober eye
To wean the soul from life's delusive toys;
That dauntless truth, and mild philosophy,
Lead in their train unperishable joys:
Tell me that wisdom laughs at taunting care-
But tell me not that Absence cures despair.

"Each scene I've mark'd-and must they pass away? Youth, hope, meek-bosom'd friendship, pleasure,pain, Affliction's storms, and fortune's radiant day,

Truth's mental bliss, and folly's low disdain ; And though condemn'd each mortal change to share, Still find that Absence cannot cure despair."

THE CAPTIVE'S GRAVE.*

By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd.-POPE.

66

SURVEY yon solemn and forsaken mound?
No weeping friend performs the duteous rite;
No pensive flow'ret decorates the ground:
Say, why this naked and unseemly sight?

"Who to the grave is friendless thus consign'd?
Why are these simple honours left unpaid?
Is some vile pest, some outcast of mankind,
In that lorn sacred spot neglected laid?

"No: 'tis a nobly generous, Gallic youth,
Made captive by the adverse fate of war:
From her who shar'd his stedfast love and truth
Mountains and spacious seas divide him far.

* "In a part of Wales, where it is customary to adorn with flowers the graves of those recently interred, a French Officer, on parole, died; and this affecting little token of respect, having been omitted by the persons who usually performed it, was paid by the hands of two young ladies."

This little piece has that local interest and merit, which, it is presumed, will form an apology for its appearance in this work, under precisely the same circumstances as the preceding stanzas. I have taken the liberty of transposing these stanzas into the plaintive elegiac measure,

"Now cold in death, shall none, alas! be found,

The common tearful tribute to bestow;

To deck with sweetest flowers the little mound,
And sigh for him who sleeps secure below?

"Ha! who are these-these white-rob'd forms divineThat seek the solemn mansions of the dead? With measur'd footsteps light, and looks benign, The church-yard turf I see them softly tread.

"Laden with sweets from Flora's richest bower, Their generous purpose gently they pursue; Each fragrant herb, each choice and blooming flower Upon the Captive's grave they pensive strew.

"Oh! could his gentle spirit view your deed,
To softest sympathy, so truly dear-

Or she, whose hopeful heart is doom'd to bleed,
When his sad fate shall pierce her tender ear:

"Who, far beyond his death-bell's solemn sound, Fondly anticipates his wish'd return,

Unconscious that the knell, with tone profound,
Hath duly call'd his captive friends to mourn.

"The distant glow of gratitude would rise, The pearly tear of tenderness would flow: Oh! may you joyful meet them in the skies,

Haply receive their thanks-escape their woe.”

TH

HERE liv'd a Peer in former times,
Who, fond of folly and of rhymes,
Amid life's pomp and pageantry,
Forgot that man is born to die."
This Peer, as ancient stories say,
To chase the tedious hours away,
An inmate kept, a mimic tool,

And dub'd him with the name of "fool."
The coaxing, swaggering, artful clown,
Knew when to fawn, and when to frown:
More knave than fool the fellow seem'd,
And by the sequel will be deem'd
To have surpass'd his master far
In wisdom's truest character.

His Lord, one morn, in vacant mood,
Accosted Sancho on the road :

"Here, sirrah! take this staff," he said; "And should it chance, as thou art led

* This interesting Tale is founded in a remarkable story which Bishop Hall relates out of Bromiard, of a certain Lord, in his day, who kept a fool in his house to banish reflection, by means of hilarity.

A Witling Lord.

"In folly's maze, that thou should'st meet
"One greater fool, him kindly greet,
"And to superior folly give

"The staff, which now with thee I leave."
The carl reply'd, "I will attend
66 My master's dictates to the end."
As time his rapid car roll'd on,

It chanc'd that Death, who favours none,
Knock'd at the rich man's palace gate,
Commission'd from the realms of fate.

This Lord fell sick, and now began
To feel how frail the state of man:
The tear evinc'd, as down it stole,
The inward anguish of his soul;
To him whose sum of bliss is here,
Death comes in sable character.

V. 19.

Fame seems to hover o'er the great, And news attendant waits on state: The tidings spreading far and near"Thy Lord is sick"-reach'd Sancho's ear: Sancho, a cynic character,

Was never seen to shed a tear;

Nor friend nor foe assail'd his heart,
For he with all the world could part.
In this same mood he hastes to see
His languid Lord-nor sympathy
Nor pity mov'd him-yet he taught
A lecture which the chaplain ought.
Admitted to the presence room,
Where all seem'd melancholy gloom,