Mine be the nymph, whom native charms adorn;
Who looks on Fashion's painted mask with scorn;
Who never spread the Syren's artful guise
To chain attention, or entrance surprise;
Who ne'er would wish the rising scale of fame,
If she, ascending, sunk a sister's name;
Who never heard, without a kindling glow,
The boast of Virtue's too successful foe.
Such be the fair, to whom my hopes would rise,
Whose soul gives language to her sparkling eyes;
Whose smile the gloomiest scene of life can cheer,
With rapture glisten, or dissolve a tear;

Whose charms with softness clothe her modest mien,
As light pellucid, and as heaven serene;

Whose lovely converse sweetens every boon;

Whose check the morning, and whose mind the noon.
Ah! lovely Anna! these are traits divine,
And Fancy's pencil glows with charms, like thine!
Come then, thou dearest, heaven-congenial maid,
And rove with me the grove, the hill and glade!
Behold those rocks of huge colossal size,
Whose cloud-girt tops appear to prop the skies;
Like them, above the world, we'll soar sublime;
Like them, our love shall brave the rage of Time!
Here rich Luxuriance waves her ample wing,
And spreads a harvest mid perpetual spring;
But ne'er can Nature's flowery charms endear,
If Anna, Nature's blossom, be not here.
Come then, my fair, and bless my lonesome hours,
And grace the palace arbour of the bowers.
All Nature waits my Anna to receive;

A second Eden wants a second Eve.

124

TO THE LATE THOMAS BRATTLE, ESQ.

The following Stanzas were addressed to the late Thomas Brattle, Esq. soon after he had embellished his seat at Cambridge, in a manner highly creditable to the taste of that worthy gentleman.

WHERE'ER the vernal bower, the autumnal field,

The summer arbour, and the winter fire; Where'er the charms, which all the seasons yield, Or Nature's gay museum can inspire,

Delight the bosom, or the Fancy please,
Or life exalt above a splendid dream;

There, Brattle's fame shall freight the grateful breeze,
Each grove resound it, and reflect each stream.

Each bough, that waves o'er brown Pomona's plains,
Each bud, that blossoms in the ambrosial bower,
Nursed by this great Improver's art, obtains

A nobler germin, and a fairer flower.

The rural vale a kind asylum gave,

When Peace the seats of ermined woe forsook ; Retirement found an Athens in a cave,

And man grew social with the babbling brook.

Here, happy Brattle, 'twas thy envied place,
In gay undress fair Nature to surprise;
By Art's slight veil to heighten every grace,
And bid a Vauxhall from a marish rise.

The airy hill-top, and the Dryad's bower,

No more shall tempt our sportive nymphs to rove;

This willow-shade shall woo the social hour,
And Brattle's mall surpass Arcadia's grove.

Fair Friendship, lovely virgin, here resort;

Here with thy charms the joy-winged morn beguile: Thy eyes shall glisten eloquence to thought,

And teach the check of hopeless gloom to smile.

Here too, thy modest damsels oft shall pass,
Yield a soft splendour to the evening beam,
Gaze at the image in the watery glass,

And blush new beauty to the flattering stream:

While the pleased Naiad, watching their return,
As oft at morn her sportive limbs she laves,
Hears their loved voice, and leaning on her urn,
Stops the smooth current of her silver waves.

ADDRESSED TO MISS B.

POOR is the friendless master of the globe,
And keen the ingrate's heart-inserted probe;
But keener woes that wretch is doomed to prove,
The poorer hermit of unfriended love!

Oh, woman! subtle, lovely, faithless sex!
Born to enchant, thou studiest to perplex;
Adored as queen, thou play'st the tyrant's part,
And, taught to govern, would'st enslave the heart.

Now, cold as ice-plant, fickle as the wind, Nor pity melts, nor pride can fix thy mind ; Now, warm and faithful as the cooing dove, Thou breath'st no wish, and sing'st no note, but love!

In thee has Nature such elastick power, She changes seasons, as she turns the hour; In one short day, you roll through every sign, From Passion's tropics, to Decorum's line.

Now from above, in vertic-heat you blaze, And melting stoicks half enamoured gaze; Now, dim from far your rays obliquely gleam, And freeze the current of the poet's stream.

Thus, through our system, Nature's frolick child, Fair woman, roves, a comet, bright and wild; Supreme in art, our purblind sex she rules: Wits may be lovers-lovers must be fools.

TO CLORA..

THOU nymph satirick, for a nymph thou art,
Whose varying lyre, like thy once doubtful sex,
Can with its tones the nicest ear perplex,
And numb with wonder the still pondering heart!

Thou, whom Menander joys to call a nymph,
Whose lips have freely quaffed the sacred lymph;
Who erst, in sweet Eliza's lovely guise,
Didst bless the vision of these mental eyes.

Thou injured maid, to gain whose secret name,
Intent I've listened with arrected ear;
Patrolled the whispering gallery of Fame,

And walked the watch-tower of the winds to hear!

Thou injured maid, to thee this verse belongs:
The lyre, that caused, shall expiate thy wrongs!

When first the soft Eliza tuned her lyre,

In notes, the pathos of whose dulcet swell Might charm a Zeno with its potent spell, And the fond passion, which she felt, inspire;

Enamoured Pride, from Fancy's hill-top, heard

The softened musick of the fluttering strain; While Echo, prattling like the human bird, Rechanting, chanted every note again.

But Judgment, wrinkled with a frown severe,
Checked the young rapture, which thy lays inspired;
Though Hope's pleased eye the page proscribed admired,
And shed upon the sweet forbidden fruit a tear.

Weak Jealousy outspread her saffron wing,

And, through the infection of the jaundiced huc,
Saw from Eliza's garb a monster spring,
In voice a Circe, and in poison too :

A magick chantress, from whose Hyblean tongue,
While fell the honied melody of praise,
Alas! impervious to the soul's fixed gaze,
A vocal death from every note she flung!