VI.

Let then a voice that love has made
My pray'rs re-eccho thro' the glade,
To tell around that Laura's kind,
And brings true pleasure to my mind.
But ere I crave once more to view
Yon fetting fun his course renew,
Grant, ye gods! that Laura prove,
1 shall be happy in my love.

On a LADY'S BIRTH-DAY.

COME hail, ye fongsters of the grove,
And tune your pipes to harmony and love,
To welcome in this day,

And gratulate the auspicious birth
Of her who loves in ftrictest truth,
Who's gen'rous, kind and gay.

Now all your notes in concert raise,

And fing, Oh! fing my Laura's praise,
To whom all good belongs.

And tell around, ye pleasing birds,

For what, for whom, and whence affords,

Thy fweet melodious fongs.

• Nor

Nor cease thy lays fweet joys to prove,
Ye foftners of a heart in love,

'Till ye are bid to hish!

But fing, long live the beauteous maid,
Whose mind no ills may e'er invade,
And wish her mighty bliss.

Let ev'ry heart with love resound,
Rejoice this day, and hail around,
For one whom I obey;

Whofe life may be one scene of peace,
Subjoin'd with fortune, health, and ease,

'Tis all I have to pray.

To a Young LADY on Valentine-day.

HASTE, haste, my fair, to yonder grove,

That blooming feat fo fit for love.

Infpired by the tuneful Nine,

I've chofe you for my

Valentine.

The feather'd fongfters, happy they,

Now bill and frolic on the spray;
And each you fee on yonder pine,
Is looking out his Valentine.

In love and friendship, thro' the

Unknown to grief, or worldly care,

year,

They chirp and fing, from pine to pine,
Each happy in his Valentine.

Like them, my fair, may you and I,
In perfect friendship live and die.
Nor after courtly matters pine,
But love and live my Valentine.

How pure will friendship then appear, From day to day, from year to year! I'll blefs the gods if thou❜lt be mine, And live my constant Valentine.

The PARTING KISS.

WHAT love I have within my breaft enclos’d,
My anxious heart to you hath long expos'd;

For what but love could make a youth more true,
Whofe troubled thoughts embodies nought but you?
Oft have I heard, and think, my dear, indeed,
That love and truth for ever will fucceed;
The laft, I find, encreases virtue's gain;
The firft, alas! enhances worldly pain.

Oh!

Oh! hard the fate at which I oft have figh'd;

The more we love, the more our love is try'd.
My course the weft, while your's the wretched north,
With hafty rigour calls each lover forth.

Oh! may we meet thrice happy in our love,
By heavn's high will, no hand to disapprove.
'Till then remember, and bear it well in mind,
That as I leave you, fo I hope to find.

An Extempore SOLILOQUY, meditated in a Field.

PLAC'D on a spot, where only earth and sky

Afford the horizon; unfeen by cottage, or habitable

town,

I ruminate on all the ways of man;

Where each pursue (tho' diff'rent roads they take)
The fame high path to happiness,

Unthinking at their journey's end to be deceiv'd.

Ten thousand obftacles protract their wandring fteps; And when they think themselves most safe,

Are furtheft from their point

Love, hatred, diffimulation, and every paffion,

Warring against each other in separate interefts,
While the imperfect mass of man

Torments itself with painful expectation.

Where is that fuperior eye, that can unfold below

The end of all our woes, and proclaim around
The doom diftinctly of us all?

In my own melancholy ftudious frame

I feel the wonders of Omnipotency,

Whose high will forbids perfection in our present state;

Where, like wretches in a tempeft,

We expect to fathom the eternal deep.

Thus, while I survey the progress of the clouds,
Which (like the hast'ning bird piercing the air

In relief of its anxious neftling) roll on
To quench fome thirsty spot,

My impleated thought declares

The Atheist loft in ev'ry act of providence.

These are suggestions from ideas,

Which oft perplex mankind of serious nature.

The man of God's own heart felt them

In his reflections,

When he confidered the heavens, the work

Of the Almighty's fingers, the moon and ftars

Which he ordain'd.

But why these gloomy thoughts?

Since Love, the ruler of our hearts,

Destroys them all-and like the rifing of the moon, It makes us lefs lament the fetting fun?

Oh