SENT WITH MR. POPE'S WORKS.
SEE female vice and female folly here,
Rallied with wit polite, or lash severe :
Let Pope present such objects to our view;
Such are, my fair, the full reverse of you. [shades,
Rapt when, to Loddon's stream* from Windsor's
He sings the modest charms of silvan maids;
Dear Burford's hills in memory's eye appear,
And Luddal's springt still murmurs in my ear:
But when you cease to bless my longing eyes,
Dumb is the spring, the joyless prospect dies:
Come then, my charmer, come! here transport
reigns!
New health, new youth, inspirits all my veins,
Each hour let intercourse of hearts employ,
Thou life of loveliness! thou soul of joy!
Love wakes the birds-oh, hear each melting lay! Love warms the world-come, charmer, come away!
But, hark!-immortal Pope resumes the lyre!
Diviner airs, diviner flights inspire:
Hark where an angel's language tunes the line!
See where the thoughts and looks of angels shine!
Here he pour'd all the music of your tongue,
And all your looks and thoughts unconscious sung.
* Alluding to the beautiful episode of Lodona in Windsor Forest.'
O, MY lov'd Hill, O thou by Heaven design'd
To charm, to mend, and to adorn mankind!
To thee my hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows tend,
Thou brother, father, nearer yet—thou friend!
If worldly friendships of cement divide,
As interests vary or as whims preside;
If leagues of luxury borrow friendship's light,
Or leagues subversive of all social right:
O say, my Hill, in what propitious sphere,
Gain we the friend, pure, knowing, and sincere ?
'Tis where the worthy and the wise retire;
There wealth may learn its use, may love inspire;
There may young worth the noblest end obtain,
In want may friends, in friends may knowledge gain;
In knowledge bliss; for wisdom virtue finds,
And brightens mortal to immortal minds.
Kind then my wrongs, if love, like yours, succeed!
For you, like virtue, are a friend indeed.
Oft when you saw my youth wild error know, Reproof, soft-hinted, taught the blush to glow. Young and unform'd, you first my genius rais'd, Just smil❜d when faulty, and when moderate prais'd. Me shun'd, me ruin'd, such a mother's rage! You sung, till pity wept o'er every page. You call'd my lays and wrongs to early fame; Yet, yet, the' obdurate mother felt no shame.
Pierc'd as I was! your counsel soften'd care,
To ease turn'd anguish, and to hope despair.
The man who never wound afflictive feels,
He never felt the balmy worth that heals:
Welcome the wound, when blest with such relief!
For deep is felt the friend, when felt in grief.
From you shall never, but with life, remove
Aspiring genius, condescending love.
When some, with cold, superior looks, redress,
Relief seems insult, and confirms distress:
You, when you view the man with wrongs besieg'd,
While warm you act the' obliger, seem the' oblig'd.
All-winning, mild, to each of lowly state:
To equals free, unservile to the great;
Greatness you honour, when by worth acquir'd;
Worth is by worth in every rank admir'd.
Greatness you scorn, when titles insult speak!
Proud to vain pride, to honour'd meekness meek,
That worthless bliss which others court, you fly;
That worthy woe they shun attracts your eye.
But shall the Muse resound alone your praise? No-let the public friend exalt her lays! [mine !— O trace that friend with me!-he's yours!-he's The world's!-beneficent behold him shine!
Is wealth his sphere? If riches, like a tide,
From either India pour their golden pride;
Rich in good works, him other wants employ;
He gives the widow's heart to sing for joy:
To orphans, prisoners, shall his bounty flow;
The weeping family of want and woe.
Is knowledge his? Benevolently great,
In leisure active, and in care sedate;
What aid, his little wealth, perchance, denies,
In each hard instance, his advice supplies.
With modest truth he sets the wandering right,
And gives religion pure, primeval light;
In love diffusive, as in light refin'd,
The liberal emblem of his Maker's mind.
Is power his orb? He then, like power divine,
On all, though with a varied ray, will shine.
Ere power was his, the man, he once caress'd,
Meets the same faithful smile, and mutual breast:
But asks his friend some dignity of state?
His friend, unequal to the' incumbent weight?
Asks it a stranger, one whom parts inspire
With all a people's welfare would require?
His choice admits no pause; his gift will prove
All private well absorb'd in public love.
He shields his country, when for aid she calls;
Or should she fall, with her he greatly falls:
But, as proud Rome, with guilty conquest crown'd,
Spread slavery, death, and desolation round,
Should e'er his country, for dominion's prize,
Against the sons of men a faction rise,
Glory, in hers, is in his eye disgrace;
The friend of truth, the friend of human race.
Thus to no one, no sect, no clime confin'd,
His boundless love embraces all mankind;
And all their virtues in his life are known;
And all their joys and sorrows are his own.
These are the lights, where stands that friend
confest ;
This, this the spirit, which informs thy breast.
Through fortune's cloud thy genuine worth can
What wouldst thou not, were wealth and greatness thine?
In me, long absent, long with anguish fraught,
In me, though silence long has deaden'd thought,
Yet memory lives, and calls the Muse's aid,
To snatch our friendship from oblivion's shade.
As soon the sun shall cease the world to warm,
As soon Llanelly's fair that world to charm,
As grateful sense of goodness, true like thine,
Shall e'er desert a breast so warm as mine.
When imag'd Cambria strikes my memory's eye
(Cambria, my darling scene!) I, sighing, cry,
Where is my Powell? dear associate !-where?
To him I would unbosom every care;
To him, who early felt, from beauty, pain;
Gall'd in a plighted, faithless virgin's chain.
At length, from her ungenerous fetters freed,
Again he loves! he wooes! his hopes succeed!
But the gay bridegroom, still by fortune crost,
Is, instant, in the weeping widower lost.
Her his sole joy! her from his bosom torn,
What feeling heart but learns, like his, to mourn ?
Can nature then such sudden shocks sustain ?
Nature thus struck, all reason pleads in vain!
Though late, from reason yet he draws relief,
Dwells on her memory; but dispels his grief.
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