Spirits! the desolated wreck that haunt,

Who frequent by the village maiden seen, When sudden shouts at eve the wanderer daunt, And shapeless shadows sweep along the green; And ye, in midnight horrors heard to yell Round the destroyer of the holy cell,

With interdictions dread of boding sound; Who, when he prowl'd the rifled walls among, Prone on his brow the massy fragment flung ;Come from your viewless caves, and tread this hallow'd ground!

How oft, when homeward forc'd, at day's dim close,
In youth, as bending back I mournful stood
Fix'd on the fav'rite spot, where first arose

The pointed ruin peeping o'er the wood;
Methought I heard upon the passing wind
Melodious sounds in solemn chorus join'd,

Echoing the chaunted vesper's peaceful note, Oft through the veil of night's descending cloud, Saw gleaming far the visionary croud

Down the deep vaulted aisle in long procession float.

But now; no more the gleaming forms appear,
Within their graves at rest the fathers sleep;
And not a sound comes to the wistful ear,

Save the low murmur of the tranquil deep:
Or from the grass that in luxuriant pride
Waves o'er yon eastern window's sculptur'd side,

The dew-drops bursting on the fretted stone: While faintly from the distant coppice heard, The music of the melancholy bird

Trills to the silent heav'n a sweetly-plaintive moan.

Farewell, delightful dreams, that charm'd my youth!
Farewell th' aërial note, the shadowy trail !
Now while this shrine inspires sublimer truth,
While cloyster'd echo breathes a solemn strain,
In the deep stillness of the midnight hour,
Wisdom shall curb wild fancy's magic pow'r,

And as with life's gay dawn th' illusions cease, Though from the heart steal forth a sigh profound; Here Resignation o'er its secret wound

Shall

pour the lenient balm that soothes the soul to peace.

NOTES ON ODES

OF THE

THIRD AND FOURTH CLASS.

NOTES ON ODES OF THE THIRD CLASS.

ODE XIII.

Page 10. Mr. Say was the son of an ejected minister of Southampton, and after having been some years Pastor of a dissenting congregation at Ipswich, in 1723, succeeded Dr. Calamy in that which belongs at present to Dr. Kippis. Soon after Mr. Say's death, which happened April 12, 1743, at the age of 68, several of his poems, and two essays in prose, were published in one volume in quarto, by subscription. The latter, "On the Harmony, Variety, and Power of "Numbers in general," and, "On those of Paradise "Lost in particular," have been much admired by persons of taste and judgment. His only daughter married Mr. Toms, a dissenting teacher at Hadleigh in Suffolk.

ODE XXVII.

Page 42. The writer of this Ode was daughter of the Reverend Mr. Pennington, Rector of Huntingdon. She died in 1759, at the age of 25. Mr. Duncombe has celebrated her in "The Feminiad," for her "Cop"per Farthing."