H

TO THE SAME,

ON HEARING OF HER ILLNESS.

AS then Difeafe with his diftemper'd breath,
Dimn'd the full radiance of thy lovely eye?
So the fair profpect of a fummer's sky,
The uproar of the hurricane destroys;
And thus thy cruel enmity, gaunt death,
Blights all our hopes, annihilatés our joys!
And tell me, why thy dreadful fhafts are fent
So foon, where every charm delights to dwell?
And why the virtuous, and the innocent,

Those we revere and those we love fo well,
Find no protection from thy deadly rage?
Behold her form-let that thy wrath affuage!
Or is compaffion to thy breast unknown?
Then ftrike us both-make Delia's fate my own.
Birmingham,
August, 3, 1797.

W. AMPHLETT.

ODE TO THE EVENING STAR.

F

AIR love of Evening! who on high

Look 'ft on her graces with diffolving eye,

Thou who alone

First glimmers in her train, and shines among
The fadd'ning clouds, when Phoebus has gone down-
Beneath thy light

The fays and fairies eager throng;

And with gay figures flight,

Dance to wild minstrelfy,

Such as young Zephyr breathes the whispering woods along.

O lovely ftar to thee the wretch forlorn

Pours out his woe.

What time, at autumn's clofe,

When the thick woods by rudeft gales are torn;

I

And leaf-ftrewn walks

And dells;

In which the lonely echo feldom talks,
Sigh to the winds that blow;

What time, the melancholy bells

Come soften❜d on the car, and break the mind's repofe,
He comes to court thy beam,

And groaning to impart

The heallefs forrows of a broken heart

For, ah! the felfish world abhors the unwelcome theme.

And when amid a cloudless sky

Of that deep blue of fummer night,
Thou shineft-then to weep and figh
The lover comes-

Ah me! his faded chcek,

His penfive eyes a fatal fondness fpeak.-
Now he roams

Wild thro' the foreft, tempeft-toft,

He breaks the waving boughs, he burfts thro' tangled thorns;
And now, as thro' an opening gleams thy light,
Thy foft, foft light, he turns

With downcaft looks, and arms flow-crofs'd;
The fudden drops rain from his fadden'd eyes,
He thinks on her, more lovely than the morn;
No more he rages, but he mourns,

And all by tender agony fubdued,

Darts from thy foothing ray, and plunges in the wood.

Poor child of want!

Doft thou too love to gaze

On Eve's meek ftar?

Yes, poverty will haunt

The twilight hour, will often raife

The languid eye, to watch thy filver car:

Deferted, and weeping,

Abhorring the day,.

On her breaft her babe fleeping,

The fad wretch will fray;

And as her waking infant cries in vain,

Her fwimming eyes fhall feek the ftarry train;

And hope fhall urge, and faith confirm the thought,

That happier worlds for her fhall be with fuffering bought.

When thy luftre first illumes

Surf-bound groves, and marbled tombs,
And beds of clofing flowers;

The widow'd maid, with lonely steps
Shall feek thee, where thy radiance fleeps,
Amid the willow'd bowers;

And there, by love and forrow bleft,
The spot where youth and valour rest,
Shall catch the fainted tear;

Thy humid eye fhall fee her grief,
Shall gleam on every lilied leaf,
That decks the hallow'd bier-

And as her foft fighs found thro' air,

Thy gentle look alone shall harmonize despair.

And O! to thee the wandering poet's lyre

Shall ftill be ftrung,

What time, in penfive mood,

Watching thy beams on beaked promontories,--

He ftretches carelefs by the hanging shore

That overhangs the flood,

Upon whose wave, the hot fun darts no more;

But deep involv'd in purple glories,

(With which, in richest pomp high heaven is hung) Sleeps amidst a mellowed fire

There fhall he mufe on antique ftories,

Or teach his eagle wing uncheck'd to foar,
While all beneath thy ray is one pale folitude.

ANNA MARIA PORTER.

RETIRED THOUGHTS.

IN traverfing this chequer'd flate, which yields

Enjoyments, oft by disappointment foil'd;
Mine be the path, which, far remote from where
Ambition spreads his ever-dazzling scene,
Glittering but to deftroy; and reftlefs, ftill,
Would rob the mind of fweet ferenity,
For pleasures which may never be attain'd,
Or if attain'd, may unfubftantial prove."

Nor is ambition only to be found
In the loud active walk of public life:
The paffion ftill the fame, though multiform
Its object. If slumbering in the breast
'Twill shape itself to varied circumstance :
Sometimes like Lucifer, a fplendid wreck!
At others funk, e'en far below contempt.
So then the only fafe and happy path's
That which through apathy's dull region lies?
No-hateful clime, far thence let me avert
My heedful courfe.-Thy torpid air would dim
The vital fpark of intellect; relax

The well-tun'd chords of fenfibility;

And load me with a weight of cumb'rous ease!
In the fair fields of fcience let me stray,
'Mid the tall trees, or humbler shrubs, that yield
Their balmy fragrance to the fresh'ning breeze.
Tho' lovely to the eye, and grateful still
As ev'ning coolnefs after noontide heat,
Let me not loiter here too long, left like
The fad benighted traveller, I find
The friendly orb of day depart, whilst
To an unfinish'd lonely way betake
My folitary steps. I would frequent
That cooling fhade, which from th' oppreffive heat
Shelters the fojourner: tho' lefs attractive
To the paffing eye, the vale delight affords
Which only thefe can know, who, up the freep
Afçent of felf-acquaintance, gain the calm,
The bleft retreat of meek humility.
Near her contentment dwells, of life the balm;
Mild placid deity, which adds delight
To happiness poffeft. Solacing hope,
And heaven-born refignation in her train,
Wipe from affliction's eye the falling tear.
Beneath thy genial fmiles, the length'ning thread
Of human life runs fim and even-unhurt
By the destructive grafp of haggard care.
Tutelar power of dear domestic life!
Kind tranquillizer of the troubled mind!
Prepare my breast for forrows yet to come,

A

SONNET.

BY MR. R. DAVENPORT.

LONE and fuccourlefs, day after day,

I've wander'd on, while many a flowning fprite
Hath fearfully belet me on my way,

And strove to fill my bofom with affright.
Yet, though furrounded, thwarted, and revil'd,
Onward I went, unheeding the foul train;
And rais'd my eyes to heav'n! and cheerly fmil'd,
In innocence fecure; nor felt I pain:

Nor do I feel it-though my foes still rave,

More than the firm rock feels the baffled wave.

But, O! the alter'd voice, the fcornful air,

The half-averted, or neglectful eye

Of those I dearly love, not so I bear!

Thefe I can feel; and, feeling them, muft figh.

SONNET TO MEMORY.

As proping a thy paints my future years

S a poor pilgrim, thro' the world I haste,

In fombre tints; a barren, pathlefs waste, Involv'd in gloom, fad to my fight appears. While from fuch fcenes I turn my tearful eyes, O lead me, memory, to thofe vernal bow'rs, Where once I tray'd; where 'midft fair-fpringing flow'rs, Unfully'd streams of halcyon pleasure rife.

Oft on thofe banks, I took my careless way,

When bleft with youth; or trod the fairy groves Where iport the foft defires, the fmiling loves; Who, led by innocence ferenely gay,

In antic revelry came flutt'ring round,

And with their rofy wreaths my temples bound.

September 19th, 1797.

JOHN JAMES PEAT.

VOL. I.