ELEGIES LOCAL, SYMPATHETIC, AND FUNEREAL. ELEGY I. THE TOMB OF SHAKSPERE. A VISION. BY JOHN GILBERT COOPER, ESQ. WHAT time the jocund rosie-bosom'd HOURS The MORN unbarr'd th' ambrosial gates of light, The nightingale no longer swell'd her throat The gurgling notes of her melodious woe: The God of sleep mysterious visions led In gay procession 'fore the mental eye; And my free'd soul awhile her mansion fled, To try her plumes for immortality. Through fields of air, methought, I took my flight, Through every clime, o'er every region pass'd, No paradise or ruin 'scap'd my sight, HESPERIAN garden, or CIMMERIAN waste. On Avon's banks I lit, whose streams appear To wind with eddies fond round SHAKSPERE'S tomb, The year's first feath'ry songsters warble near, Here FANCY sat, (her dewy fingers cold Decking with flow'rets fresh th' unsullied sod,) And bath'd with tears the sad sepulchral mold, Her fav'rite offspring's long and last abode. Ah! what avails, she cry'd, a Poet's name? Let gentle OTWAY, white-rob'd PITY's priest, |