gay Ye too, companions of her happier days, That virtue only grants the real charm, Your beauties shine in all their bloom confest, 'Mid gazing slaves contending to be blest, When with a mother's joy, a mother's fear, Ah! fleeting joys! how soon those hopes were o'er ! How vain alas! was all thy father's art, Vain were the sighs which swell'd thy mother's heart. Pale thy cold lip, half clos'd thy languid eye, Teach thee with smiles to meet the stroke of Death, Resign'd, dear maid, to earth's maternal breast, May sister Seraphs chaunt thy soul to rest! There shall the constant Amaranthus bloom, And wings of Zephyrs shed the morn's perfume. O'er thy sad hearse, fair emblems of the dead, By virgin hands are dying lilies shed. The weeping Graces shall thy tomb surround; The Loves with broken darts shall strew the ground; In vain for thee they wak'd the fond desires, Wove myrtle wreaths, and fann'd their purer fires. The youthful God, who joins the nuptial bands, In vain expecting, near his altar stands ; Fate spread the cloud: his torch extinct, he flies, And veils with saffron robe his streaming eyes. Yet O, while crown'd with never-fading flowers, Thy spirit wanders through Elysian bowers, If plaintive sounds of mortal grief below Reach the blest seats, and waft our tender woe, Hear, happy shade; while thus her mortal lays This monument of soft affection raise. By gentle ties of kindred birth ally'd, The Muse, that sports on Camus' willow'd side, In Memory's lofty dome inscribes thy name, And with thy beauties strives to mix her fame. ELEGY XIX. WRITTEN IN MDCCLVIII. BY JAMES BEATTIE, L. L. D. STILL shall unthinking man substantial deem The forms that fleet through life's deceitful dream? Till at some stroke of Fate the vision flies, And sad realities in prospect rise; And, from Elysian slumbers rudely torn, The startled soul awakes, to think, and mourn. O ye, whose hours in jocund train advance, Lest, thus encompass'd with funereal gloom, Wise, Beauteous, Good! O every grace combin'd, That charms the eye, or captivates the mind! That heard remote along the vale decay! Yet, why with these compared? What tints so fine, What sweetness, mildness, can be match'd with thine ? Why roam abroad, since recollection true Restores the lovely form to Fancy's view? That brow, where Wisdom sits enthroned serene, The sweet effusions of the blameless heart, |