Thus cheaply wise, and innocently great,
While Time's smooth sand shall regularly pass,
Each destin'd atom's quiet course I'll wait,

Nor rashly break, nor wish to stop the glass.

And when in death my peaceful ashes lie,

If e'er some tongue congenial speaks my name, Friendship shall never blush to breathe a sigh, And great ones envy such an honest fame.

ELEGY II.

WOODSTOCK.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCLIX.

Ан me! what is this mortal life? (I cry'd)
What changes croud the page of flitting Time!
What dire reverse of Fate have numbers try'd!
What youth, what beauty, wither'd in the prime !

Inexorable Destiny pursues,

And levels in the chace with rapid wing: Pity in vain, or Mirth, or Merit sues, Equally vain the beggar and the king!

Ah! what is Fame, the idol of the great?
No solid Pleasure can she e'er bestow;
If just to Worth, that justice comes too late :
Prompt is her malice, but her mercy slow ?—

Thus on the winding Isis' willowed bank,
The varying scenes of Fortune I deplore;
Wasting in fruitless sighs the evening dank,
Tears adding water to the river's store.

A gloomy mansion open to the view,

Disclosing horror heighten'd by the shade; Where round the nodding walls the mournful yew Points to the vault where Rosamond was laid:

Where with her birds of night, haggard and foul,
In sullen fellowship together dwell,
The bat ambiguous, and ill-omen'd owl,
Screaming to nighted swains a dreadful knell !

Intent I gaz'd, till Terror, ruling sight,
Rear'd a pale spectre from the yawning tomb,
A faint delusion of the murky night,
Begot and bred in Fancy's fruitful womb !

Semblance of virgin elegance and grace,
The mimic shape in every part adorn'd;
But wan and languid seem'd the beauteous face,
Which Elen envy'd, and which Henry mourn'd.

Now gently gliding o'er the hallow'd ground, Close by my side the phantom made a stand, Piercing the night-still'd air. An awful sound! And claim'd attention with uplifted hand.

"I once was blest with Love's deluding joy,
I also felt the worst extreme of hate!
And can no length of time (she cry'd) destroy

Remembrance of my love, and of my fate?

"O had Oblivion in her peaceful cell,

Shrouded from every eye my mouldering dust! That on the chissel'd stone no verse might tell, My crime how great! my punishment how just!

"But Woodstock's blooming bowers still remain, The scenes, to me, of pleasure and of woe; And Godstow's walls perpetuate the stain

My name reproaching, whilst my grave they shew.

"O Woodstock, fated long to be the seat
Of all the charms that Wit and Beauty boast,
The hero's guerdon, and his soft retreat,

Yielding content, in fields and senates lost.

"Thy glories now are levell'd low in earth;
No longer Beauty doth thy bowers adorn;
No more thy woods resound the voice of Mirth;
The laurel from thy victor brow is torn !

"But thou whose bosom foreign sorrow heaves, Whose eyes can stream for anguish not thine own; Whose heart the white-rob'd fugitive receives, When forc'd by awful Rigor from her throne;

"The scourge of vice, the good man's destiny,
The wreck of fortune, and the waste of years;
The miseries thou mournest thou shalt see,
Sad consolation granted to thy tears."

Now on the summit of a cloud-built height
Methought I stood: and from an opening glade
With faultering ray gleam'd forth a magic light,

And round the plain in lambent circles play'd.

Sudden the ground with inbred motion shook,
A solemn murmur rustled thro' the trees;
And on the pebbled shore the surging brook
Dash'd angry waves, unconscious of a breeze!

Daedalian mystery! from the parted soil,

A labyrinth 'rose to sounds of melting note;
A moment's labor mocking all the toil
Of nations old, and monarchs long forgot.

High over-arch'd in Summer's gayest weed,
Meandering alleys form the wonderous maze,
And puzzle most when best they seem to lead
The untaught foot, that in their precincts strays.

Deep in a vale impervious to all tread,

Save by a flower-hid path, a grotto stood! And ancient oaks their foliage round it spread, O'ershading with their tops the neighbouring wood:

And Nature sporting, with a lavish hand
This little spot in gay profusion grac'd,
With every wanton variation plann'd,
Luxuriant Fancy yielding but to Taste.