Wak'd by the flail's redoubling sound, When spangling frost o'ercrisps the ground, No more forego bewildering sleep

To climb with health yon' airy steep.

When deep'ning snows oppress the plain The birds no more their boon obtain; The red-breast hovering round your doors No more his stated mess implores, Where all that needed found relief, No tearful eye laments their grief; No lenient hand dispels their pain; Fainting they sue, yet sue in vain.

But though the scenes you now deplore With heart and eye be your's no more; Though now each long known object seen Unreal as the morning's dream, You still with retrospective glance, Or 'rapt in some poetic trance, At will may every charm renew; Each smiling prospect still review: Through memory's power and fancy's aid The pictur'd phantoms ne'er shall fade.

And, oh where'er your footsteps roam, Where'er you fix your future home, May joys attending crown the past And heaven's best mansion be your last!

WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the May-fly haunts the pool or stream;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;
Then be the hour to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale;
To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdu'd of wing:
Amusive birds 1-say where 's your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat?

Epist. VIII. EPISTLES DESCRIPTIVE, &c.

Whence your return, by such nice instinct led
When Spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ?
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride;
The GOD OF NATURE is your secret guide!
While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day
To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray;
'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night;
To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
To catch the distant falling of the flood;

67

While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;

While high in air and pois'd upon his wings,

Unseen, the soft- enamor'd woodlark sings :

These, NATURE's works, the curious mind employ, Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:

As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain

Steals o'er each cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!

Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine;

The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage chimney smoking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall :-away, retire;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!

Thus, ere night's veil had half obscur'd the sky, Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high: True to the signal, by love's meteor led,

Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.

EPISTLE IX.

THE

ACADEMIC SPORTSMAN;

OR,

A WINTER'S DAY.

BY THE REV. GERALD FITZGERALD.

THE feather'd game that haunt the hoary plains,
Where ice-bound winter hangs in chrystal chains;
The mimic thunder of the deep-mouth'd gun,
By lightning usher'd and by death outrun ;
The spaniel springing on the new-fall'n prey,
The friend attendant and the spirits gay-
These are the scenes which lured my earliest days,
And scenes like these continue still to please.

Oft when I've seen the new-fledg'd morn arise, And spread its pinions to the polar skies; Th' expanded air with gelid fragrance fan, Brace the slack nerves and animate the man : Swift from the college, and from cares I flew, (For studious cares solicit something new) From tinkling bells that wake the truant's fears, And letter'd trophies of three thousand years ;