No témpest on my shed its fury pours,

My frugal hearth no noxious blast supplies; Go, wand'rers, go, repair your sooty bow'rs, Think, on no hostile roof my chimnies rise.

Again I'll listen to your grave debates,

I'll think I hear your various maxims told, Your numbers, leaders, politics, and states, Your limits settled, and your tribes enroll'd.

I'll think I hear you tell of distant lands,

What insect-nations rise from Egypt's mud, What painted swarms subsist on Libya's sands, What mild Euphrates yields, and Ganges' flood.

Thrice happy race! whom Nature's call invites
To travel o'er her realms with active wing,
To taste her choicest stores, her best delights,
The summer's radiance, and the sweets of spring:

While we are doom'd to bear the restless change Of shifting seasons, vapors dank, or dry, Forbid, like you, to milder climes to range, When wintry clouds deform the troubled sky.

But know the period to your joys assign'd!
Know ruin hovers o'er this earthly ball;
Certain as fate, and sudden as the wind,
Its secret adamantine props shall fall.

Yet when your short-liv'd summers shine no more,
My patient mind, sworn foe to vice's way,
Sustain'd on lighter wings than yours, shall soar
To fairer realms beneath a brighter ray;

To plains etherial, and Elysian bowers,

Where wintry storms no rude access obtain, Where blasts no light'ning, and no thunder low'rs, But spring and joy unchang'd for ever reign.

ELEGY XXV.

WRITTEN ON

VALENTINE MORNING.

BY THE HON.

HORACE WALPOLE.

HARK, through the sacred silence of the night, Loud Chanticleer doth sound his clarion shrill, Hailing with song the first pale gleam of light, That floats the dark brow of yon eastern hill.

Bright star of morn, oh! leave not yet the wave,
To deck the dewy frontlet of the day,
Nor thou, Aurora, quit Tithonus' cave,
Nor drive retiring darkness yet away,

Ere these my rustic hands a garland twine,
Ere yet my tongue indite a simple song,
For her I mean to hail my Valentine,

Sweet maiden, fairest of the virgin throng.

Sweet is the morn, and sweet the gentle breeze

That fans the fragrant bosom of the spring,
Sweet chirps the lark, and sweeter far than these
The gentle love-song gurgling turtles sing.

Oh let the flowers be fragrant as the morn,
And as the turtle's song my ditty sweet :
Those flowers my woven chaplet must adorn,
That ditty must my waking charmer greet.

And thou, blest saint, whom choral creatures join
In one enlivening symphony to hail,

Oh be propitious, gentle Valentine,
And let each holy tender sigh prevail.

Oh give me to approach my sleeping love,

And strew her pillow with the freshest flowers, No sigh unhallow'd shall my bosom move,

Nor step prophane pollute my true-love's bowers.

At sacred distance only will I gaze,

Nor bid my unreproved eye refrain,

Mean while my tongue shall chaunt her beauty's praise,

And hail her sleeping with the gentlest strain.

Awake my fair, awake, for it is time;

Hark, thousand songsters rise from yonder grove, And rising carol this sweet hour of prime,

Each to his mate, a roundelay of love.

All nature sings the hymeneal song,

All nature follows, where the spring invites ; Come forth, my love, to us these joys belong,

Ours is the spring, and all her young delights,

For us she throws profusely forth her flowers, Which in fresh chaplets joyful I will twine; Come forth, my fair, oh do not lose these hours, But wake, and be my faithful Valentine.

Full many an hour, all lonely have I sigh'd,
Nor dared the secret of my love reveal,
Full many a fond expedient have I tried
My warmest wish in silence to conceal.

And oft to far retired solitude

All mournfully my slow step have I bent, Luxurious there indulg'd my musing mood, And there alone have given my sorrows vent.

This day resolv'd I dare to plight my vow,

This day, long since the feast of love decreed, Embolden'd will I speak my flame, nor thou Refuse to hear how sore my heart does bleed.

Yet if I should behold my love awake,

Ah, frail resolves, ah whither will ye fly? Full well I know I shall not silence break, But struck with awe almost for fear shall die.