O! yet those gleams of joy display,
Which bright'ning glow'd in Fancy's ray,
When, near thy lucid urn reclin’d,
The Dryad, Nature, bar'd her breast,
And left, in naked charms imprest,
Her image on my mind.
In vain-the maids of Mem'ry fair
No more in golden visions play;
No friendship smooths the brow of care,
No Delia's smile approves my lay.
Yet love and friendship lost to me,
'Tis yet some joy to think of thee,
And in thy breast this moral find;
That life, though stain'd with sorrow's showers, Shall flow serene, while Virtue pours
Her sunshine on the mind.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM MASON, M. A.
Ye green-hair'd Nymphs ! whom PAN allows
To tend this sweetly-solemn Wood,
To speed the shooting scions into boughs,
And call the roseate blossoms from the bud;
But chief, thou NAIAD, wont so long to lead
This fluid crystal sparkling as it flows;
Whither, ah! whither art thou fled?
What shade is conscious to thy woes?
Ah! 'tis yon poplar's awful gloom;
Poetic eyes can pierce the scene,
Can see thy drooping head, thy with'ring bloom,
See grief diffus'd o'er all thy languid mien.
Well mayst thou wear misfortune's fainting air,
Well rend those flow'ry honours from thy brow,
Devolve that length of careless hair,
And give yon azure veil to flow
Loose to the wind. For ah! thy pain
The pitying Muse can well relate:
Ah! let her, plaintive, pour the tend’rest strain, To teach the Echoes thy disastrous fate.
'Twas where the alder's close-knit shade entwin'd (What time the dog star's fires intensely burn),
In gentlest indolence reclin❜d,
Beside your ever-trickling urn
You slept serene; all free from fears,
No friendly dream foretold your harm,
When sudden, see! the tyrant Art appears
To snatch the liquid treasures from thy arm.
Art, Gothic Art, has seiz'd thy darling vase,
That vase which silver-slipper'd Thetis gave,
For some soft story told with grace,
Amid th' associates of the wave;
When in sequester'd coral vales,
While worlds of waters roll'd above,
The circling sea-nymphs told alternate tales
Of fabled changes, and of slighted love.
Ah! loss too justly mourn'd! for now the fiend
Has on yon shell-wrought terras pois'd it high,
And thence he bids its streams descend,
With torturing regularity;
From step to step with sullen sound
The forc'd cascades indignant leap,
'Till pent they fill the bason's measur'd round,
There in a dull stagnation doom'd to sleep.
Lost is the vocal pebble's gurgling song,
The rill soft-dripping from its rocky spring,
No free meander winds along,
Or curls, when Zephyr waves his wing,
These charms, alas! are now no more-
Fortune, oh! give me to redeem
The ravish'd vase; oh! give me to restore
Its pristine honours to this hapless stream!
Then, Nymph, again, with all their native ease,
Thy wanton waters, volatile and free,
Shall wildly warble, as they please,
Their soft loquacious harmony.
Where'er they vagrant choose to rove,
There will I lead, not force their
Whether to gloom beneath the shady grove,
Or in the mead reflect the sparkling ray.
Not HAGLEY's various stream shall thine surpass,
Though Nature, and her LYTTLETON ordain
That there the NAIAD band should grace
With every wat❜ry charm the plain;
That there the frequent rills should roll,
And health to every flower dispense,
Free as their master pours from all his soul
The gen'rous tide of warm benevolence;
Should now glide sweetly plaintive through the vale
In melting murmurs querulously slow;
Soft as that master's love-lorn tale,
When LUCY calls forth all his woe:
Should now from steepy heights descend,
Deep thund'ring the rough rocks among,
Loud as the praise applauding senates lend,
When England's cause inspires his glowing tongue.
BENEATH A ROW OF ELMS IN A MEADOW NEAR
Belonging to Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq. sept. 1760.
'YE green-hair'd Nymphs whom Pan allows' To guard from harm these favour'd boughs; Ye blue-eyed Naiads of the stream,
That sooth the warm poetic dream;
Ye elves and sprights, that thronging round,
When midnight darkens all the ground,
In antic measures uncontroul'd,
Your fairy sports and revels hold,
And up and down, where'er ye pass,
With many a ringlet print the grass;
If e'er the bard hath hail'd your power
At morn's grey dawn, or evening hour;
If e'er by moonlight on the plain
Your ears have caught th' enraptur'd strain;
From every floweret's velvet head,
From reverend Thames's oozy bed,
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