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Great, generous acts thy ductile paffions move, And fmilingly thou weep'st with joy and love. Mild is thy mind to cover shame,

Averse to envy, flow to blame,

Burfting to praife, yet ftill fincere and free
From flatt'ry's fawning tongue, and bending knee.
Extenfive, as from weft to east,

Thy love defcends from man to beast,
Nought is excluded, little, or infirm,

Thou canft with greatnefs floop to fave a worm.
Come, goddess, come with all thy charms,
For oh! I love thee, to my arms--

All,-all my actions guide, my fancy feed,
So fhall existence then be life indeed.

ILL-NATURE.

OFFSPRING of folly and of pride,

To all that's odious, all that's bafe ally'd;
Nurs'd up by vice, by pravity mifled,
By pedant affectation taught and bred:
Away! thou hideous hell-born fpright,
Go, with thy looks of dark defign,
Sullen, four, and faturnine;

Fly to fome gloomy fhade, nor blot the goodly light. Thy planet was remote when I was born;

"Twas Mercury that rul'd my natal morn,
What time the fun exerts his genial ray,

And ripens for enjoyment every growing day :
When to exift is but to love and fing,
And sprightly Aries smiles upon the spring.
There, in yon loathfome heath,

Which Flora, or Sylvanus never knew,
Where never vegetable drank the dew,

Or beaft, or fowl attempts to breathe;
Where nature's pencil has no colours laid;
But all is blank, and univerfal fhade;

Contraft to figure, motion, life and light,
There may'ft thou vent thy fpite,
For ever curfing, and for ever curs'd,
Of all th' infernal crew the worft;

The worst in genius, measure, and degree;
For envy, hatred, malice, are but parts of thee.
Or would'ft thou change the fcene, and quit the
den,

Where fpleen, by vapours dense begot and bred,
Hardness of heart, and heaviness of head,

Have rais'd their darkfome walls, and plac'd their thorny bed;

There may't thou all thy bitterness unload,
There may'ft thou croak in concert with the toad,
With thee the hollow howling winds shall join,

Nor fhall the bittern her bafe throat deny;
The quer❜lous frogs fhall mix their note with thine,
Th' ear-piercing hern, the plover fcreaming high,
Millions of humming gnats fit cftrum shall supply.
Away!-away!-behold an hideous band,
An herd of all thy minions are at hand,
SUSPICION firft with jealous caution stalks,
And ever looks around her as fhe walks,
With bib'lous ear imperfect founds to catch,
And proud to liften at her neighbour's latch :
Next SCANDAL's meagre shade,

Foe to the virgin's and the poet's fame, A wither'd time-deflower'd old maid,

That ne'er enjoy'd love's ever-facred flame: HYPOCRISY fucceeds with faint-like look, And elevates her hands and plods upon her book: Next comes illib'ral fcrambling AVARICE, Then VANITY and AFFECTATION niceSee, the falutes her fhadow with a bow, As in fhort Gallic trips the minces by, Starting ANTIPATHY is in her eye,

And fqueamishly the knits her fcornful brow.

To thee, ILL-NATURE, all the numerous group
With lowly rev'rence stoop-

They wait thy call, and mourn thy long delay,
Away!-thou art infectious--hafte-away!

LOVE.

FLUSH'D by the fpirit of the genial year,
Now from the virgin's cheek a frether bloom
Shoots, lefs and lefs, the live carnation round;
Her lips blufh deeper fweets; the breathes of youth;
The fhining moisture fwells into her eyes
In brighter flow; her wifhing bofom heaves
With palpitations wild: kind tumults feize
Her veins, and all her yielding foul is LOVE.
From the keen gaze her lover turns away,
Full of the dear ecftatic pow'r, and fick
With fighing languifhment. Ah, then, ye fair!
Be greatly cautious of your fliding hearts:
Dare not th' infectious figh! the pleading look,
Down-caft and low, in meek fubmiffion dreft,
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation fmooth,
Gain on your purpos'd will. Nor in the bow'r,
Where woodbines flaunt, and rofes fhed a couch,
While evening draws her crimfon curtains round,
Truft your
foft minutes with betraying man.
And let th' afpiring youth beware of LOVE,
Of the fmooth glance beware; for 'tis too late,
When on his heart the torrent-foftnefs pours.
Then wifdom proftrate lies, and fading fame
Diffolves in air away; while the fond foul,
Wrapt in gay vifions of unreal blifs,

Still paints th' illufive form; the kindling grace;
Th' inticing fmile; the modeft feeming eye,
Beneath whofe beaut'ous beams, belying heav'n,
Lurk fearchlefs cunning, cruelty, and death:
And still falfe-warbling in his cheated ear

Her fyren-voice, enchanting, draws him on
To guileful fhores, and meads of fatal joy.
Ev'n present, in the very lap of LOVE
Inglorious laid; while mufic flows around;
Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours;
Amid the roses fierce repentance rears
Her fnaky creft: a quick-returning pang
Shoots thro' the confcious heart where honour ftill,
And great defign, againft th' oppreflive load
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave.

But abfent, what fantaftic woes, arous'd,
Rage in each thought, by reftlefs mufing fed,
Chill the warm cheek, and blaft the bloom of life?
Neglected fortune flies; and fliding swift,
Prone into ruin, fall his fcorn'd affairs.

'Tis nought but gloom around: The darken'd fun
Lofes his light. The rofy bofom'd spring
To weeping fancy pines; and yon bright arch,
Contracted, bends into a dufky vault.

All nature fades extinct; and she alone
Heard, felt, and feen, poffeffes ev'ry thought,
Fills ev'ry fenfe, and pants in ev'ry vein.
Books are but formal dulnefs, tedious friends;
And fad amid the focial band he fits,

Lonely and unattentive. From his tongue
Th' unfinish'd period falls; while, borne away
On fwelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bofom of his distant fair;
And leaves the femblance of a lover, fix'd
In melancholy fite, with head declin'd,
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts,
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimm'ring fhades and fympathetic glooms;
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling ftream,
Romantic, hangs; there thro' the penfive dufk
Strays in heart-thrilling meditation loft,
Indulging all to love: or, on the bank,
Thrown amid drooping lilies, fwells the breeze
With fighs unceafing, and the brook with tears.
Thus in foft anguish he confumes the day:

Nor quits his deep retirement, till the moon
Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy east,
Enlighten'd by degrees, and in her train

Leads on the gentle hours; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam,
With foften'd foul, and wooes the bird of eve,
To mingle woes with his; or, while the world,
And all the fons of care lie hush'd in fleep,
Affociates with the midnight fhadows drear;
And, fighing to the lonely taper, pours
His idly-tortur'd heart into the page
Meant for the moving meffenger of LOVE;
Where rapture burns on rapture, ev'ry line
With rifing frenzy fir'd. But if on bed
Delir'ous flung, fleep from his pillow flies;
All night he toffes, nor the balmy pow'r
In any pofture finds; till the grey morn
Lifts her pale luftre on the paler wretch,
Exanimate by love: and then, perhaps,
Exhaufied nature finks awhile to reft;
Still interrupted by diftracted dreams,
That o'er the fick imagination rife,
And in black colours paint the mimic fcene.
Oft with th' enchantrefs of his foul he talks;
Sometimes in crowds diftrefs'd; or if retir'd
To fecret winding flow'r-enwoven bow'rs,
Far from the dull impertinence of man,
Juft as he, credulous, his endlefs cares
Begins to lofe in blind obliv'ous LOVE,
Snatch'd from her yielding hand, he knows not how,
Thro' forefts huge, and long untravell'd heaths
With defolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempeft wrapt; or fhrinks aghaft,
Back, from the bending precipice; or wades
The turbid ftream below, and fìrives to reach
The farther fhore; where fuccourless, and fad,
She with extended arms his aid implores;
But ftrives in vain: borne by th' outrageous flood
To diftance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelm'd beneath the boiling eddy finks.

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