HIS were the stores of letter'd Time-compress'd
The mind of ages in a single breast;
The glance to catch, the patience to inquire,
The sages' temper, and the poet's fire.
ACCOMPLISH'D JONES! whose hand to every art Could unknown charms and nameless grace impart;
-The song to Virtue as the Muses dear;
Though glowing, chaste; and lovely, though severe.
What gorgeous trophies crown his youthful bloom,
The spoils august of Athens and of Rome!
And, lo! untouch'd by British brows before,
Yet nobler trophies wait on Asia's shore.
There at his magic voice, what wonders rise!
The' astonish'd East unfolds her mysteries:
Round her dark shrines a sudden blaze he showers,
And, all unveil'd, the proud Pantheon towers.
APOSTROPHE TO SIR W. JONES.
HAYLEY'S ESSAY ON EPIC POETRY.
O, THOU bright spirit! whom the Asian Muse
Had fondly steep'd in all her fragrant dews,
And o'er whose early song, that mental feast,
She breathed the sweetness of the rifled East;
Since independent honour's high control
Detach'd from poësy thy ardent soul,
To seek with better hopes persuasion's seat,
Bless'd be those hopes, and happy that retreat!
Which with regret all British bards must see,
And mourn a brother lost in losing thee.
ON THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF
SIR W. JONES'S ASIATIC POEMS.,
WHITHER does Fancy stretch her rapid wing,
Through what new regions of serener spring?
My ravish'd sense an opening Eden greets,
A waste of treasures, and a wild of sweets-
Entranced I seem through fairy bowers to stray,
Where scatter'd rubies pave the spangled way;
Transparent walks, with polish'd sapphires bright,
And fountains sparkling with ambrosial light.
A sweeter lyre no eastern swain hath strung,
More softly warbled, or more boldly sung;
Whether, great bard, thy vigorous Muse rehearse
Solima's deathless praise, in deathless verse;
Or, tuned to grief, the melting numbers move,
Breathing the softest tales of plaintive love:
Tender as Petrarch's flows the' impassion❜d line,
Nor Vida boasts a chaster page than thine.
Yet not that Britain's laurel's round thy head,
And Arab's palms with rival lustre spread,
For this I sing-but that, with fix'd disdain,
Thy Roman soul refused the flatterer's strain;
And dared prefer (unversed in courtly guile)
Virtue's just praise beyond a monarch's smile.
BY THE LATE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.
UNBOUNDED learning, thoughts by genius framed, To guide the bounteous labours of his pen, Distinguish'd him, whom kindred sages named
The most enlighten'd of the sons of men'.'
Upright through life, as in his death resign'd,
His actions spoke a pure and ardent breast;
Faithful to God, and friendly to mankind,
His friends revered him, and his country bless'd.
Admired and valued in a distant land,
His gentle manners all affection won: The prostrate Hindu own'd his fostering hand, And Science mark'd him for her favourite son.
Regret and praise the general voice bestows,
And public sorrows with domestic blend;
But deeper yet must be the grief of those,
Who, while the sage they honour'd, loved the
friend.
DEAR as to dungeon slaves the solar gleam,
Or wretches doom'd to dig the buried ore,
On raptured Casi dawns the gladsome beam,
Which British freedom, British science pour.
To chase the tenfold gloom, my Jones, was thine, To cheer the Brahmin, and to burst his chains; To search for latent gems the Sanscreet mine,
And wake the fervour of her ancient strains.
For oh! what pen shall paint with half thy fire The power of Music on the' impassion'd soul, When the great masters waked the Indian lyre, And bade the burning song electric roll?
The mystic veil, that wraps the hallow'd shrines
Of India's deities, 'twas thine to rend; With brighter fires each radiant altar shines,
To Nature's awful God those fires ascend.
Sound the deep conch; dread Veeshnu's power proclaim,
And heap with fragrant woods the blazing urn; I see sublime Devotion's noblest flame
Midst Superstition's glowing embers burn!
'Twas thine, with daring wing and eagle eye,
To pierce antiquity's profoundest gloom;
To search the dazzling records of the sky,
And bid the stars the sacred page illume.
Nor did the' instructive orbs of heaven alone
Absorb thy soul mid yon etherial fields:
To thee the vegetable world was known,
And all the blooming tribes the garden yields;
From the tall cedar on the mountain's brow,
Which the fierce tropic storm in vain assails,
Down to the humblest shrubs that beauteous blow,
And scent the air of Asia's fragrant vales.
But talents-fancy-ardent, bold, sublime—
Unbounded science-form'd thy meanest fame;
Beyond the grasp of death, the bound of time,
On wings of fire Religion wafts thy name.
And long as stars shall shine, or planets roll,
To kindred virtue shall that name be dear!
Still shall thy genius charm the' aspiring soul,
And distant ages kindle at thy bier.
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