On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage
His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled,
Intent. While cloister'd Piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores
New manners, and the pomp of elder days,
Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores.
Nor rough, nor barren, are the winding ways
Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers.
THOU noblest monument of Albion's isle!
Whether by Merlin's aid1 from Scythia's shore,
To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon 2 bore,
Huge frame of giant-hands, the mighty pile,
T'entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile :
Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore,
Taught 'mid thy massy maze their mystic lore:
Or Danish chiefs, enrich'd with savage spoil,
To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine,
Rear'd the rude heap: or, in thy hallow'd round,
Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line;
Or here those kings in solemn state were crown'd:
Studious to trace thy wondrous origin,
We muse on many an ancient tale renown'd.
Whether by Merlin's aid,' &c.: one of the Bardish traditions about Stonehenge.
2 Pendragon:' Uther Pen-dragon, father of Arthur; so called from a dragon which he bore on his helmet.
WRITTEN AFTER SEEING WILTON-HOUSE.
FROM Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic Art
Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers,
Its living hues where the warm pencil pours,
And breathing forms from the rude marble start,
How to life's humbler scene can I depart!
My breast all glowing from those gorgeous towers,
In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours!
Vain the complaint: for Fancy can impart
(To Fate superior, and to Fortune's doom)
Whate'er adorns the stately-storied hall :
She, mid the dungeon's solitary gloom,
Can dress the Graces in their Attic pall:
Bid the green landscape's vernal beauty bloom;
And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall.
NOT that her blooms are mark'd with beauty's hue,
My rustic Muse her votive chaplet brings;
Unseen, unheard, O Gray, to thee she sings!-
While slowly pacing through the churchyard dew,
At curfew-time, beneath the dark-green yew,
Thy pensive genius strikes the moral strings;
Or borne sublime on Inspiration's wings,
Hears Cambria's bards devote the dreadful clue
Of Edward's race, with murders foul defiled;
Can aught my pipe to reach thine ear essay?
No, bard divine! For many a care beguiled
By the sweet magic of thy soothing lay,
For many a raptured thought, and vision wild,
To thee this strain of gratitude I pay.
WHILE Summer suns o'er the gay prospect play'd,
Through Surrey's verdant scenes, where Epsom spreads
Mid intermingling elms her flowery meads,
And Hascombe's hill, in towering groves array'd,
Rear'd its romantic steep, with mind serene,
I journey'd blithe. Full pensive I return'd;
For now my breast with hopeless passion burn'd,
Wet with hoar mists appear'd the gaudy scene,
Which late in careless indolence I pass'd;
And Autumn all around those hues had cast
Where past delight my recent grief might trace.
Sad change, that Nature a congenial gloom
Should wear, when most, my cheerless mood to chase,
I wish'd her green attire, and wonted bloom!
AH! what a weary race my feet have run,
Since first I trod thy banks with alders crown'd,
The River Lodon:' near Basingstoke, Warton's native country.
And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun;
Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round,
Which fills the varied interval between ;
Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
No more return, to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure,
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flow'd,
From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature;
Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestow'd.
ON KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE, AT WINCHESTER.
WHERE Venta's Norman castle still uprears
Its rafter'd hall, that o'er the grassy fosse,
And scatter'd flinty fragments1 clad in moss,
On yonder steep in naked state appears ;
High-hung remains, the pride of warlike years,
Old Arthur's Board: on the capacious round
Some British pen has sketch'd the names renown'd,
In marks obscure, of his immortal peers.
Though join'd by magic skill, with many a rhyme,
The Druid frame, unhonour'd falls a prey
To the slow vengeance of the wizard Time,
And fade the British characters away;
Yet Spenser's page, that chants in verse sublime
Those Chiefs, shall live, unconscious of decay.
'Scatter'd flinty fragments:' on the south side of the king's house.
His country's hope, when now the blooming Heir
Has lost the Parent's or the Guardian's care;
Fond to possess, yet eager to destroy,
Of each vain youth, say, what's the darling joy?
Of each rash frolic what the source and end,
His sole and first ambition what ?to spend.
Some Squires, to Gallia's cooks devoted dupes,
Whole manors melt in sauce, or drown in soups:
Another doats on fiddlers, till he sees
His hills no longer crown'd with towering trees;
Convinced too late that modern strains can move,
Like those of ancient Greece, th' obedient grove :
In headless statues rich, and useless urns,
Marmoreo from the classic tour returns.-
But would ye learn, ye leisure-loving Squires,
How best ye may disgrace your prudent sires;
How soonest soar to fashionable shame,
Be damn'd at once to ruin-and to fame ;
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