The smiling image,-then an am'rous flame
Burn'd in his breast, and ran thro' ev'ry vein.
Alternate now tumultuous passions roll,
And, like a torrent, sweeps his anxious soul.
Her dear idea lives in ev'ry scene;
By day his vision, and by night his dream.
Now smiling Hope, with soothing charms bedight,
Alluring, promise joys of vast delight!
Then mad despair disturbs the rapturous dream,
And nought but horror rises in each scene.
Thy image all, my muse, inspir'd by you!
I'll mount Pegasus, trackless heights pursue.
Beauty, in all its splendour, will display
Enraptured! in the softest flowing lay.
Amelia, thou genius of my song,
Come rear thy head above the female throng.
Not Venus rising beauteous from the flood,
When gazing Nereides round admiring stood,
Was half so charming. Smiling Cupids play
On ev'ry part, wound with resistless sway.
Her legs! her arms! her neck! her swelling
breast!
So nicely form'd! Perfection is confest.
A Phœbus brilliant in the orient skies,
So floods of radiance stream from her bright eyes.
The purple blush that does her cheeks adorn,
Vies with the roses of a spring-tide morn.
Her polish'd neck like Parian marble fair,
And snowy breasts, a heaven of love declare,
And that a god might feast and revel there!
Her look majestick, but a softness meet,
And mingling, shew her soul sublime and sweet!
As tho' Dame Nature had design'd a piece,
Without one foible!-her warbling voice
Yields harmony,-celestial sound!
Alone sufficient to transport and wound.
So great her charms, no poem can present
Her portrait: No, nor all the power of creative
paint.
On Mr. Pope, in imitation of his Epitaph on
Sir Isaac Newton.
LONG had a Gothick gloom untuned the lyre :
No strains harmonious, no celestial fire,
Warm'd, swell'd the bosom; rude discordant song,
Alone, elated the poetick throng.
The source of beauty! harmony! and love! (Enthron'd amidst the radiant choirs above)
Smil'd on Britannia: "Said, let all powers
Of rapt'rous Musick! all its richest flowers,
Grow in one mortal!" Lo, sublimest truth,
In sounds seraphick echo'd round the earth!
Transported mankind charm'd, explored with doubt!
The glorious voice amazed, found it Pope!
From "Philander's Soliloquy, after some painful Reflections."
Let all that dull, insipid shoal,
Whom Fortune's smiles has placed
Above this ignominious state,
Which is so low debased:
Let, let them wallow in their bane,
My mind shall pleasures have?
Such as the affluence of, wealth,
With all her power, can't give.
My swelling soul shall climb the clouds!
Shall ride the ambient air!
And with extatic raptures view
The scenes displayed there!
Shall sour the very topmost height
Of the ethereal sky,
Even to creation's utmost verge!
On rapid pinions fly!
Upon the dusky shore shall stand,
Of the profound expanse!
And see ten thousand gilded orbs
Round golden centers dance!
Shall travel through immensity,
Shall roam the void inane!
And view from far the distance lost
The whole material frame!
Shall range the wonderous vast machine.
Its various movements scan: The curious chain of Being see,
Rise to immortal man.
Shall through the cloud of seeming ills,
See love and beauty rise:
Avaunt ye reptiles !-impious fools,
Will ye correct the skies!
THE intellectual world, or human mind,
Lay wrapt in gloom, bewildered and confined.
As thro' a mist the face of things appear'd;
The mental eye was clouded and obscured.
The Æra comes which nature's mighty God
Had pre-ordain'd! he gives his powerful word,
And Locke arises! like the God of day;
He beams his radiance! drives the night away.
Soon nature's face a charming aspect wears!
Majestick truth in splendid garb appears!
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