There each fair hope, each tenderness of life,
Each nameless charm of soft obliging strife,
Delight, love, fancy, pleasure, genius fled,
And the best passions of my soul lie dead;
All, all is there in cold oblivion laid,
But pale remembrance bending o'er a shade.

a

O come, ye softer sorrows, to my breast !
Ye lenient sigbs, that slumber into rest!
Come, soothing dreams, your friendly pinions wave,
We'll bear the fresh rose to yon honour'd grave;
For once this pain, this frantic pain forego,
And feel at last the luxury of woe !
Ye holy sufferers, that in silence wait
The last sad refuge of relieving fate ;
That rest at eve beneath the cypress' gloom,
And sleep familiar on your future tomb;
With you I'll waste the slow-departing day,
And wear, with you, the uncolour'd hours away.
Oh ! lead me to your cells, your lonely aisles,
Where resignation folds her arms and smiles;
Where holy Faith unwearied vigils keeps,
And guards the urn where fair Constantia* sleeps :
There, let me there, in sweet oblivion lie,
And calmly feel the tortur'd passions die.

MONODY.

SUNG BY A REDBREAST.

Tre gentle pair that in these lonely shades, Wandering, at eve or morn, I oft bave seen, Now, all in vain, I seek at eve or morn, With drooping wing, forlorn. Along the grove, along the daisied green, For them I've warbled many a summer's day, Till the light dews impearled all the plain, And the glad shepherd shut his nightly fold; Stories of love, and high adventures old, Were the dear subjects of my tuneful strain. Ah! where is now the hope of all my lays? Now they, perchance, that heard them all are dead! With them the meed of melody is fled, And fled with them the listening ear of praise. Vainly I dreamt, that when the wintry sky Scatter'd the white flood on the wasted plain, When not one herry, not one leaf was nigh, To sooth keen hunger's pain, Vainly I dreamt my songs might not be vain : That oft within the hospitable hall Some scatter'd fragment haply I might find, Some friendly crumb perchance for me design'd, When seen despairing on the neighbouring wall. Deluded bird, those hopes are now no more! Dull time has blasted the departing year, And winter frowns severe, Wrapping his wan limbs in his mantle hoar. VOL. XXX.

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Yet not within the hospitable hall
The cheerful sound of human voice I hear;
No piteous eye is near
To see me drooping on the lonely wall.

MONODY.

ON HIS MOTHER.

1759.

Au, scenes belov’d! ah, conscious shades,

That wave these parent-vales along !
Ye bowers where Fancy met the tuneful maids,
Ye mountains vocal with my doric song,

Teach your wild echoes to complain
In sighs of solemn woe, in broken sounds of pain.

For her I mourn,
Now the cold tenant of the thoughtless urn-

For her bewail these strains of woe,

For her these filial sorrows flow, Source of my life, that led my tender years,

With all a parent's pious fears, [to grow. That nurs'd my infant thought, and taught my mind

Careful, she mark'd each dangerous way,

Where Youth's unwary footsteps stray: She taught the struggling passions to subside ;

Where sacred truth, and reason guide, In virtue's glorious path to seek the realms of day.

Lamented goodness! yet I see
The fond affections melting in her eye:

She bends its tearful orb on me,

And heaves the tender sigh :

As thoughtful, she the toils surveys,
That crowd in life's perplexing maze;

And for her children feels again
All, all that love can fear, and all that fear can feigu.

O best of parents ! let me pour My sorrows o'er thy silent bed ;

There early strew the vernal flower, The parting tear at evening shed

Alas! are these the only meed

Of each kind thought, each virtuous deed, These fruitless offerings that embalm the dead !

Then, fairy-featar'd Hope, forbear

No more thy fond illusions 'spread;
Thy shadowy scenes dissolv'd in air,

Thy visionary prospects fled;
With her they Aed, at whose lamented shrine

Love, gratitude, and duty mingled tears,
Condemn'd each filial office to resign,
Nor hopeful more to sooth her long-declining

years,