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INSCRIPTION VI.

For a MONUMENT at TAUNTON.

They perish'd here whom Jefferies doom'd to death
In mockery of all justice, when he came
The bloody Judge, the minion of his King,
Commission'd to destroy. They perish'd here
The victims of that Judge and of that King,
In mockery of all justice perish'd here,
Unheard! but not unpitied, nor of God
Unseen, the innocent suffered! not in vain
The Widow and the Orphan, not in vain
The innocent blood cried vengeance! for they rose,
At length they rose, the People in their power,
Resistless. Then in vain that bloody Judge
Disguis'd, sought flight: not always is the Lord
Slow to revenge! a miserable man

He fell beneath the people's rage, and still

The children curse his memory. From his throne The sullen bigot who commission'd him,

The tyrant James was driven. He lived to drag
Long years of frustrate hope, he lived to load
More blood upon his soul. Let tell the Boyne,
Let Londonderry tell his guilt and shame,
And that immortal day when on thy shores
La Hogue, the purple ocean dash'd the dead !

INSCRIPTION VII.

For a TABLET at PENSHURST.

Are days of old familiar to thy mind

O Reader? hast thou let the midnight hour
Pass unperceived, whilst thy young Fancy lived
With high-born beauties and enamour'd chiefs,
Shared all their hopes, and with a breathless joy
Whose eager expectation almost pain'd,
Followed their dangerous fortunes? if such lore
Has ever thrill'd thy bosom, thou wilt tread
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts
The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born,
Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man
His own delightful genius ever feign'd
Illustrating the vales of Arcady

With courteous courage and with loyal loves.
Upon his natal day the acorn here
Was planted. It grew up a stately oak,

And in the beauty of its strength it stood
And flourish'd, when his perishable part
Had moulder'd dust to dust. That stately oak
Itself hath moulder'd now, but Sidney's fame
Lives and shall live, immortalized in song.

STANZAS,

Written on the SEA-SHORE, in 1792.

As o'er the sands the youthful Cinthio stray'd,
Moist from the wave, he saw a pebble shine;
And with its borrow'd lustre charm'd, he said,
"Henceforth this sparkling treasure shall be mine."

But when his hand had dried the glist'ning prey,
Surpriz'd he found the pebble beam'd no more;
And then, resolv'd to throw the cheat away,
He frowning, whirl'd it to its native shore.

Suppress thy rage sweet boy! and on thy heart
Let this mischance a moral truth impress:
To blunt the power of disappointment's dart,
And make the dangerous sway of fancy, less.

As o'er the pebble's form the waves had shed
In silver dew attraction's smiling power,
So Fancy's hand delights in youth to spread
Delusive colours on the future hour.

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