Tho' not alone, in thy dark shelter'd vale, The wanderer sings; yet, many a pensive, pale, And woe-struck Bard we meet, in sable, dight: But who so honour'd as thy dear KIRK WHite? Sad child of disappointment! o'er thy page Have wept alike warm youth and trembling age; Genius and Piety enwreath thy brow;

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Clifton's dark grove," by thee immortal now, Drops tears of sorrow o'er the Trentane wave, That Granta's Bard should find a distant grave. Dear White! thou "sitst" not "a lorn spectre there :"* No-for, in Heaven, thy harp knows no despair.

Of Genius brighter, but less gracious mould,
Precocious CHATTERTON, an orb of gold,
Rose but to set ere half his light was seen,
And died the wondrous Poet of sixteen.
Nor, in our wand'ring, shall we fail to meet
The sombre WARTON, in this lov'd retreat,
Whose potent genius, melancholy-bound,

* Kirk White's "Clifton-grove," at the end.

Describes the "pleasures" which, of course, he found.*

And if the heart must secretly indulge

The pang of sympathy it can't divulge,

It must be when, with soul-inspiring glow,

Poor CHARLOTTE SMITH portrays the deep-felt woe.

Is GRIEF the element of Nature's muse?

Shall to the harp thy sterner will refuse

The magic spell, except, in MONODY,

When SORROW lifts her tragic eye to thee?
When blights the heart the retrospect of bliss,
With withering influence, like a demon's kiss ;-
When, o'er the corse of beauteous infancy,
The parent weeps like grief-worn Niobe;-
Or, (when careers Hyperion's latest ray,
And knell of eve bewails departing day,)
The frantic lover, saddening as he goes,
Wends to the grave where yet no cypress grows;
And while the beams of Lyra, (Poet's star,)

Are softly falling from her evening car,

With bursting anguish vents a fruitless moan,

And dews with grief th' unsullied church-yard stone.

* Warton's "Pleasures of Melancholy."

D

Sorrow, indeed, has foster'd many a muse,
And mixt her current with Castalian dews:

Let SHAW, funereal, o'er his "Emma" sigh ;*
Let MASON praise his Lady Coventry ;†
Let classic GRAY describe the still church-yard,
And take the palm from every plaintive Bard!
'Twas grief enroll'd these sons of elegy,
'Twas nameless grief that first enlisted me.
Of disappointment and of dole to tell,-

On scenes of misery and woe to dwell,

The dark-blue future to make darker still,

The mind, perplext, with gloomier doubts to fill ;—

Such aye hath been, in some capricious flight,

The wayward Poet's whimsical delight.

Shall Bard that consecrates, in Sapphic mode,

To female loveliness a soothing Ode,

Claim warmest inspiration?-or shall he

Usurp the empire of sweet Poesy,

* "Monody on the Death of a Young Lady."
+ "Elegy on Lady Coventry."

When vernal morn, or lone embow'ring grove,
Invites the lay of pure ingenuous Love?
Certes, we grant that Love's resistless fire
May prompt the youth, unconscious of his lyre;
Yet, should we shrink, tho' charm'd to ecstacy,
To yield th' enchanting Monochord to thee,—
Tho' Lesbian Sappho, with dishevell❜d hair,
Leaps from her awful rock, in wild despair;-
Tho', from Abydos, o'er the eddying tide,
Leander swims to Sestos' moonlight side;-

Tho', wreck'd, where steep Colonna's bastions rise,
True to his love, the dear Palemon dies ;*

Or, through the cold inhospitable wild,

Love-lorn, disguis'd, by glimm'ring phantom guil'd, Lost, in despair, fair Angelina fled,

Till found, at length, the unknown Hermit said: "Turn, charmer sweet, thy long-lost Edwin see, In this lone cell, restor❜d to Love and thee!"†

*Falconer's "Shipwreck," at the end.
+ Goldsmith's "Hermit."

What raptur'd youth, warm fancy's captive child,
Yields not an hour, by fairy dreams beguil'd,
Of Love untold, or disregarded flame,

In innocence to sing? and such may claim,
For ardent vows that warm the early page,
The kind excuse of less voluptuous age.
Not so, the wanton, the licentious song,
That poisons youth with fascination strong,
An egg, enchanted, steals from Cupid's nest,
To break, a viper, in the thoughtless breast!

O! Child of fancy! Quintessence of taste! Why prompt thy Genius to a theme unchaste? Leave the young fays of rose-bound Erato, Around her throne to wave the bright flambeau ! "The Loves of Angels !!" how can such things be? How came such feculence reveal'd to thee? Too much have OVID and TIBULLUS wrote; Too much, in Greek, that old lascivious goat; Why add fresh rubbish to this ancient store? And why encourage one ANACREON MORE?