For love sincere and friendship free
Are children of simplicity.

When pass'd was many a painful day,
Slow pacing o'er the village green,
In white were all its maidens seen,
And bore my guardian friend away.
Ah, death! what sacrifice to thee,
The ruins of simplicity.

One generous swain her heart approved,
A youth whose fond and faithful breast
With many an artless sigh confess'd,
In Nature's language, that he loved :
But, stranger, 'tis no tale to thee,
Unless thou lovest simplicity.

He died-and soon her lip was cold,
And soon her rosy cheek was pale;
The village wept to hear the tale,
When for both the slow bell toll'd-
Beneath yon flowery turf they lie,
The lovers of simplicity.

Yet one boon have I to crave;
Stranger, if thy pity bleed,

Wilt thou do one tender deed,

And strew my pale flowers o'er their grave?
So lightly lie the turf on thee,
Because thou lovest simplicity.

LANGHORNE.

THE HOTWELLS' PATIENT.

An Elegiac Fragment.

No more on wavering wing from sweet to sweet O'er summer wilds I urge my restless flight, Morn's first faint blush no more exulting greet, Nor smiles the scene of day in rosy light.

Each listless moment ills unnamed oppress,

The gaze of friends betrays dissembled fear, With faltering tongue their child my parents bless, As in their eyelids gleams the smother'd tear.

Some blight has swept unseer my May of life!
I feel as deep infix'd the canker's tooth;
And fire and frost with still rekindling strife
Rage through my veins, and waste my faded
youth.

The sons of art pronounce their doom austere :
To home's sweet scene I sigh a deep farewell,
And brave the wearying way and wintry year,
To woo coy health in Bristol's sainted cell.
Wayworn through many a rugged street I roll,
Where, from the frowning seat of sordid Care,
Dark cast the shadows reach the inmost soul,

And brooding horror loads the stagnant air.

Chill'd by the glooms, on this misgiving heart Its own sad trace each flitting object stamps, From yon dim meads depressing breezes part, Appall'd I breathe funereal Dowry's damps."

At each advance more direful signs appear;

The sash close barr'd against the' intrusive sky; The long loud cough that rends the' affrighted ear, The recent crape, the wearer's downcast eye.

Ye snatch'd from life in beauty's sunniest years,
Who roam'd before these melancholy glades,
-To you a sister sufferer breathes her fears-
Say, gentle maidens once, now pitying shades,
Here does Hygëia plant her lovely shrine?
Her tresses plunge in this polluted wave?
From Avon's ooze dispense her gifts divine,
And haunt these seeming precincts of the grave?

Or from the crest of yon firm-rooted rock
(Meet emblem of his old unshaken reign)
Does Fraud the moments of the dying mock?—
Why else these ghastly forms, that sable train?—

Where in yon fane the Naiad of the stream

Calls round her bubbling urn the pallid hosts, Broad Day displays the poet's gloomiest dream; Styx' sullen banks, loath'd food, and wandering ghosts.

Yet not the less I join the' adoring throng,
The matin rite breaks through my sweetest sleep,
Nor fail my pilgrim feet at even song;

And all the priest of health ordains I keep.

Now twice relumed the moon's mild lustres shine;
Still from the healing power, in soften'd pain

Or lighten'd languor, some auspicious sign
Anxious I seek; but anxious seek in vain.

Though venal voices join accordant cries, [fill, Till Fame's loud trump the Fount's high virtues Though titled matrons, with uplifted eyes,

Sound the dread wonders of the leech's skill,

I list perforce with unassenting ear.

The fever nightly burns with fiercer flame; Still from myself I shrink with growing fear, To see how grace and youth have fled my frame.

Here the lorn exile feels her comforts fail,

Bleak through the yawning wainscot drives the wind,

The quicken'd sense unsavory fumes assail

Her glance declares the housewife's alien mind.

Here still does Avarice count his gains from woe;
The angel Pity drops no holy dews;
My form, devoted to the realms below,

Where'er I stray some baleful eye pursues.

The hours no more their wonted task beguile,
Ills not my own protract the penal day;
Relentless race, and skill'd in many a wile,
The sons of Paan press their sinking prey.

By these condemn'd, like Danaus' guilty train,
Heartless I ply the unavailing toil;
Bowl following bowl, with loathing lip I drain,
The bowl returns-my loathing lips recoil.

Mother! soft parent! earliest fostering friend!
Ere yet to Fate my youth reluctant yield,
O'er these sad hours your tender cares extend,
And your faint child from craft pursuing shield!

Ah! what avail yon groves, green Ashton's boast, The seaborn spirit of the breezy down,

The terraced lawn, far Cambria's checquer'd coast? These crags high-piled, proud Clifton's stately

crown?

In vain it smiles-the lucid long expanse, Stretch'd from yon point where, as the seagod's head,

-Fixing in still delight the charmed glance-
Calm sinks the sun in ocean's flaming bed-
Whether led on by Hope's seductive smiles,
From Scotia's heights ye flock'd, or Erin's plain,
Or from the shores of Slavery's burning isles
Dared the long perils of the pathless main-
How have your toils and pious vigils sped?
Found you or charm in Bristol's far sought
cell-

Ye hoary mourners o'er the untimely dead!-
Sovereign to save,-or soft assuasive spell?
Hither a trembling suppliant Mason bore

His life's whole treasure in his drooping bride,
Her tablet, sorrowing on the distant shore,
Sings the wan votary's ceaseless dirge-- She
died.'

To times to come, false Naiad of the well! Restored by thee, how Linley pours the note, No votive verse of Sheridan shall tell,

No grateful warblings swell the fair one's throat. Nor here Hygeia plants her lovely shrine, No tresses bathes in this polluted wave; From Avon's ooze she deals no gifts divine, Nor treads, well pleased, these precincts of the grave.