A nation's poison! beauteous Order reigns, Trade without guile, Civility that marks That know with their own proper arm to guard "Lo! swarming southward on rejoicing suns, Our streets the tender passenger afflict. Its guiltless pangs, I see. The stores profuse Of cannibal devourers! Right applied, No starving wretch the land of Freedom stains: And will, if young, repay the fondest care. "Hark! the gay Muses raise a nobler strain, With active nature, warm impassion'd truth, Engaging fable, lucid order, notes Of various string, and heart-felt image fill'd. "Behold, all thine again, the Sister-arts! An hospital for foundlings.-School:' theatre. The temple, breathing a religious awe; 66 "See Sylvan Scenes, where Art alone pretends To dress her mistress, and disclose her charms! Such as a Pope in miniature has shown; A Bathurst o'er the widening forest1 spreads; And such as form a Richmond, Chiswick, Stowe. August, around, what Public Works I see! Lo! stately streets, lo! squares that court the breeze, In spite of those to whom pertains the care: Engulfing more than founded Roman ways, Lo! ray'd from cities o'er the brighten❜d land, Connecting sea to sea, the solid road. Lo! the proud arch (no vile exactor's stand) With easy sweep bestrides the chafing flood. See long canals and deepen'd rivers join Each part with each, and with the circling main The whole enliven'd isle. Lo! ports expand, Free as the winds and waves, their sheltering arms. Lo streaming comfort o'er the troubled deep, On every pointed coast the lighthouse towers; And, by the broad imperious mole repell'd, Hark how the baffled storm indignant roars!" As thick to view these varied Wonders rose, Shook all my soul with transport, unassured, The Vision broke; and on my waking eye Rush'd the still Ruins of dejected Rome. Widening forest:' Okely Woods, near Cirencester. THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE: An Allegorical Poem. ADVERTISEMENT. THIS poem being writ in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines which borders on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect. And the style of that admirable poet, as well as the measure in which he wrote, are, as it were, appropriated by custom to all allegorical poems writ in our language; just as in French the style of Marot, who lived under Francis I., has been used in tales and familiar epistles by the politest writers of the age of Louis XIV. |