And you, Boscawen, while you fondly melt, la raptures none but mothers ever felt; And as you view, prophetic, in your race, All Levison's sweetness, and all Beaufort's grace; Yet dread what dangers each lov'd child may share, The youth, if valiant, or the maid, if fair; That perils multiply as blessings flow, That who have most to love have most to lose; Yet from these fair possessions would you part, To shelter from contingent ills your heart? Would you forego the objects of your prayer To save the dangers of a distant care? Renounce the brightness op'ning to your view For all the safety dulness ever knew? Would you consent, to shun the fears you prove That they should merit less, or you less love; Yet while we claim the sympathy divine, Which makes, O man, the woes of others thine; While her fair triumphs swell the modish page, She drives the sterner virtues from the stage: While Feeling boasts her ever tearful eye, Fair Truth, firm Faith, and manly Justice fly: Justice, prime good! from whose prolific law, All worth, all virtue, their strong essence draw; Justice, a grace quite obsolete we hold, throne. Sweet Sensibility! Thou secret pow'r Who shed'st thy gifts upon the natal hour, Like fairy favours; Art can never seize, Nor Affectation catch thy power to please; Thy subtile essence still eludes the chains Of Definition, and defeats her pains. Sweet Sensibility! thou keen delight! Loprompted inoral! sudden sense of right! Perception exquisite ! fair Virtue's seed! Thou quick precursor of the lib'ral deed! Thou hasty conscience! reason's blushing morn! Instinctive kindness e'er reflection's born! And those who know thee, know all words are faint! She does not feel thy pow'r who boasts thy flame, And rounds her every period with thy name; Nor she who vents her disproportion'd sighs With pining Lesbia when her sparrow dies: Nor she who melts when hapless Shore expires, While real mis'ry unreliev'd retires! Who thinks feign'd sorrow all her tears de serve, And weeps o'er Werter while her children starve, As words are but th' external marks to tell The fair ideas in the mind that dwell; So exclamations, tender tones, fond tears, Her form, her semblance, her appropriate dress; And these fair marks, reluctant I relate, These lovely symbols may be counterfeit. There are, who fili with brilliant plaints the page, If a poor linnet meet the gunner's rage; There are, who for a dying fawn deplore, As if friend, parent, country, were no more; Who boast quick rapture trembling in their eye, If from the spider's snare they snatch a fly; There are, whose well sung plaints cach breast inflame, And break all hearts-but his from whom they came! He, scorning life's low duties to attend, Writes odes on friendship, while he cheats his friend. Of jails and punishments he grieves to hear, O Love divine ! sole source of charity! More dear one genuine deed perform'd for thee, Than all the periods Feeling e'er could turn, Than all thy touching page, perverted Sterne ! Not that by deeds alone this love's express'd, If so the affluent only were the bless'd; One silent wish, one prayer, one soothing word, The page of mercy shall, well-pleas'd record; One soul-felt sigh by pow'rless pity given, Accepted incense! shall ascend to heav'n! Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs, Since life's best joys consist in peace and [please; And though but few can serve, yet all may ease, The gift of minist'ring to other's ease, Subduing and subdu'd, the petty strife, From the large aggregate of little things; On these small cares of daughter, wife, or friend, The almost sacred joys of home depend: And he whose helpless tenderness removes The rankling thorn which wounds the breast he loves, Smooths not another's rugged path alone, But clears th' obstruction which impedes his Own. The hint malevolent, the look oblique, The obvious satire, or implied dislike; The sneer equivocal, the harsh reply, And all the cruel language of the eye; The artful injury, whose venom'd dart, Scarce wounds the hearing, while it stabs the heart; The guarded phrase, whose meaning kills, yet told The list'ner wonders, how you thought it cold; Small slights, neglect, unmix'd perhaps with hate, Make up in number what they want in weight. These and a thousand grief minute as these, Corrode our comfort and destroy our case. As Feeling tends to good or leans to ill, It gives fresh force to vice or principle; 'Tis not a gift peculiar to the good, 'Tis often but the virtue of the blood: And what would seem compassion's moral flow, Is but a circulation swift or slow: But to divert it to its proper course, There wisdom's pow'r appears, there reason's force: If ill-directed it pursue the wrong, It adds new strength to what before was strong; Breaks out in wild irregular desires, But if Religion's bias rule the soul, Cold and inert the mental powers would lie, To give immortal mind its finest tone, warms, In song enchants us, and in action charms. 'Tis this that makes the pensive strains of Gray* Win to the open heart their easy way; Makes the touch'd spirit glow with kindred fire, When sweet Serena's poet wakes the lyre : Makes Portland's face its brightest rapture seize, And gives Boscawen half her pow'r to please. Yet why those terrors? Why that anxious care? Since your last hopet the deathful war will dare? Why dread that energy of soul which leads And dread, yet wish to find one hero more. This is meant of the Elegy in a Country Church yard, of which exquisite poem Sensibility is perhaps the characteristic beauty. Viscount Falmouth, admiral Boscawen's only remaining son was then in America, and at the battle of Lexington. SIR ELDRED OF THE BOWER. A LEGENDARY TALE. IN TWO PARTS. Of them who, wrapt in earth so cold, Should many a tender tale be told, For many a tender thought is due.-Langhorne. PART I. O nostra Vita, ch'e si bella in vista! Com' perde agevolmente in un momento, Quel, ch'en molt' anni a grand pena s'acquista.-Petrarca. THERE was a young and valiant knight, And never did a worthier wight Where gliding Tay, her stream sends forth, The night was rich as knight might be In youth, and strength, and health. Sir Eldred's heart was ever kind, A crowd of virtues grac'd his mind, When merit rais'd the sufferer's name, He show'r'd his bounty then; And those who could not prove that claim, But sacred truth the muse compels And yet the muse reluctant tells The fierce resentment scorn'd control, As when in summer's sweetest day To fan the fragrant morn, The sighing breezes softly stray At once the various ruin blends, And all resistless vields. And show'd what rage had done : Up rose the sun to gild the globe, Who life with all its gifts bestows, Whose mercies never fail! That done-he left his woodland glade, And journey'd far away; He lov'd to court the distant shade, By circling hills embrac'd, The house where guardian virtues dwell Of eglantine an humble fence Around the mansion stood, Which serv'd at once to charm the sense, And screen an infant wood. The wood receiv'd an added grace, As pleas'd it bent to look, And view'd its ever verdant face The smallness of the stream did well But little streams may serve to tell The source from they flow. As heaven just shows to human sight, She lov'd to raise her fragrant bower And there she screen'd each fav'rite flower And not a shrub or plant was there The trees, whose foliage fell away, He taught her that the gaudiest flowers While the sweet-scented rose shall last, And here the virgin lov'd to lead And here she oft retir'd to read, And oft retir'd to pray. And bless me most by blessing him, While she with equal wonder view'd The virgin blush which spreads her cheek And all those dazzling beams which break He view'd them all, and as he view'd And still his raptur'd eye pursued, At length the smother'd passion blaz'd, 'O sacred virtue, heav'nly power! Yet die my love to tell. My scorn has oft the dart repell'd Quick on the ground her eyes were cast, On whom she trembling gaz'd. Good Ardolph's eye his Bertha meets And thus with courteous speech he greets "O gallant youth, whoe'er thou art, I trust I bear a grateful mind— 'Sir Eldred?'-Árdolph loud exclaim'd For valour and for virtue fam'd, Sir Eldred of the bower? Now make me grateful, righteous heaven, As thou art good to me, Since to my aged eyes 'tis given Sir Eldred's son to see!' Embower'd, she grac'd the woodland shades, Then Ardolph caught him by the hand, From courts and cities far, The pride of Caledonian maids, The peerless northern star. As shines that bright and lucid star, When beaming through the cloudless air, So Birtha shone !-But when she spoke And thus her prayer preferr❜d : And gaz'd upon his face, And to his aged bosom strain'd, With many a kind embrace. And ask'd what he had ask'd before, And with them many a cheerful day Did friendly sojourn make. PART II. ONCE—in a social summer's walk, They cheated time with cheerful talk, The daughter of a neighbouring knight And ne'er did heaven the virtues write His bosom felt an equal wound, Thou wast Sir ELDRED'S only child, But man has woes, has clouds of care, One day like mine thy heart may heave, But grant, kind heaven ! thou ne'er may'st know The pangs I now impart ; Nor even feel the parting blow Beside the blooming banks of Tay, And wherefore should her Ardolph stay, Thy blooming Birtha here I see,' Then pass'd o'er good Sir Ardolph's face, 6 But soon compos'd, with manly grace, Yet sweet is death when earn'd with fame- Full manfully the brave boy strove, A deadly wound my son receives, Grief does not kill—for Ardolph lives I wept for her, yet wept in vain- I would have died-I sought to die, She clear'd the mists that dimm'd my sight- She prov'd the chastisement divine, What nature bade me feel; Then weeping cries—Thou noble knight, Yet, let me to thy bosom be What once thy Edwy was. Then read it in my ardent eyes, Thy beauteous Birtha!'-'Gracious power! |