AN IMITATION FROM THE SPECTATOR. A MONTH hath roll'd its lazy hours away,

Since Delia's presence bless'd her longing

swain:

How could he brook the sluggish time's delay, What charm could soften such an age of pain? One fond reflection still his bosom cheer'd,

And sooth'd the torments of a lover's care, 'Twas that for Delia's self the bow'r he rear'd, And Fancy plac'd the nymph already there. "O come, dear maid, and with a gentle smile, Such as lights up my lovely fair one's face, Survey the product of thy shepherd's toil,

Nor rob the villa of the villa's grace. "Whate'er improvements strike thy curious sight, Thy taste hath form'd-let me not call it mine, Since when I muse on thee, and feed delight,

I form no thought that is not wholly thine. "Th' apartments destin'd for my charmer's use, (For love in trifles is conspicuous shown) Can scarce an object to thy view produce,

But bears the dear resemblance of thine own. "And trust me, love, I could almost believe, This little spot the mansion of my fair; But that awak'd from fancy's dreams I grieve, To find its proper owner is not there. "Oh! I could doat upon the rural scene,

Its prospect over hiil and champaign wide, But that it marks the tedious way between,

That parts thy Damon from his promis'd bride. "The gardens now put forth their blossoms sweet, In Nature's flow'ry mantle gayly drest, The close-trimm'd hedge, and circling border neat, All ask my Delia for their dearest guest.

"The lily pale, the purple-blushing rose,

In this fair spot their mingled beauties join; The woodbine here its curling tendrils throws,

In wreaths fantastic round the mantling vine. "The branching arbour here for lovers made, For dalliance met, or song, or amorous tale, Shall oft protect us with its cooling shade, When sultry Phoebus burns the lovely vale. Tis all another paradise around,

And, trust me, so it would appear to me, Like the first man were I not lonely found,

And but half blest, my Delia, wanting thee. "For two, but two, I've form'd a love'y walk, And I bave call'd it by my fair one's name; Here blest with thee, t'enjoy thy pleasing talk, While fools and madinen bow the knee to fame.

"The rustic path already have I try'd,

Oft at the sinking of the setting day; And while, my love, I thought thee by my side, With careful steps have worn its edge away. "With thee I've held discourse, how passing

sweet!

While Fancy brought thee to my raptur'd

dream,

With thee bave prattled in my loné retreat,

And talk'd down suns, on love's delicious theme.

A BALLAD.

YE shepherds so careless and gay,

Who sport with the nymphs of the plain, Take heed lest you frolic away

The peace you can never regain. Let not Folly your bosoms annoy;

And of Love, the dear mischief beware.
You may think 'tis all sunshine and joy,
I know 'tis o'ershadow'd with care.
Love's morning how blithesome it shines,
With an aspect deceitfully fair;
Its day oft in sorrow declines,

And it sets in the night of despair.
Hope paints the gay scene to the sight,
While Fancy her visions bestows,
And gilds every dream with delight,
But to wake us to sensible woes.

How hard is any lot to complain

Of a nymph whom I yet must adore, Though she love not her shepherd again, Her Damon must love her the more. For it was not the pride of her sex,

That treated his vows with disdain, For it was not the pleasure to vex,

That made her delude her fond swain. 'Twas his, the fair nymph to behold,

He hop'd-and he rashly believ'd;
'Twas her's to be fatally cold,
-He lov'd-andwas fondly deceiv'd;
For such is of lovers the doom,

While passions their reason beguile, 'Tis warrant enough to presume,

If they catch but a look or a smile. Yet surely my, Phillis would seem

To prize me most shepherds abc.e;

押ださ

at that might be only esteem,
While I foolishly constru'd it love.
et others, like Damon, believ'd

The nymph might have favour'd her swain, Lynd others, like him, were deceiv'd,

Like him, though they cannot complain,

Phyllis was always my song,

For she was my pride and my care; bad the folks, as we wander'd along, Would call us the conjugal pair.

ey mark'd bow I walk'd at her side,
How her hand to my bosom I prest,
ach tender endearment 1 try'd,
And I thought none was eyer so blest.

at now the delusion is o'er,

These day-dreams of pleasure are fled, w her Damon is pleasing no more, And the hopes of her shepherd are dead. "ay he that my fair shall obtain,

May he, as thy Damon, be true;

haply thoul't think of that swain,

Who bids thee, dear maiden, adieu.

TO CHLOE.

'Chloe seek one verse of mine

call not on the tuneful Nine

With useless invocation;

nough for me that she should ask;
By with pleasure to the task,
And her's the inspiration.

"hen poets sung in ancient days,
he Muses that inspir'd their lays,
Of whom there such parade is;
heir deities, let pride confess,
'ere nothing more, and nothing less,
Than earth-born mortal ladies.
aid any nymph her subject choose?
je straight commenc'd inspiring Muse?
And every maid, of lovely face,
hat struck the heart of wounded swain,
xalted to yon starry plain,
Was register'd a Grace.

hese were the compliments of old,
hile nymphs, among the gods enroll'd,
Claim'd love's obsequious duty;

bus, while each bard had favourite views,
ach nymph became a Grace, or Muse,
A Venus every beauty.

av, in these latter days of ours,
Then Love exerts his usual powers,
What difference lies between us?

a Chloe's self at once I boast,
What bards of every age might toast,
A Muse, a Grace, a Venus.

Chloe are a thousand charms,
Chough Envy call her sex to arms,
And giggling girls may flout her,
The Muse inhabits in her mind,
Venus in her form we find,
The Graces all about her.

TO THE MOON.

ALL hail! majestic queen of night,

Bright Cynthia! sweetest nymph, whose presence brings

The pensive pleasures, calm delight,

While Contemplation smooths her ruffled wings
Which folly's vain tumultuous joys,

Or business, care, and buzz of lusty day
Have all too rufled.-Hence, away

Stale jest, and flippaut mirth, and strife-en-
gendering noise,

When Evening dons her mantle grey,
I'll wind my solitary way,

And hie me to some lonely grove
(The haunt of Fancy and of Love)
Whose social branches, far outspread,
Possess the mind with pleasing dread.
While Cynthia quivers through the trees
That wanton with the summer breeze,
And the clear brook, or dimpled stream,
Reflects oblique her dancing beam.
How often, by thy silver light,
Have lovers' tongues beguil'd the night?
When forth the happy pair have stray'd,
The amorous swain and tender maid,
And as they walk'd the groves along,
Cheer'd the still Eve with various song.
While ev'ry artful strain confest
The mutual passion in their breast,
The lovers' hours fly swift away,
And Night reluctant yields to Day.
Thrice happy nymph, thrice happy youth,
When beauty is the meed of truth!

Yet not the happy Loves alone,
Has thy celestial presence known.
To thee complains the nymph forlorn,
Of broken faith, and vows forsworn;
And the dull swain, with folded arms,
Still musing on his false one's charms,
Frames many a sonnet to her name,
(As lovers use to express their flame)
Or pining wan with thoughtful care,
In downcast silence feeds despair;
Or when the air dead stillness keeps,
And Cynthia on the water sleeps;
Charms the dull ear of sober Night,
With love-born Music's sweet delight.

Oft as thy orb performs its round,
Thou list'nest to the various sound
Of shepherds' hopes and maidens' fears
(Those conscious Cynthia silent hears,
While Echo, which still loves to mock,
Bears them about from rock to rock.)

But shift we now the pensive secae,
Where Cynthia silvers o'er the green.
Mark yonder spot, whose equal im
Forms the green circle quaint and trim;
Hither the fairies blithe advance,

And lightly trip to:

mazy dance;

Beating the pansie-paven ground
In frolic measures round and round;
These Cynthia's revels gayly keep,
While lazy mortals snore asleep;
Whom oft they visit in the night,
Not visible to human sight;
And as old prattling wives relate,
Though now the fashion's out of date,
Drop sixpence in the housewife's shoe,
And pinch the slattern black and bice.

They fill the mind with airy schemes,
And bring the ladies pleasant dreams.

Who knows not Mab, whose chariot glides,
And athwart men's noses rides?
While Oberon, blithe fairy, trips,
And hovers o'er the ladies' lips;
And when he steals ambrosial bliss,
And soft imprints the charming kiss,
In dreams the nymph her swain pursues,
Nor thinks 'tis Oberon that woos.

Yet, sportive youth, and lovely fair,
From hence, my lesson read, beware,
While Innocence and Mirth preside,
We care not where the fairies glide;'
And Oberon will never miss
To greet his fav'rites with a kiss;
Nor ever more ambrosia sips,
Than when he visits

's lips.

When all things else in silence sleep,
The blithesome elfs their vigils keep;
And always bov r round about,
To find our worth or frailties out,
Receive with joy these elfin sparks,
Their kisses leave no tell-tale marks,
But breathe fresh beauty o'er the face,
Where all is virtue, all is grace.
Not only elfin fays delight

To hail the sober queen of night,

But that sweet bird, whose gurgling throat
Warbles the thick melodious note,
Duly as evening shades prevail,
Renews her soothing love-lorn tale;
And as the lover pensive goes,
Chants out her symphony of woes,
Which in boon Nature's wilder tone,
Beggar all sounds which Art has known.
But hist the melancholy bird
Among the groves no more is heard;
And Cynthia pales her silver ray
Before th' approach of golden Day,
Which on yon mountain's misty height,
Stands tiptoe with his gladsome light.
Now the shrill lark in ether floats,
And carols wild her liquid notes;
While Phoebus, in his lusty pride,
His flaring beams flings far and wide,
Cynthia, farewellthe pensive Muse,
No more her feeble flight pursues,
But all unwilling takes her way,
And mixes with the buzz of day.

SONG.

THE beauty which the gods bestow,
Did they but give it for a show?

No 'twas lent thee from above,
To shed its lustre o'er thy face,
And with its pure and native grace
To charm the soul to love.

The flaunting Sun, whose western beams,
This evening drink of Oceans' streams,
To morrow springs to light.

But when thy beauty sets, my fair,
No morrow shall its beam repair,
'Ts all eternal night.

See too, my love, the virgin rose,
How sweet, how bashfully it blows

Beneath the vernal skies!
How soon it blooms in full display,
Its bosom opening to the day,

Then withers, shrinks, and dies.
Of mortal life's declining hour,
Such is the leaf, the bud, the flow'r;

Then crop the rose in time.
Be blest and bless, and kind impart
The just return of heart for heart,
Ere love becomes a crime.

To pleasure then, my charmer, haste,
And ere thy youth begins to waste,

Ere beauty dims its ray,

The proffer'd gift of love employ,
Improve each moment into joy,
Be happy, whilst you may.

TO THE REV. MR. HANBURY,

OF CHURCH-LANGTON, LEICESTERSHIRE, ON HI

PLANTATIONS.

WHILE vain pursuits a trifling race engage,
And Virtue slumbers in a thriftless age,
Thy glorious plan', on deep foundations laid,
Which aiding Nature, Nature's bound to aid,
The wise man's study, though the blockhead'

scorn,

Shall speak for ages to a world unborn.
Though fools deride, for Censure's still at hand
To damn the work she cannot understand,
Pursue thy project with an ardour fit;
Fools are but whetstones to a man of wit.

Like puling infants seem'd thy rising plan, Now knit in strength, it speaks an active man. So the broad oak, which from thy grand design Shall spread aloft, and tell the world t'was thine, A strip'ling first, just peep'd above the ground, Which, ages hence, shall fling its shade around.

Why not, sometimes, regale admiring friends
With Greek and Latin sprinklings, odds and ends?
Exert your talents; read, and read to write!
As Horace says, mix profit with delight."

'Tis rare advice: but I am slow to mend,
Though ever thankful to my partial friend:
Full of strange fears for hopes are banish'd all—
I list' no more to Phoebus' sacred call,

Smit with the Muse, 'tis true I sought her charms;
But came no champion, clad in cumb'rous arms,
To pull each rival monarch from his throne,
And swear no lady Clio like my own,
All unambitious of superior praise,

My fond amusement ask'd a sprig of bays,
Some little fame for stringing harmless verse,
And e'en that little fame has prov'd a curse;
Hitch'd into rhyme, and dragg'd through muddy

prose,

By butcher critics, worth's confed'rate foes.

If then the Muse no more shall strive to please, Lull'd in the happy lethargy of ease;

If, unadvent'rous, she forbear to sing,

Nor take one thought to plume her ruffled wing;
'Tis that she hates, howe'er by nature vain,
The scurril nonsense of a venal train.
When desp'rate robbers, issuing from the waste,
Make such rude inroads on the land of Taste,
Genius grows sick beneath the Gothic rage,
Or seeks her laurels from some worthier age,
As for myself, I own the present charge;
Lazy and lounging, I confess at large:
Yet Ease, perhaps, may loose her silken chains,
And the next hour becomes an hour of pains,
We write, we read, we act, we think, by fits,
And follow all things as the humour hits,
For of all pleasures, which the world can bring,
Variety O! dear variety's the thing!

Our learned Coke, from whom we scribblers draw
All the wise dictums of poetic law,

Lays down this truth, from whence my maxim follows,

(See Horace, Ode Dec. Sert.-the case Apollo's)
"The god of verse disclaims the plodding wretch,
Nor keeps his bow for ever on the stretch."

However great my thirst of honest fame,
I bow with rev'rence to each letter'd name;
To worth, where'er it be, with joy submit,
But own no curst monopolies of wit.
Nor think, my friend, if 1 but rarely quote,

And little reading shines through what I've wrote,
That I bid peace to ev'ry learned shelf,
Because I dare form judgments for myself.
-Oh! were it mine, with happy skill to look
Up to the one, the universal book!
Open to all-to him, to me, to you,
-For Nature's open to the general view-
Then would I scorn the ancients' vaunted store,
And boast my thefts, where they but robb'd be-

fore.

Mean while with them, while Grecian sounds impart

Th' eternal passions of the human heart,
Bursting the bonds of ease and lazy rest,
I feel the flame mount active in my breast;
Or when, with joy, I turn the Roman page,
I live, in fancy, in th' Augustan age!
Till some dull Bavius' or a Mævius' name,
Damn'd by the Muse to everlasting fame,
Forbids the mind in foreign climes to roam,
And brings me back to our own fools at home.

SONGS

IN THE CAPRICIOUS LOVERS

AIR I.

WHILE the cool and gentle breeze
Whispers fragrance through the trees,
Nature walking o'er the scene
Clad in robes of lively green,
From the sweetness of the place
Labour wears a cheerful face.

Sure I taste of joys sincere,
Faithful Colin ever near;
When with ceaseless toil oppress'd,
Wearied Nature sinks to rest.
Love shall wake me with a smile.
All my labours to beguile,

AIR II.

THOUGH my features I'm told
Are grown wrinkled and old,
Dull wisdom I hate and detest,
Not a wrinkle is there
Which is furrow'd by care,
And my heart is as light as the best.

When I look on my boys
They renew all my joys,
Myself in my children I see;

While the comforts I find
In the kingdom my mind,
Pronounce that my kingdom is free.
In the days I was young,
O! I caper'd and sung;

The lasses came flocking apace.
But now turn'd of threescore
I can do so no more,

-Why then let my boy take my place.

Of our pleasures we crack,
For we still love the smack,
And chuckle o'er what we have been;
Yet why should we repine,
You've yours, I've had mine,
And now let our children begin.

AIR III.

'TIS thus in those toys
Invented for boys

To show how the weather will prove,
The woman and man
On a different plan
Are always directed to move.

One goes out to roam
While t'other keeps home,
Insipid, and dull as a drone,
Though near to each other
As sister and brother,
They both take their airing alone.

AIR IV.

WHEN the head of poor Tummas was broke
By Roger, who play'd at the wake,
And Kate was alarm'd at the stroke,

And wept for poor Tummas's sake;
When his worship gave noggins of ale,

And the liquor was charming and stout, O those were the times to regale, And we footed it rarely about.