ODE XI. THE DEATH OF HOEL. From the Welch. HAD I but the torrent's might, With headlong rage and wild affright To rush, and sweep them from the world! Too, too secure in youthful pride He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold; * Of Aneurim, styled the Monarch of the Bards. He flourished about the time of Taliessin, A. D. 570. This Ode is extracted from the Gododin, (See Mr. Evans's Specimens, p. 71 and 73) and now first published. Alone in Nature's wealth array'd, To Cattraeth's vale in glitt'ring row Flush'd with mirth, and hope they burn: And I, the meanest of them all, That live to weep, and sing their fall. SONNET* ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST. IN vain to me the smiling Mornings shine, And redd'ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire: The birds in vain their amorous descant join; Or chearful fields resume their green attire: These ears, alas! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require: And new-born pleasure brings to happier men: The fields to all their wonted tribute bear: To warm their little loves the birds complain: I fruitless mourn to him, that cannot hear, And weep the more, because I weep in vain. * Now first published. See Memoirs, Sect. 8. EPITAPH I. ON * MRS. CLARKE. LO! where this silent Marble weeps, A Friend, a Wife, a Mother sleeps: She felt the Wound she left behind. Sits smiling on a Father's woe: This Lady, the Wife of Dr. Clarke, Physician at Epsom, died April 27, 1757; and is buried in the Church of Beckenham, Kent. |