BEAUTIES OF POETRY.
Harsh-creaking open! what an hideous void,
Dark as the yawning grave! while still as death
A frightful silence reigns: there on the ground
Behold your brethren chain'd like beasts of prey;
There mark your num'rous glories, there behold
The look that speaks unutterable woe;
The mangled limb, the faint, the deathful eye,
With famine sunk; the deep heart-bursting groan
Suppress'd in filence; view the loathsome food,
Refus'd by dogs! and oh, the stinging thought!
View the dark Spaniard glorying in their wrongs;
The deadly priest triumphant in their woes,
And thundering worse damnation on their fouls;
While that pale form, in all the pangs of death,
Too faint to speak, yet eloquent of all,
His native British spirit yet untam'd,
Raises his head, and with indignant frowns
Of great defiance, and superior scorn,
Looks up, and dies!-Oh, I am all on fire !
But let me spare the theme, lest future times
Should blush to hear, that either conquer'd Spain
Durst offer Britain such outrageous wrong,
Or Britain tamely bore it!
Descend, ye guardian heroes of the land!
Scourges of Spain, descend! Behold your sons!
See how they run the fame heroick race,
How prompt, how ardent in their country's caufe!
How greatly proud t' affert their British blood,
And in their deeds reflect their father's fame!
Ah, would to Heaven! ye did not rather see,
How dead to virtue in the publick cause!
How cold, how careless, how to glory deaf,
They shame your laurels, and belye their birth!
Come, ye great spirits, Cavendish, Rawleigh, Blake!
And ye of later name, your country's pride,
Oh, come! disperse these lazy fumes of floth,
Teach British hearts with British fires to glow!
In wakening whispers rouze our ardent youth,
Blazon the triumphs of your better days,
Paint all the glorious scenes of rightful war,
In all it's splendours; to their swelling fouls
Say how ye bow'd th' insulting Spaniards pride!
Say how ye thunder'd o'er their prostrate heads!
Say how ye broke their lines, and fir'd their ports!
Say how not death, in all it's frightful shapes,
Could damp your fouls, or shake the great refolve
For Right and Britain! Then display the joys
The patriot's foul exalting, while he views
Transported millions hail with loud acclaim
The guardian of their civil, sacred rights;
How greatly welcome to the virtuous man
Is death for others good; the radiant thoughts
That beam celestial on his passing soul,
Th' unfading crowns awaiting him above,
Th' exalting plaudit of the Great Supreme,
Who in his actions with complacence views
His own reflected splendour! then descend,
Tho' to a lower, yet a nobler scene;
Paint the just honours to his reliques paid,
Shew grateful millions weeping o'er his grave;
While his fair fame in each progressive age
For ever brightens; and the wife and good
Of every land, in universal choir,
With richest incense of undying praise,
His urn encircle; to the wondering world
His num'rous triumphs blazon; while with awe,
With filial rev'rence in his steps they tread,
And copying every virtue, every fame,
Transplant his glories into second life,
And, with unsparing hand, make nations bless'd
By his example! Vast, immense rewards,
For all the turmoils which the virtuous mind
Encounters here! Yet, Britons, are ye cold?
Yet deaf to glory, virtue, and the call
Of your poor injur'd countrymen? Ah, no!
I see ye are not; every bosom glows...
With native greatness, and in all it's state
The British spirit rises. Glorious change!
Fame, Virtue, Freedom, welcome! Oh, forgive
The Muse, that ardent in her sacred cause,
Your glory question'd! She beholds with joy,
She owns, she triumphs in her wish'd mistake!
See! from her sea-beat throne, in awful march
Britannia tow'rs: upon her laurel crest,
The plumes majestick nod; behold she heaves
Her guardian shields, and terrible in arms,
For battle shakes her adamantine spear;
Loud at her foot the British lion roars,
Frighting the nations; haughty Spain full foon
Shall hear and tremble! Go then, Britons, forth,
Your country's daring champions! tell your foes,
Tell them in thunders o'er their prostrate land,
You were not born for slaves! Let all your deeds
Shew that the sons of those immortal men,
The stars of shining story, are not flow
In Virtue's path to emulate their fires,
'T' affert their country's rights, avenge her fons,
And hurl the bolts of justice on her foes!
ON A LANDSCAPE OF HER DRAWING.
BY MR. PARRAT,
EHOLD the magick of Theresa's hand!
A new creation blooms at her command.
Touch'd into life the vivid colours glow,
Catch the warm stream, and quicken as they flow.
The ravish'd fight the pleasing landscape fills,
Here fink the vallies, and there rise the hills.
Not with more horror nods bleak Calpé's height,
Than here the pictur'd rock aftounds the fight.
Not Thames more devious-winding leaves his source,
Than here the wand'ring rivers shape their course.
Obliquely lab'ring runs the gurgling rill;
Still murm'ring runs, or feems to murmur still.
An aged oak, with hoary moss o'erspread,
Here lifts aloft it's venerable head;
There overshadowing hangs a facred wood,
And nods inverted in the neighb'ring flood.
Each tree as in it's native forest shoots,
And blushing bends with Autumn's golden fruits.
Thy pencil lends the rose a lovelier hue,
And gives the lily fairer to our view.
Here fruits and flow'rs adorn the varied year,
And paradise with all it's sweets is here.
There stooping to it's fall a tow'r appears,
With tempests shaken, and a weight of years:
The daified meadow, and the woodland green,
In order rise, and fill the various scene.
Some parts, in light magnificently dress'd,
Obtrusive enter, and stand all confefs'd;
Whilft others decently in shades are thrown,
And by concealing, make their beauties known.
Alternate thus, and mutual is their aid,
Their lights owe half their lustre to the shade,
So the bright fires that light the milky way,
Loft and extinguish'd in the folar ray;
In the sun's absence pour a flood of light,
And borrow all their brightness from the night.
To cheat our eyes, how well dost thou contrive!
Each object here seems real and alive.
Not more resembling life the figures stand,
Form'd by Lyfippus, or by Phidias' hand.
Unnumber'd beauties in the piece unite,
Rush on the eye, and croud upon the sight:
At once our wonder and delight you raise;
We view with pleasure, and with rapture praise.
BY MISS WHATELY.
OW genial Spring o'er lawn and grove
Extends her vivid power,
Now Phœbus shines with mildest beams,
And wakes each fleeping flower,
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