Then on! then on to the glorious strife!
With your swords your country shielding;
And resign, if it must be so, even life,
But die, at least, unyielding.
Strike! for the Sires who left you free!
Strike! for their sakes who bore you!
Strike! for your homes and Liberty,
And the Heaven you worship, o'er you!
SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE.
SIGHS! light, warm spirits! in which air
And fire possess an equal share:
The Soul's soft breath! Love's gentle gales!
Which from Grief's gulf (when all else fails)
Can by a speedy course, and short,
Conduct the heart to its sweet port:
Ye flatt'ring zephyrs! by whose power,
Rais'd on the wings of thought, each hour
From the abyss of miseries,
To her lov'd heaven the freed soul flies.
True lively sparks of that close fire,
Which hearts conceal, and eyes inspire;
Chaste lamps that burn at Beauty's shrine,
Whose purer flames let none confine;
Nature a warmth unto my heart
Does not so kind as yours impart;
And if by breath preserv'd alive,
By your breath only I survive.
Love's faithful witnesses! the brief,
But true expressers of our grief!
Ambassadors of mute desires!
Dumb rhetoric which our thoughts attires!
Grief, when it overloads the breast,
Is in no other language drest;
For you the suff'ring Lover's flame,
Sweet, tongueless orators, proclaim.
Nature, and all that call her mother,
In sighs discourse to one another:
Theirs, nightingales, and doves, in tones
Diff'rent express; this sings, that groans:
The thrush, his, whistles to the hen;
The sparrow chirps out his again;
Snakes breathe their am'rous sighs in hisses;= This dialect no creature misses.
The virgin lily, bashful rose,
In odours their soft sighs disclose;
Theirs, sportive winds in whispers breathe:
Earth, hers in vapours doth bequeath
To her celestial lover; he,
Touch'd with an equal sympathy,
To fan the flame with which she burns,
In gentle gales his sighs returns.
Ye glowing sparks of a chaste fire!
Now to those radiant lights aspire,
The fairer nests of my fair Love,
And the bright spheres where you should move.
CHARLES LEFTLY, ESQ.
ZEPHYR, whither art thou straying?
Tell me where-
With prankish girls in gardens playing,
False as fair!
A butterfly's light back bestriding,
Queen-bees to honeysuckles guiding,
Or in a swinging harebell riding,
Free from care?
Before Aurora's car you amble,
High in air;
At noon, when Neptune's sea-nymphs gambol,
Braid their hair;
When on the tumbling billows rolling,
Or on the smooth sands idly strolling,
Or in cool grottoes they lie lolling,
You sport there.
To chase the moonbeams up the mountains
You prepare;
Or dance with elves on brinks of fountains,
Mirth to share:
Now seen with love-lorn lilies weeping,
Now with a blushing rose-bud sleeping,
While fays, from forth their chambers peeping,
Cry, O rare!
TRUST not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold, With gentle tides which on your temples flow; Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enroll❜d. Trust not those shining lights which wrought my
When first I did their burning rays behold;
Nor voice whose sounds more strange effects do shew
Than of the Thracian harper have been told.
Look to this dying lily, fading rose,
Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams
Made all the neighb'ring herbs and grass rejoice,
And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes.
The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers,
Shall once (ay me!) not spare that spring of yours.
THE tears I shed must ever fall-
I mourn not for an absent swain,
For thoughts may past delights recall,
And parted lovers meet again.
I weep not for the silent dead,
Their toils are past, their sorrows o'er ;
And those they lov'd, their steps shall tread,
And death shall join, to part no more.
Though boundless oceans roll'd between,
If certain that his heart is near,
A conscious transport glads each scene,
Soft is the sigh, and sweet the tear.
Even when by death's cold hand remov'd,
We mourn the tenant of the tomb,
To think that ev'n in death he lov'd,
Can gild the horrors of the gloom.
But bitter, bitter are the tears
Of her who slighted love bewails;
No hope her dreary prospect cheers,
No pleasing melancholy hails.
Hers are the pangs of wounded pride,
Of blasted hope, of wither'd joy,
The flatt'ring veil is rent aside,
The flame of Love burns-to destroy.
In vain does memory renew
The hours once ting'd with transport's dye; The sad reverse soon starts to view,
And turns the past to agony.
Even Time itself despairs to cure
Those pangs to every feeling due;
Ungen'rous youth! thy boast how poor!
To win a heart-and break it too.
No cold approach, no alter'd mien,
Just what would make suspicion start;
No pause the dire extremes between-
He made me blest, and broke my heart.
From hope, the wretch's anchor, torn,
Neglected, and neglecting all,
Friendless, forsaken, and forlorn,
The tears I shed must ever fall.
Go, where the water glideth gently ever,
Glideth by meadows that the greenest be-
Go, listen to our own beloved river,
Wander in forests, where the small flower layeth
Its fairy gem beside the giant tree;
Listen to the dim brook pining while it playeth,
And think of me!
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