AND

O F

HERTINGFORDBURY IN THE COUNTY OF

SEE

DAUGHTER

HERTFORD,

OF RICHARD HARRISON, ESQ.

OF BALLS IN THE SAME COUNTY.

OBIT 15 NOV. MDCCXIV.

I.

EE! how thofe dropping monuments decay
Frail manfions of the filent dead,

Whose fouls to uncorrupting regions fled,

With a wife fcorn their mouldering duft survey. Their tombs are rais'd from duft as well as they; For fee! to duft they both return,

And Time confumes alike the afhes and the urn.

II.

We ask the sculptor's art in vain

To make us for a space ourselves furvive ;
In Parian ftone we proudly breathe again,
Or feem in figur'd brafs to live.

Yet ftone and brafs our hopes betray,
Age fteals the mimic forms and characters away.
In vain, O Egypt, to the wondering skies
With giant pride thy pyramids arise;

Whate'er their vaft and gloomy valts contain, No names diftinct of their great dread remain, Beneath the mafs confus'd, in heaps thy monarchs lie, Unknown, and blended in mortality.

III.

To death our felves and all our works we owe.
But is there nought, O Mufe, can fave
Our memories from darkness and the grave,
And fome fhort after-life bestow?
That task is mine, the Mufe replies,
And hark! the tunes the facred lyre!
Verfe is the last of human works that dies,
When virtue does the fong infpire.
IV.

Then look, Eliza, happy faint, look down!

Paufe from immortal joys awhile

To hear, and gracious with a smile

The dedicated numbers own;

Say how in thy life's scanty space,

So fhort a space, so wondrous bright,

Bright as a fummer's day, short as a summer's night,
Could't thou find room for every crouded grace ?
As if thy thrifty soul foreknew,
Like a wife envoy, Heaven's intent
Soon to recall whom it had fent,
And all its task refolv'd at once to do.

Or wert thou but a traveller below,
That hither didst awhile repair,

Curious our customs and our laws to know?
And, fickening in our groffer air,
And tir'd of vain repeated fights,
Our foolish cares, our falfe delights,
Back to thy native feats would'ft go?
Oh! fince to us thou wilt no more return,
Permit thy friends, the faithful few
Who beft thy numerous virtues knew,
Themselves, not thee to mourn.

V.

Now, penfive Mufe, enlarge thy flight!
(By turns the penfive Mufes love
The hilly heights and shady grove)
Behold where, fwelling to the fight,
Balls, a fair ftructure, graceful stands!
And from yon verdant rising brow
Sees Hertford's ancient town, and lands
Where Nature's hand in flow meanders leads
The Lee's clear fiream its course to flow
Through flowery vales, and moiften'd meads,
And far around in beauteous prospects spreads
Her map of plenty all below.

'Twas here-and facred be the spot of earth!
Eliza's foul, born first above,

Defcended to an humbler birth,

And with a mortal's frailties ftrove.

So,

So, on fome towering peak that meets the sky,
When miffive feraphs downward fly,
They stop, and for awhile alight.

Put off their rays coeleftial-bright,

Then take fome milder form familiar to our eye.

VI.

Swiftly her infant virtues grew :
Water'd by Heaven's peculiar care
Her morning bloom was doubly fair,
Like fummer's day-break, when we fee
The fresh-drop'd stores of rosy dew,
(Transparent beauties of the dawn)
Spread o'er the grafs their cobweb-lawn,
Or hang moist pearls on every tree.
Pleas'd with the lovely fight awhile
Her friends behold, and joyful fimile,
Nor think the fun's exhaling ray

Will change the fcene ere noon of day,

Dry up the glittering drops, and draw thofe dews away.

VII.

Yet first, to fill her orb of life,

Behold, in each relation dear,

The pious faint, the duteous child appear,

The tender fifter, and the faithful wife.
Alas! but muft one circlet of the year
Unite in blife, in grief divide

The destin'd bridegroom and the bride ?
Stop, generous youth, the gathering tear,
That as you read thefe lines or hear
P 2

Perhaps

Perhaps may start, and seem to say,
That short-liv'd year was but a day!
Forbear-nor fruitless forrowings now employ,
Think he was lent awhile, not given,

(Such was th' appointed will of Heaven) Then grateful call that year an age of virtuous joy.

A N

ALLUSION TO HORACE.

ΒΟΟΚ Ι. O DE XXII.

PRINTED AT THE BREAKING OUT OF THE
REBELLION IN THE YEAR 1715.

TH

HE man that loves his king and nation,
And fruns each vile affociation,

That trufts his honeft deeds i' th' light,
Nor meets in dark cabals, by night,
With fools, who, after much debate,
Get themselves hang'd, and fave the state,
Needs not his hall with weapons store;
Nor dreads each rapping at his door;
Nor fculks, in fear of being known,
Or hides his guilt in parfon's gown;
Nor wants, to guard his generous heart,
The poniard or the poifon'd dart;

And,