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Hear then, O king, and grant my fole request,
To seek his body in the heaps of slain.

Thus to the Spartan su'd the regal maid,
Resembling Ceres in majestic woe,
When, supplicant at Jove's resplendent throne,
From dreary Pluto, and th’infernal gloom,
Her lov'd and lost Proferpina she fought:
Fix'd on the weeping queen with stedfaft eyes,
Laconia's chief these tender thoughts recall'd.

Such are thy sorrows, O for ever dear!
Who now at Lacedæmon doft deplore
My everlasting absence! then inclin'd
His head, and figh'd; nor yet forgot to charge
His friend, the gentle Agis, through the straits
The Persian princess to attend and aid.
With careful steps they seek her lover's corse.
The Greeks remember'd, where by fate repress'd,
His arm first ceas'd to mow their legions down,
And from beneath a mass of Persian slain
Soon drew the hero, by his armour known..
To Agis' high pavilion they resort.
Now, Ariana, what transcending pangs
Thy foul involv'd? What horror clasp'd thy heart!
But love grew mightiest, and her beauteous limbs
On the cold breast of Teribazus threw
The grief-distracted maid. The clotted gore
Deform’d her snowy bosom. O’er his wounds

Loose

Loose flow'd her hair, and bubbling from her eyes,
Impetuous sorrow lay'd the purple clay.
When forth in groans her lamentations broke :

O torn for ever from my weeping eyes !
Thou, who despairing to obtain her heart,
Who then most lov'd thee, didît untimely yield
Thy life to fate's inevitable dart
For her, who now in

agony

unfolds
Her tender bosom, and repeats her vows
To thy deaf ear, who fondly to her own
Now clasps thy breast insensible and cold.
Alas! do those unmoving, ghaftly orbs
Perceive my gushing anguish! Does that heart,
Which death's inanimating hand hath chill’d,
Share in my faff’rings, and return my fighs !

-Oh! bitter unsurmountable distress!
Lo! on thy breast is Ariana bow'd,
Hangs o'er thy face, unites her cheek to thine
Not now to listen with enchanted ears
To thy persuasive eloquence, no more
Charm'd with the wisdom of thy copious mind!
She could no more.

Invincible despair
Suppress’d her utt'rance. As a marble form,
Fix'd on the folemn fepulcher, unmov'd
O’er some dead hero, whom his country lov’d,,
Bends down the head with imitated woe:
So paus'd the princess o'er the breathless clay,

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Intranc'd

Intranc'd in forrow. On the dreary wound,
Where Dithyrambus' sword was deepest plung’d,
Mute for a space, and motionless she gaz'd.
Then with a look unchang'd, nor trembling hand
Drew forth a poniard, which her garment veild,
And, sheathing in her heart th' abhorred steel,
On her sain lover, filent finks in death.

MARRIAGE

F

AIREST, this vision is thy due,

I form'd th' instructive plan for you.
Slight not the rules of thoughtful age,
Your welfare actuates every page ;
But ponder well my facred theme,
And tremble, while you read my dream.

Those aweful words, " "Till death do part,"
May well alarm the youthful heart:
No after-thought when once a wife ;
The die is caft, and cast for life
Yet thousands venture ev'ry day,
As some base passion leads the way.
Pert Silvia talks of wedlock-scenes,
Tho' hardly enter'd on her teens ;
Smiles on her whining spark, and hears
The sugar'd speech with raptur'd ears ;
Impatient of a parent's rulex
She leaves her fire and weds a fool;
Want enters at the guardless door,
And Love is fled, to come no more.

Some few there are of sordid mould,
Who barter youth and bloom for gold;

Careless

Careless with what, or whom they mate,
Their ruling passion's all for state.
But Hymen, gen'rous, juft, and kind,
Abhors the mercenary mind:
Such rebels groan beneath his rod,
For Hymen's a vindi&tive God:
Be joyless ev'ry night, he said,
And barren be their nuptial bed.

Attend, my fair, to wisdom's voice,
A better fate shall crown thy choice.
A married life, to speak the best,
Is all a lottery confeit ::
Yet if my fair one will be wise,
I will insure my girl a prize;
Tho' not a prize to match thy worthy,
Perhaps thy equal's not on earth.

'Tis an important point to know,
There's no perfection here below.
Man's an odd compound, after all,
And ever has been since the fall.
Say, that he loves you from his soul,
Still man is proud, nor brooks controul:.
And tho' a. Nave in love's foft school,,
In wedlock claims his right to rule.
The best, in short, has faults about him,
If few those faults, you must not flout him.
With fome, indeed, you can't dispense,
As want of temper, and of fenfe..

!

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For