Ah no!-each daring chief's aspiring mind
Was lured by false ambition's charms,
The love of wide-destroying arms,
The impious hope to subjugate mankind.
Far juster crowns, more lasting praise,
Britannia's generous sons adorn:
A rescued world its voice shall raise,
And bid their valour live to ages yet unborn ;
Bid the muse, with transport viewing
Our matchless chiefs, the grateful notes prolong,
And, her favourite theme pursuing,
Record their glorious deeds, immortaliz'd in song.
For combat armed, the wary foe,
In well-ranged order, firm array,
(Forewarn'd to meet th' impending blow)
In towering strength, exulting, lay:
Vain confidence!-from Egypt's shores
In vain the associate thunder roars :
In vain her threat'ning rocks, her shoals, withstand
Britain's impetuous sons, and guard the hostile band.
Collected, in his native might,
Our dauntless chief maintains his course, Awhile forbears the promised fight,
Prepared to strike with ten-fold force.
At length he strikes !-The dread avenging blow Lays haughty Gallia's honours low:
Her sons astonished, wrapt in hostile fire,
Each shatter'd vessel yield, or in a blaze expire.
Ye souls of heroes, generous, just, and brave,
Through many an age, to every shore,
Who Britain's naval thunders bore,
And fixed her empire o'er the subject wave!
With kind propitious smiles look down,
While, the bright victor's brows to shade,
His country weaves the fairest crown!
The PATRIOT-HERO'S crown, which ne'er shall fade.
From her heavenly throne descending,
Let Justice ratify the voice of Fame;
And let Glory, never ending,
With Britain's dearest sons enrol her Nelson's name.
ADDRESS OF A WATER-NYMPH,
At Belmont, in Staffordshire, to the Owner of that Place,
O! FRIEND to peace and virtue, ever flows
For thee my silent and unsullied stream,
Pure and untainted as thy blameless life!
Let no gay converse lead thy steps astray
To mix my chaste wave with immodest wine,
Nor with the poisonous cup, which Chemia's hand
Deals, fell enchantress, to the sons of folly!
So shall young Health thy daily walks attend,
Weave for thy hoary brow the vernal flower
Of cheerfulness, and with his nervous arm
Arrest th' inexorable scythe of Time.
On a Woodbine or Honeysuckle, which instinctively clasped its Tendrils round an Urn to the Memory of Shenstone. BY THE LATE REV. R. GRAVES.
AMIDST these laurels ever green,
And ivy mantling round,
Poor Shenstone's votive urn is seen,
And consecrates the ground.
This limpid stream, that murmuring falls
And winds those shades among,
His Leasowes to our mind recalls,
And sweetly plaintive song.
The woodbine here its sweetest flowers
And rambling shoots confines :
And round the urn, 'midst vernal showers,
Its sheltering foliage twines.
These roses, though they rarely view
The sun's all-cheering ray,
Yet, to the bard so justly due,
Their annual tribute pay.
Yon jessamine, tho' so remote,
Its blossoms sweet as fair,
White pendant o'er the urn they float,
Perfume the ambient air.
Each fragrant shrub to poets dear,
Or pleasing to the sight,
Round Shenstone's urn assembled here
Their balmy sweets unite.
Yet sweeter far his verse was deemed,
While he himself, by all esteemed,
Claimed universal love.
Tho' ere life's noon his glass was run,
Yet gained he endless fame:
But on the eve of ninety-one,
How humble is my name!
My life's prolonged full many a year
Beyond life's usual space;
Yet, ah! in that long life, I fear,
Heaven few good deeds can trace.
But, as I've cherished in my breast
A love of all mankind,
I may, 'tis hoped, among the blest
An humble mansion find.
On the Cloudiness of the Night, which prevented a View of the Conjunction of Saturn and the Moon.
WHEN prudish Cynthia, whom no youth could move,
Was forc'd at length to own the power of love,
And, late relenting, sacrificed her charms
To palsied age in Saturn's chilling arms;
Lest prying man celestial sins should know,
And spread the scandal thro' the world below,
With blushing cheeks, no more of pallid hue,
A mystic veil before his eyes she threw,
And hid the unchaste amour from mortal view.
On the Death of George the Second, and Accession of his present Majesty.
SEE, like the sun, where Albion's isle
Flames on the bosom of the deep!
What sudden blaze of light divine
Bids the smooth face of Ocean smile,
And with unwonted splendor shine
Beneath yon silver steep?
'Tis He-the Muse's boundless eye
Saw, when to leave the sapphire sky
He stretched his pearly plumes-and now,
On yonder white cliff's starry brow,
Majestic sees him stand.
Hail loveliest of the etherial throng
Around terrestrial thrones who wait,
Observant of a nation's fate!
Submissive to your influence strong
Flies the pale Genius of the Gaul;
And sees on every hostile plain,
And sees amid the unfriendly main,
His fading lilies fall.
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