She is the sacred guest! the immortal friend!
Oft seen o'er sleeping Innocence to bend,
In that dead hour of night to Silence given,
Whispering seraphic visions of her heaven.
When the blithe son of Savoy, journeying round
With humble wares and pipe of merry sound,
From his green vale and sheltered cabin hies,
And scales the Alps to visit foreign skies:
Though far below the forkèd lightnings play,
And at his feet the thunder dies away,
Oft, in the saddle rudely rocked to sleep,
While his mule browses on the dizzy steep,
With MEMORY's aid, he sits at home, and sees
His children sport beneath their native trees,
And bends to hear their cherub-voices call,

O'er the loud fury of the torrent's fall.

But can her smile with gloomy Madness dwell?

Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell?

Each fiery flight on Frenzy's wing restrain,

And mould the coinage of the fevered brain?

Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam supplies,

There in the dust the wreck of Genius lies!

He, whose arresting hand divinely wrought

Each bold conception in the sphere of thought;

And round, in colors of the rainbow, threw
Forms ever fair, creations ever new!

But, as he fondly snatched the wreath of fame,
The spectre Poverty unnerved his frame.
Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore;
And Hope's soft energies were felt no more.
Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!
From the rude wall what bright ideas start!
Even now he claims the amaranthine wreath,
With scenes that glow, with images that breathe!
And whence these scenes, these images, declare.
Whence but from Her who triumphs o'er despair?

Awake, arise! with grateful fervor fraught, Go, spring the mine of elevating thought. He, who, through Nature's various walk, surveys The good and fair her faultless line portrays; Whose mind, profaned by no unhallowed guest, Culls from the crowd the purest and the best; May range, at will, bright Fancy's golden clime, Or musing, mount where Science sits sublime, Or wake the Spirit of departed Time. Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral Muse, A blooming Eden in his life reviews!

So rich the culture, though so small the space,
Its scanty limits he forgets to trace.

But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky,
Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!

The weary waste, that lengthened as he ran,
Fades to a blank, and dwindles to a span!

Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind, By truth illumined, and by taste refined? When age has quenched the eye, and closed the ear, Still nerved for action in her native sphere, Oft will she rise-with searching glance pursue Some long-loved image vanished from her view; Dart through the deep recesses of the past, O'er dusky forms in chains of slumber cast; With giant grasp fling back the folds of night, And snatch the faithless fugitive to light. So through the grove the impatient mother flies, Each sunless glade, each secret pathway tries; Till the thin leaves the truant boy disclose, Long on the wood-moss stretched in sweet repose.

Nor yet to pleasing objects are confined The silent feasts of the reflecting mind.

Danger and death a dread delight inspire;
And the bald veteran glows with wonted fire,
When, richly bronzed by many a summer sun,
He counts his scars, and tells what deeds were done.

Go, with old Thames, view Chelsea's glorious pile,
And ask the shattered hero, whence his smile?
Go, view the splendid domes of Greenwich-Go,
And own what raptures from Reflection flow.

Hail, noblest structures imaged in the wave!
A nation's grateful tribute to the brave.

Hail, blest retreats from war and shipwreck, hail!
That oft arrest the wondering stranger's sail.
Long have ye heard the narratives of age,
The battle's havoc, and the tempest's rage;
Long have ye known Reflection's genial ray
Gild the calm close of Valor's various day.
Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece,
Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease:
A softer tone of light pervades the whole,

And steals a pensive languor o'er the soul.

Hast thou through Eden's wild-wood vales pursued Each mountain-scene, majestically rude;

To note the sweet simplicity of life,

Far from the din of Folly's idle strife;

Nor there awhile, with lifted eye, revered

That modest stone which pious PEMBROKE reared;
Which still records, beyond the pencil's power,

The silent sorrows of a parting hour;

Still to the musing pilgrim points the place
Her sainted spirit most delights to trace?

Thus, with the manly glow of honest pride,
O'er his dead son the gallant ORMOND sighed.
Thus, through the gloom of SHENSTONE's fairy grove,
MARIA'S urn still breathes the voice of love

As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower
Awes us less deeply in its morning hour,
Than when the shades of Time serenely fall
On every broken arch and ivied wall;
The tender images we love to trace,
Steal from each year a melancholy grace!
And as the sparks of social love expand,
As the heart opens in a foreign land;
And, with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile,
The stranger greets each native of his isle;

So scenes of life, when present and confest,
Stamp but their bolder features on the breast;
Yet not an image, when remotely viewed,
However trivial, and however rude,