Ere the chill winter of our days arrive,

No more she paints the breast from paffion free; I feel, I feel one loitering with furvive

Ah need I, FLORIO, name that wish to thee?

The ftar of VENUS ufhers in the day,

The first, the lovelieft of the train that shine! The ftar of VENUS lends her brightest ray, When other stars their friendly beams refign.

Still in my breast one foft defire remains,

Pure as that ftar, from guilt, from int'reft free, Has gentle DELIA trip'd across the plains,

And need I, FLORIO, name that with to thee?

While, cloy'd to find the fcenes of life the fame,
I tune with carelefs hand my languid lays ;
Some fecret impulfe wakes my former flame,
And fires my ftrain with hope of brighter days.

I flept not long beneath yon rural bow'rs;

And lo! my crook with flow'rs adorn'd I fee: Has gentle DELIA bound my crook with flow'rs,

And need I, FLORIO, name my hopes to thee?

ELEGY

ELEGY XIII.

To a friend, on some flight occasion estranged

from him.

EALTH to my friend, and many a chearful day

Around his feat may peaceful shades abide!
Smooth flow the minutes, fraught with smiles, away,
And, 'till they crown our union, gently glide.

Ah me! too swiftly fleets our vernal bloom!
Loft to our wonted friendship, loft to joy!
Soon may thy breast the cordial wish resume,
Ere wintry doubt its tender warmth destroy.

Say, were it ours, by fortune's wild command,
By chance to meet beneath the torrid zone;
Wou'dft thou reject thy DAMON's plighted hand ?
Wou'dft thou with scorn thy once lov'd friend disown?

Life is that ftranger land, that alien clime :

Shall kindred fouls forego their focial claim?
Launch'd in the vast abyss of space and time,
Shall dark fufpicion quench the gen'rous flame?

Myriads of fouls, that knew one parent mold,
See fadly fever'd by the laws of chance!
Myriads, in time's perennial lift enroll'd,
Forbid by fate to change one tranfient glance !

But

But we have met where ills of every form,
Where paffions rage, and hurricanes defcend:
Say, shall we purse the rage, affist the storm ?
And guide them to the bosom-of a friend!

Yes, we have met-thro' rapine, fraud, and wrong:
Might our joint aid the paths of peace explore!
Why leave thy friend amid the boist'rous throng,
Ere death divide us, and we part no more?

For oh! pale fickness warns thy friend away;
For me no more the vernal roses bloom!
I fee ftern fate his ebon wand difplay;
And point the wither'd regions of the tomb.

Then the keen anguish from thine eye shall start,
Sad as thou follow'ft my untimely bier;
"Fool that I was-if friends fo foon must part,
"To let fufpicion intermix a fear.”

ELEGY

Declining an invitation to vifit foreign countries, he takes occafion to intimate the advantages of his own.

WHIL

To Lord TEMPLE.

HILE others loft to friendship, loft to love,
Waste their best minutes on a foreign ftrand,
Be mine, with British nymph or fwain to rove,
And court the genius of my native land.

Deluded youth! that quits thefe verdant plains,
To catch the follies of an alien foil!
To win the vice his genuine foul difdains,
Return exultant, and import the spoil!

In vain he boasts of his detefted prize;
No more it blooms to British climes convey'd,
Cramp'd by the impulfe of ungenial skies,
See its fresh vigour, in a moment, fade!

Th' exotic folly knows its native clime;

An aukward ftranger, if we waft it o'er ; Why then thefe toils, this coftly waste of time, To spread foft poison on our happy shore ?

I covet

I covet not the pride of foreign looms;
In fearch of foreign modes I fcorn to rove;
Nor, for the worthless bird of brighter plumes,
Wou'd change the meanest warbler of my grove.

No diftant clime fhall fervile airs impart,

Or form thefe limbs with pliant ease to play;
Trembling I view the GAUL'S illufive art,
That fteals my lov'd rufticity away.

'Tis long fince freedom fled th' Hefperian clime; Her citron groves, her flow'r-embroider'd shore; She faw the British oak aspire fublime,

And foft CAMPANIA's olive charms no more.

To fhed its luftre o'er th' Iberian maid;
Mien, beauty, fhape, O native foil, are thine;
Thy peerless daughters afk no foreign aid.

*

Let CEYLON's envy'd plant perfume the feas,
"Till torn to feafon the Batavian bowl;

Ours is the breaft whofe genuine ardours please,
Nor need a drug to meliorate the foul.

Let the proud Soldan wound th' Arcadian groves,
Or with rude lips th' Aonian fount profane;
The mufe no more by flow'ry LA DON roves,
She feeks her THOMSON, on the British plain.

*The cinnamon.

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