ODE FOR THE KING'S BIRTH-DAY.

By HENRY JAMES PYE, Esq. POET Laureat.
ONG did chill Winter's dreary reign
Usurp the promis'd hours of Spring;

Long Eurus o'er the russet plain

Malignant wav'd his noisome wing.
O'er April's variegated day

The frolic zephyrs fear'd to play ;
Th' alternate change of suns and showers
Call'd not to life her silken flowers;
But arm'd with whirlwind, frost, and hail,
Winter's ungenial blasts prevail,

And check her vernal powers.

But o'er the renovated plain
See Maia lead her smiling train
Of halcyon hours along;
While burst from every echoing grove
Loud strains of harmony and love,
Preluding to the choral song,
Which opening June shall votive pour

To hail with proud acclaim our Monarch's natal hour.

Still must that day, to Britain dear,
To Britons joy impart;

Cloudy or bright, that day shall wear
The sunshine of the heart.

And as before the fervid ray

That genial glows in summer skies,
Each cloud that veil'd the beam of day
Far from the azure welkin flies:
So may each cheerless mist that seems
Awhile to cloud our prospects fair,
Dispell'd by hope's enlivening beams,

Our brightening ether fly, and melt away in air.
Awhile though Fortune adverse frown-
By timid friends their cause betray'd,
With bosom firm and undismay'd,

On force depending all their own,
A living rampire round their parent Lord,
The British warriors grasp th' avenging sword;
While youths of royal hope demand the fight,
To assert a Monarch and a Father's right.

United in one patriot band,

From Albion's, Erin's, Caledonia's land,
Elate in arms indignant shine

The kindred heroes of the Briton line,

To whelm invasion 'neath our circling flood,

Or stain our verdant fields with Gallia's hostile blood.'

CORYDON

ADDRESS OF MARY QUEEN of SCOTLAND, on the ANNUNCIATION of her fatal SENTENCE.

[Translated by Lord HOLLAND, from LOPE DE VEGA'S POEM on this unfortunate Princess.]

TH

HANKS for your news, illustrious lords, she cried ;
I greet the doom that must my griefs decide:
Sad though it be, though sense must shrink from pain,
Yet the immortal soul the trial shall sustain.

But had the fatal sentence reach'd my ears

In France, in Scotland, with my husband crown'd,
Not age itself could have allayed my fears,

And my poor heart had shudder'd at the sound.

But now immur'd for twenty tedious years,

Where nought my listening cares can catch around
But fearful noise of danger and alarms,

The frequent threat of death, and constant din of arms,

Ah! what have I in dying to bemoan?

What punishment in death can they devise
For her who living only lives to groan,

And see continual death before her eyes?

Comfort's in death, where 't is in life unknown ;

Who death expects feels more than he who dies :-
Though too much valour may our fortune try,

To live in fear of death is many times to die.

Where have I e'er repos'd in silent night,

But death's stern image stalk'd around my bed?
What morning e'er arose on me with light,
But on my health some sad disaster bred?

Did Fortune ever aid my war or flight,

Or grant a refuge for my hapless head'

Still at my life some fearful phantom aim'd,

My draughts with poison drugg'd, my towers with treachery

flamed.

And now with fatal certainty I know

Is come the hour that my sad being ends,

Where life must perish with a single blow;

Then mark her death whom steadfast faith attends :

My cheeks unchang'd my inward calm shall show,

While free from foes, serene, my generous friends,

I meet my death-or rather I should say,
Meet my eternal life, my everlasting day.

The

The LUCKY ESCAPE.

[By the Same, translated from the ARCADIA of the Same

IN the green season of my flowering years,

IN

I liv'd, O Love! a captive in thy chains;
Sang of delusive hopes and idle fears,

And wept thy follies in my wisest strains:
Sad sport of time when under thy controul,
So wild was grown my wit, so blind my soul.

But from the yoke which once my courage tam'd
I, undeceived, at length have slipp'd my head,
And in that sun whose rays my soul enflam'd,
What scraps I rescued at my case I spread.
So shall I altars to Indifference raise,

And chaunt without alarm returning freedom's praise.

So on their chains the ransom'd captives dwell;
So carols one who cured relates his wound;

So slaves of masters, troops of battle tell,

As I my cheerful liberty resound.

Freed, sea and burning fire, from thy controul,
Prison, wound, war, and tyrant

of my

soul.

Remain then, faithless friend, thy arts to try
On such as court akerrate joy and pain;

For me, I dire her very eyes defy,

I scorn the amorous snare, the pleasing chain,
That held enthrail'd my cheated heart so long,

And charm'd my erring soul unconscious of its wrong.

CORYDON. (A MONODY.)

[From Mr. RAYMOND'S LIFE OF THOMAS DERMODY.]

(In this Monody the author, a youth of ten years of age, bewails the death of his brother; who died of the small-pox, an. 1785, etatis 7.)

W

HAT dire misfortune hovers o'er my head?

Why hangs the salt dew on my aching eye?
Why doth my bosom pant, so sad, so sore,
That was full blithe before?-

Bitter occasion prompts ch' untimely sigh;
Why am I punish'd thus, ye angels! why?
A shepherd swain like me, of harmless guise,
Whose sole amusement was to feed his kine,
And tune his oaten pipe the livelong day,

Could

1806.

Could he in aught offend th'avenging skies,
Or wake the red-wing'd thunderbolt divine?
Ah! no of simple structure was his lay;
Yet unprofan'd with trick of city art,

Pure from the head, and glowing from the heart.-
Thou dear memorial of a brother's love,

Sweet flute, once warbled to the list'ning grove,
And master'd by his skilful hand,

How shall I now command

The hidden charms that lurk within thy frame,
Or tell his gentle fame?

Yet will I hail, unmeet, his star-crown'd shade;
And beck his rural friends, a tuneful throng,
To mend the uncouth lay, and join the rising song,
Ah! I remember well yon oaken arbour gay.
Where frequent at the purple dawn of morn,
Or 'neath the beetling brow of twilight grey,
We sate, like roses twain upon one thorn,
Telling romantic tales, of descant quaint,
Tinted in various hues with fancy's paint:
And I would hearken, greedy of his sound,
Lapt in the bosom of soft ecstacy,
Till, lifting mildly high

Her modest frontlet from the clouds around,
Silence beheld us bruise the closing flow'rs,
Ileanwhile she shed her pure ambrosial show'rs.

O Shannon! thy embroider'd banks can tell
How oft we stray'd beside thy amber wave,
With osier rods arching thy wizard stream,
Or weaving garlands for thy liquid brow.
Ah me! my dearest partner seeks the grave;
The ruthless grave, extinguisher of joy.
Fond Corydon, scarce ripen'd into boy,
Where shall I ever find thy pleasing peer?

My task is now (ungrateful task, I ween!)
To cull the choisest offspring of the year,
With myrtles mix'd, and laurels varnish'd bright;
And, scatt'ring o'er thy hillock green

The poor meed, greet the gloom of night.

Ye healing Pow'rs, that range the velvet mead,
Exhaling the fresh breeze from Zephyr's bow'r,
Oh! where, in that unhappy hour,

Where did you fly from his neglected head?

O Health, thou mountain maid of sprightliest cheek,
Ah! why not cool his forehead meek?

Why not in his blest cause thy pow'r display,
And chase the fell disorder far away?

For he erewhile, most lovely of thy train,
Wont the entangled wood to trace,

Would hear the jocund horn, and join the chase:

Till thou relinquish'dst him to grief and pain,
E'en in the bloom of flourishing age;

And Death, grim tyrant, from his plague-drawn car
Espied the horrid Fury's ruthless rage,

Then wing'd his ebon shaft, and stopp'd the ling'ring war.

Yet cease to weep, ye swains; for if no cloud
Of thwarting influence mar my keener sight,
I mark'd a stranger-star, serenely bright,
Burst from the dim inclosure of a shrowd.,
'T was Corydon! a radiant circlet bound
His brow of meekness; and the silver sound,
Shook from his lyre, of gratulations loud,
Smooth'd the unruffled raven-plume of Night.-
Thus chanted the rude youth his past'ral strain,
While the cold earth his playmate's bosom press'd.
And now the sun, slow westing to the main,
Panted to give his wearied coursers rest;

The azure curtains took a crimson strain,
And Thetis shone, in golden garment drest.
The shepherd-minstrel bent his homeward way,
And brush'd the dew-drops from the glitt❜ring spray.

THE POET'S RECANTATION.

Addressed to Mr. BERWICK.

[From the Same.]

"Facit recantatio versum.

UFF'D with false hopes of fame and honour,
My muse (the Philistines upon her!),

Stiff in her own bold ipse Dixit,

Erst sent me out a true Don Quixote ;
Despising wealth, content, and pleasure,
For authorship's enchanted treasure :
Nor could the great Eliza's kindness
Purge from my eye poetie blindness.
At last, well vers'd in cares and trouble,
I see my former folly double

(As Edipus, with haggard eyes,

Saw double suns and worlds arise;'

*«Facit indignatio versum." HoR.

+ Countess of Moira.

And