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Or on the mind, or mind-illumined face;
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love,
The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven?
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh speak the joy! ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All-various nature pressing on the heart;
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.

These are the matchless joys of virtuous love,

And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus,
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy, and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads :
"Till evening comes at last, serene and mild;

When, after the long vernal day of life,
Enamour'd more, as more remembrance swells,
With many a proof of recollected love,
Together down they sink in social sleep;
Together freed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

ELEGY

To the Memory of an unfortunate Lady.

BY POPE.

WHAT beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
'Tis she!-But why that bleeding bosom gored?
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it in heaven a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
Why bade ye else, ye pow'rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes:
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;

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Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen prisoners in the body's cage ;

Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern kings, a lazy state they keep,
And close confined to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

And separate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,

Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death:
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball,

Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,

And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates:
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long funerals blacken all the way,)
"Lo! these were they whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.

Thus unlamented pass the proud away,

The gaze of fools, and pageants of a day!
So perish all whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe."
What can atone (oh ever injured shade!)

Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid ?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier ;
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances and the public show;
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face;

What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb;
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow:
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy relics made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame,

How loved, how honour'd once, avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee;

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung, Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. E'en he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays; Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part, And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart; Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The muse forgot, and thou beloved no more!

L'ALLEGRO.

BY MILTON.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy, Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night raven sings;

There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

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