LINES

SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD,

ON LORD GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION

AS CHANCELLOR.

YE viewless guardians of these sacred shades,

Dear dreams of early song, Aonian maids!-
And you, illustrious dead! whose spirits speak
In each warm flush that tints the student's cheek,

As, wearied with the world, he seeks again
The page of better times and greater men;

If with pure worship we your steps pursue,

And youth, and health, and rest forget for you,

(Whom most we serve, to whom our lamp burns bright

Through the long toils of not ingrateful night,)

Yet, yet be present!-Let the worldly train

Mock our cheap joys, and hate our useless strain,

Intent on freighted wealth, or proud to rear

The fleece Iberian or the pamper'd steer ;

Let sterner science with unwearied eye

Explore the circling spheres and map the sky;
His long-drawn mole let lordly commerce scan,
And of his iron arch the rainbow span:
Yet, while, in burning characters imprest,
The poet's lesson stamps the youthful breast;

Bids the rapt boy o'er suffering virtue bleed,
Adore a brave or bless a gentle deed,

And in warm feeling from the storied page

Arise the saint, the hero, or the sage;

Such be our toil!-Nor doubt we to explore

The thorny maze of dialectic lore,

To climb the chariot of the gods, or scan

The secret workings of the soul of man;
Upborne aloft on Plato's eagle flight,

Or the slow pinion of the Stagyrite.

And, those grey spoils of Herculanean pride,

If aught of yet untasted sweets they hide ;

If Padua's sage be there, or art have power

To wake Menander from his secret bower.

Such be our toil!-Nor vain the labour proves,

Which Oxford honours, and which Grenville loves!

-On, eloquent and firm!-whose warning high
Rebuked the rising surge of anarchy,

When, like those brethren stars to seamen known,

In kindred splendour Pitt and Grenville shone ;

On in thy glorious course! not yet the wave

Has ceas'd to lash the shore, nor storm forgot to rave.

Go on! and oh, while adverse factions raise

To thy pure worth involuntary praise;

While Gambia's swarthy tribes thy mercies bless,

And from thy counsels date their happiness;

Say, (for thine Isis yet recals with pride

Thy youthful triumphs by her leafy side,)

Say, hast thou scorn'd, mid pomp, and wealth, and power,

The sober transports of a studious hour?

No, statesman, no!-thy patriot fire was fed
From the warm embers of the mighty dead;
And thy strong spirit's patient grasp combin'd
The souls of ages in a single mind.—

-By arts like these, amidst a world of foes,

Eye of the earth, th' Athenian glory rose ;Thus, last and best of Romans, Brutus shone ;Our Somers thus, and thus our Clarendon;

Such Cobham was;-such, Grenville, long be thou,

Our boast before,—our chief and champion now!—

EPITAPH

ON A

YOUNG NAVAL OFFICER.

DESIGNED FOR A TOMB IN A SEAPORT TOWN IN NORTH WALES.

SAILOR! if vigour nerve thy frame,

If to high deeds thy soul is strung,

Revere this stone that gives to fame

The brave, the virtuous, and the young!

For manly beauty deck'd his form,

His bright eye beam'd with mental power;

Resistless as the winter storm,

Yet mild as summer's mildest shower.