THE MEANING OF LIFE.

¡HEN I behold thee, blameless Williamson, Wrecked like an infant on a savage shore, While others round on borrowed pinions soar,

My busy fancy calls thy thread mis-spun :

Till Faith instructs me the deceit to shun

While thus she speaks, 'Those wings that from the store

Of virtue were not lent, howe'er they bore

In this gross air, will melt when near the sun.
The truly ambitious wait for Nature's time,
Content by certain, though by slow degrees
To mount above the reach of vulgar flight;
Nor is that man confined to this low clime,
Who but the extremest skirts of glory sees
And hears celestial echoes with delight.'

53

TO DAMPIER.

HRICE worthy guardian of that sacred spring,
That erst with copious streams enriched this

land,

When Cæsar taught our nobles to command,
Tully to speak, Mæonides to sing;
Till Fashion, stealing with unheeded wing

Into this realm, with touch of foreign hand,
Our girls emboldened, and our boys unmanned,
And drew all ages to her magic ring:-

Yet shalt not thou be backward in thy sphere

To thwart a sickly world; the sceptre given
Thou know'st to wield, and force the noble youth

To merit titles they were born to bear:

Thou know'st that every sceptre is from Heaven

That guides mankind to virtue and to truth.

ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST.

¡N vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join,
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire:
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine,
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire;
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men ;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear,
To warm their little loves the birds complain;

I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear;
And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

ANNIVERSARY.

PLAINTIVE sonnet flowed from Milton's pen
When Time had stolen his three and twentieth

year :

Say shall not I then shed one tuneful tear

Robbed by the thief of three-score years and ten? No! for the foes of all life-lengthened men,

Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near ; Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory dear, Hold unimpaired their weak, yet wonted reign : Still round my sheltered lawn I pleased can stray; Still trace my sylvan blessings to their spring: Being of Beings! yes, that silent lay,

Which musing Gratitude delights to sing,

Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey,

And Hope, the cherub of unwearied wing.

ON BATHING.

HEN late the trees were stript by winter pale,
Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture green,
Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen,

On airy uplands met the piercing gale ;
And, ere its earliest echo shook the vale,
Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen.
But since, gay-throned in fiery chariot sheen,
Summer has smote each daisy-dappled dale;
She to the caves retires, high-arched beneath
The fount that laves proud Isis' towered brim ;
And now, all glad the temperate air to breathe,
While cooling drops distil from arches dim,
Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath,
She sits amid the quire of Naiads trim.