What wonder if, to patient valour train'd, They guard with spirit what by strength they gain'd?

And while their rocky ramparts round they see, The rough abode of want and liberty,

(As lawless force from confidence will grow) Insult the plenty of the vales below?

What wonder, in the sultry climes, that spread
Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed
From his broad bosom life and verdure flings,
And broods o'er Egypt with his watery wings,
If with adventurous oar and ready sail,
The dusky people drive before the gale;
Or on frail floats to neighbouring cities ride,
That rise and glitter o'er the ambient tide.

[The following couplet, which was intended to have been introduced in the poem on the Alliance of Education and Government, is much too beautiful to be lost, MASON.]

When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.

STANZAS TO MR. BENTLY.

Mr. Bently had made a set of designs for Mr. Gray's Poems, particularly a head-piece to the Long Story. The original drawings are in the library at Strawberry Hill.

In silent gaze the tuneful choir among,

Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire,

While Bently leads her sister art along,
And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.

See, in their course, each transitory thought
Fix'd by his touch a lasting essence take;
Each dream, in fancy's airy colouring wrought
To local symmetry and life awake!

The tardy rhymes that used to linger on,

To censure cold, and negligent of fame,

In swifter measure animated run,

And catch a lustre from his genuine flame.
Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace
His quick creation, his unerring line;
The energy of Pope they might efface;
And Dryden's harmony submit to mine.

But not to one in this benighted age
Is that diviner inspiration given,

That burns in Shakspeare's or in Milton's page,
The pomp and prodigality of heaven.

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.

101

As when conspiring in the diamond's blaze, The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight, Together dart their intermingled rays,

And dazzle with a luxury of light.

Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy 'impart;'
And as their pleasing influence 'flows confest,'
A sigh of soft reflection 'heaves the heart.'

*

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER. WRITTEN IN 1761.

AND FOUND IN ONE OF HIS POCKET BOOKS.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to impor

tune;

He had not the method of making a fortune: Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;

No very great wit, he believed in a God:
A post or a pension he did not desire,

But left church and state to Charles Townsend and Squire*.

* Squire] At that time Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of St. David's.

SONG.

Written, at the request of Miss Speed, to an old air of Geminiani:—the thought from the French.

THYRSIS, when we parted, swore
Ere the spring he would return―
Ah! what means yon violet flower?

And the bud that decks the thorn?
'Twas the lark that upward sprung!
'Twas the nightingale that sung!

Idle notes! untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste?
Western gales and skies serene
Speak not always winter past.

Cease, my doubts, my fears to move,
Spare the honour of my love.

102

IMPROMPTU.

Suggested by a view of the Seat and Ruins of a deceased nobleman, at Kingsgate, Kent, in 1766. (The house was built as a correct imitation of Cicero's Formian Villa, at Baiæ.)

OLD, and abandon'd by each venal friend,
Here Holland form'd the pious resolution
To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.

On this congenial spot he fix'd his choice;
Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring
sand;

Here seagulls scream, and cormorants rejoice, And mariners, though shipwreck'd, dread to land.

Here reign the blustering North and blighting East,

No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing;
Yet nature could not furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.

Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled monasteries delude our eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.