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When with fond eyes she loves to trace
The beauties of her moral race,
And with blithe confidence can say,
She liv'd with Virtue ev'ry day,
That still she urg'd life's great design,
To fit herself for bliss divine;

Then Conscience lends the plausive note,
Thro' ev'ry sense of joy to float,

Strikes music from each vital string,

That envies not when Angels sing 20 Dissolv'd in extasy she lies,

And sweetly pre-enjoys the skies.

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EPISTLE XIII.

WRITTEN IN A COTTAGE AT

PARK-PLACE.

The Seat of the Right Hon.

GENERAL CONWAY,

BY THE REV. MR. POWYS.

THE

HE works of Art let others praise,

Where Pride her waste of wealth betrays,
And Fashion, independent grown,

Usurps her parent Nature's throne,
Lays all her fair dominions waste,
And calls the devastation Taste.
But I who ne'er, with servile awe,
Give Fashion's whims the force of law,
Scorn all the glitter of expence,
When destitute of use and sense.
More pleas'd to see the wanton rill,
Which trickles from some craggy hill,
Free thro' the valley wind its way,
Than when, immur'd in walls of clay,
It strives in vain its bonds to break,
And stagnates in a crooked lake.

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With sighs I see the native oak
Bow to th' inexorable stroke,
Whilst an exotic puny race
Of upstart shrubs usurps its place,
Which, born beneath a milder sky,
Shrink at a wintry blast, and die.
I ne'er behold without a smile
The venerable Gothic pile,
Which in our father's wiser age
Was shelter'd from the tempest's rage,
Stand to the dreary north expos'd,
Within a Chinese fence inclos'd.

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For me, each leaden God may reign In quiet o'er his old domain;

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Their claim is good by Poet's laws,
And Poets must support their cause.
But when old Neptune's fish-tail'd train
Of Tritons, haunts an upland plain ;
When Dian seems to urge the chace,
In a snug garden's narrow space;
When Mars, with insult rude, invades
The virgin Muses' peaceful shades;
With light'ning arm'd, when angry Jove
Scares the poor tenants of the grove, 40
I cannot blindly league with those,
Who thus the Poet's creed oppose.

To Nature, in my earliest youth,
I vow'd my constancy and truth;

When in her Hardwicke's much-lov'd shade

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Enamour'd of her charms I stray'd:
And as I rov'd the woods among,
Her praise in lisping numbers sung;
Nor will I now resign my heart,
A captive to her rival art.
Far from the pageant scenes of pride,
She still my careless steps shall guide,
Whether by Contemplation led,
The rich romantic wilds I tread,
Where Nature, for her pupil man,
Has sketch'd out many a noble plan;

Or whether from yon wood-crown'd brow,
I view the lovely vale below.

For when, with more than common care,
Nature had sketch'd her landscape there, ba
Her Conway caught the fair design,
And soften'd ev'ry harsher line;

In pleasing lights each object plac'd,
And heighten'd all the piece with taste.
O Conway! whilst the public voice
Applauds our Sov'reign's well weigh'd choice,
Fain would my patriot Muse proclaim
The Statesman's and the Soldier's fame :
And bind immortal on thy brow
The civic crown and laurel bough.
But tho' unskill'd to join the choir,
Who aptly tune the courtly lyre,
Though with the vassals of thy state,
I never at thy levee wait,

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Yet be it oft my happier lot,

To meet thee in this rural cot,
To see thee here thy mind unbend,
And quit the Statesman for the Friend?
Whilst smiles unbought, and void of art,
Spring genuine from the social heart. 8

Happy the Muse, which here retir'd,
By gratitude like mine inspir'd;
Dupe to no party, loves to pay
To worth like thine, her grateful lay:
And in no venal verse commend,

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The Man of Taste, and Nature's friend.

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