XXII.

Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend.

WHEN from the heart where Sorrow sits,

Her dusky shadow mounts too high,

And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;

Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink:

My thoughts their dungeon know too well;

Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,

And droop within their silent cell.

XXIII.

Address, spoken at the opening of Drury-lane Theatre, Saturday, October 10th, 1812.

In one dread night our city saw, and sighed,
Bowed to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride;

In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,
Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.

Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourned, Whose radiance mocked the ruin it adorned!) Through clouds of fire, the massy fragments riven,

Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven;

Saw the long column of revolving flames

Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,

While thousands, thronged around the burning dome,
Shrank back appalled, and trembled for their home,
As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone
The skies, with lightnings awful as their own,
Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall

Usurped the Muse's realm, and marked her fall;
Say-shall this new, nor less aspiring pile,
Reared where once rose the mightiest in our isle,
Know the same favour which the former knew,
A shrine for Shakspeare-worthy him and you?

Yes-it shall be-the magic of that name

Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame;

On the same spot still consecrates the scene,
And bids the Drama be where she hath been:

This fabric's birth attests the potent spell-
Indulge our honest pride, and say, How well!

As soars this fane to emulate the last,

Oh! might we draw our omens from the past,
Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast
Names such as hallow still the dome we lost.

On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art

O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the sternest heart.
On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew;

Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew,
Sighed his last thanks, and wept his last adieu :

But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom

That only waste their odours o'er the tomb.

VOL. IV.

Н

Such Drury claimed and claims-nor you refuse
One tribute to revive his slumbering muse;

With garlands deck your own Menander's head!
Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead!

Dear are the days which made our annals bright,
Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write.

Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs,
Vain of our ancestry as they of theirs;

While thus Remembrance borrows Banquo's glass