Nor thus beneath the straw-roof'd cot, On heathy hill, in grassy glade: - With hues of thought, with fancy's gleam, To bid thy minstrel honours live, The praise my numbers can assign, It still is soothing thus to give. There needs, in truth, no lofty lyre To yield thy Muse her homage due ; ་་་་་་་་་་ At springs which gave thine own its birth. Those springs may boast no classic name He who shall trust, without demur, It is not quaint and local terms Besprinkled o'er thy rustic lay, Its truest, and its tenderest spell; These amid Britain's tuneful choir Shall give thy honour'd name to dwell: And when Death's shadowy curtain fell Upon thy toilsome earthly lot, With grateful joy thy heart might swell To feel that these reproach'd thee not. To feel that thou hadst not incurr'd The deep compunction, bitter shame, Of prostituting gifts conferr'd To strengthen Virtue's hallow'd claim. How much more glorious is the name, The humble name which thou hast won, Than-" damn'd with everlasting fame,' To be for fame itself undone. Better, and nobler was thy choice To be the Bard of simple swains,— And soothe with sympathy their pains; The themes their thoughts and tongues discuss, And be, though free from classic chains, Our own more chaste THEOCRITUS. For this should SUFFOLK proudly own "TIS NOW TOO LATE! the scene is clos'd, And in the peaceful grave repos'd That frame which pain shall rack no more ;Peace to the Bard whose artless store/ Was spread for Nature's lowliest child ; Whose song, well meet for peasant lore, Was lowly, simple, undefil'd. vona Yet long may guileless hearts preserve While SUFFOLK PEASANTRY may be London Magazine. ELEGIAC STANZAS, Written by an Officer long resident in India, on his return to England. THE following Stanzas are worthy of being committed to memory by young and old. They paint life and the fallacy of human expectations in their true colours, remove the veil which fancy had thrown over them, and shew how different are the mellowed and subdued feelings of declining age from the ardour of youth, and its vivid imaginings of undying bliss.—ED. I came, but they had pass'd away,— Where all are strange, and none are kind; Kind to the worn, the wearied soul, That pants, that struggles for repose: 2. Years have past o'er me like a dream, That leaves no trace on memory's page: I look around me, and I seem Some relic of a former age. Alone, as in a stranger-clime, Where stranger-voices mock my ear; I mark the lagging course of time, Without a wish,a hope, a fear! 3. Yet I had hopes,and they have fled; I may not, dare not, cast away; 4. As they, the loveliest of their race, Whose grassy tombs my sorrows steep; Life can bestow no dearer boon On one whom death disdains to free. 5. I leave a world that knows me not, To hold communion with the dead; And fancy consecrates the spot Where fancy's softest dreams are shed. |