Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Behold th' ascending villas on my side,

Project long shadows o'er the crystal tide;
Behold! Augusta's glitt'ring spires increase,
And temples rise, the beauteous works of Peace.
I see, I see, where two fair cities bend

375

380

Their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend!
There mighty nations shall enquire their doom,
The world's great oracle in times to come;
There kings shall sue, and suppliant states be seen
Once more to bend before a British queen.

384

Thy trees, fair Windsor! now shall leave their

woods,

And half thy forests rush into the floods,
Bear Britain's thunder, and her cross display

To the bright regions of the rising day;

Tempt icy seas, where scarce the waters roll,
Where clearer flames glow round the frozen pole;
Or under southern, skies exalt their sails,

391

Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales!

For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow,

The coral redden, and the ruby glow,

The pearly shell its lucid globe infold,

395

And Phoebus warm the rip'ning ore to gold.

The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind,
Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,

And seas but join the regions they divide;

400

Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,
And the new world launch forth to seek the old.
Then ships of uncouth form shall stem the tide,
And feather'd people crowd my wealthy side,
And naked youths and painted chiefs admire
Our speech, our colour, and our strange attire!
Oh stretch thy reign, fair Peace! from shore to shore,
Till conquest cease, and slav'ry be no more;

405

Till the freed Indians in their native groves

Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves;

Peru once more a race of kings behold,

411

And other Mexicos be roof'd with gold.
Exil'd by thee, from earth to deepest hell,

415

420

In brazen bonds, shall barb'rous Discord dwell:
Gigantic Pride, pale Terror, gloomy Care,
And mad Ambition, shall attend her there:
There purple Vengeance, bath'd in gore, retires,
Her weapons blunted, and extinct her fires:
There hated Envy her own snakes shall feel,
And Persecution mourn her broken wheel:
There Faction roar, Rebellion bite her chain,
And gasping furies thirst for blood in vain.
Here cease thy flight, nor, with unhallow'd lays,
Touch the fair fame of Albion's golden days:
The thoughts of gods let Granville's verse recite,
And bring the scenes of op'ning fate to light.

426

My humble Muse, in unambitious strains,
Paints the green forests and the flow'ry plains,
Where Peace descending bids her olives spring,
And scatters blessings from her dove-like wing.

10401

THE ARGUMENT.

Phaon, a youth of exquisite beauty, was deeply ena. moured of Sappho, a lady of Lesbos, from whom he met with the tenderest returns of passion: but his affection afterwards decaying, he left her, and sailed for Sicily. She, unable to bear the loss of her lover, hearkened to all the mad suggestions of despair; and seeing no other remedy for her present miseries, resolved to throw herself into the sea, from Leucate, a promontory of Epirus, which was thought a cure in cases of obstinate love, and therefore had obtained the name of the Lover's Leap. But before she ven. tured upon this last step, entertaining still some fond hopes that she might be able to reclaim her inconstant, she wrote him this epistle, in which she gives him a strong picture of her distress and misery, occasioned by his absence, and endeavours, by all the artful insinuations and moving expressions she is mistress of, to soothe him to softness and a mutual feeling. [Anon.]

SAY, lovely youth, that dost my heart command, Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand? Must then her name the wretched writer prove, To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?

Ask not to cause that I new numbers chuse,

The Inte

7

lected, and the lyric muse;

Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
And tun'd my heart to elegies of woe.

I burn, I burn, as when through ripen'd corn

5

By driving winds the spreading flames are borne !
Phaon to Etna's scorching fields retires,

11

While I consume with more than Etna's fires!

No more my soul a charm in music finds;

Music has charms alone for peaceful minds.
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please;
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
No more the Lesbian dames my passions move,
Once the dear objects of my guilty love;

All other loves are lost in only thine,
Oh youth, ungrateful to a flame like mine!

15

20

25

Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise,
Those heav'nly looks, and dear deluding eyes?
The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear,
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear:
Would you with ivy wreath your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare:
Yet Phoebus lov'd, and Bacchus felt the flame;
One Daphne warm'd, and one the Cretan dame;
Nymphis that in verse no more could rival me,
Than ev'n those gods contend in charms with thee.

« AnteriorContinuar »