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ODE TO A LADY ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL ROSS

IN THE ACTION OF FONTENOY.

Written in May, 1745.

WHILE, lost to all his former mirth,
Britannia's genius bends to earth,
And mourns the fatal day:

While stain'd with blood he strives to tear
Unseemly from his sea-green hair
The wreaths of cheerful May:

The thoughts which musing Pity pays,
And fond Remembrance loves to raise,
Your faithful hours attend:

Still Fancy, to herself unkind,

Awakes to grief the soften'd mind,

And points the bleeding friend.

By rapid Scheld's descending wave
His country's vows shall bless the grave,
Where'er the youth is laid:

That sacred spot the village hind
With ev'ry sweetest turf shall bind,

And Peace protect the shade.

Blest youth, regardful of thy doom,
Aerial hands shall build thy tomb,

With shadowy trophies crown'd:

Whilst Honour, bath'd in tears, shall rove To sigh thy name through ev'ry grove, And call his heroes round.

The warlike dead of ev'ry age,
Who fill the fair recording page,

Shall leave their sainted rest;

And, half-reclining on his spear,
Each wond'ring chief by turns appear,
To hail the blooming guest.

Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,
Shall crowd from Cressy's laurel'd field,
And gaze with fix'd delight;

Again for Britain's wrongs they feel,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish th' avenging fight.

But lo, where, sunk in deep despair,
Her garments torn, her bosom bare,

Impatient Freedom lies!

Her matted tresses madly spread,
To ev'ry sod, which wraps the dead,
She turns her joyless eyes.

Ne'er shall she leave that lowly ground

Till notes of triumph bursting round
Proclaim her reign restor❜d:

Till William seek the sad retreat,
And bleeding at her sacred feet,
Present the sated sword.

If, weak to soothe so soft an heart,
These pictur'd glories nought impart,
To dry thy constant tear:

If yet, in Sorrow's distant eye,
Expos'd and pale thou see'st him lie,
Wild War insulting near:

Where'er from time thou court'st relief, The Muse shall still, with social grief, Her gentlest promise keep;

E'en humble Harting's cottag'd vale

Shall learn the sad repeated tale,

And bid her shepherds weep.

ODE TO EVENING.

Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,
Like thy own brawling springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O Nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With braid ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat, With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid compos'd,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,

Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all

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