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, While stain'd with blood he strives to tear The thoughts which musing Pity pays, Still Fancy, to herself unkind, Awakes to grief the soften'd mind, And points the bleeding friend. By rapid Scheld's descending wave That sacred spot the village hind And Peace protect the shade. Blest youth, regardful of thy doom, 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, Shall leave their sainted rest; And, half-reclining on his spear, Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield, Again for Britain's wrongs they feel, But lo, where, sunk in deep despair, Impatient Freedom lies! Her matted tresses madly spread, Ne'er shall she leave that lowly ground Till notes of triumph bursting round Till William seek the sad retreat, If, weak to soothe so soft an heart, If yet, in Sorrow's distant eye, 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, 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, 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 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; Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or, if chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain, Views wilds, and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires; |