"Give me Contentment—that alone,
"Be mine peculiar, and my own.
"But, to the children of my love,
"Oh may thy lapse propitious prove;
"While Winter's cold and Summer's ray
"Conduct them forward on their way,
"With form erect, and placid brow,
"May they in health and virtue grow.
"May ev'ry hour, that passes, shed
"A blessing on each infant head;
"And onward to perfection guide,
"The parent's hope, the future pride:
"And should thine exit find my store,
"Diminish'd not, but rather more;
“I then shall hail thee, as my friend,
"And song shall celebrate thine end."-
"I grant thy pray'r-for thou (he said)
"Like Judah's king hast wisely pray'd."
AN INSCRIPTION.
ART thou a Man of honest mould,
With fervent heart, and soul sincere,
A husband, father, friend?-Behold!
Thy brother slumbers here.
The sun, that wakes the violet's bloom,
Once cheer'd his eye, now dark in death;
The wind, that wanders o'er his tomb,
Was once his vital breath.
But mark !—the wind shall pass away,
The sun shall vanish from the sky,-
Thy brother's bones, in that great day,
Shall live, and never die.
SHEFFIELD, FEBRUARY, 1806.
CONJUGAL MADRIGALS AND ODES,
BY THE LATE REV. THOMAS SEWARD.
ADDRESSED TO MRS. SEWARD*.
My lov'd ELIZA, shall the fire
Of wild, intemperate desire
Glow on each Poet's tongue,
While every Swain in every grove
To luckless, or to lawless love
Attunes the amorous song?
And shall not joy confirm'd, the best
And gayest inmate of the breast,
Awake one Muse's lute?
Shall airy Hope exalt her strain,
Despair in dying notes complain,
Yet Gratitude be mute?
When these Madrigals were written, their author had been recently married, and was residing at his living, Eyam, in the highest part of the Peak of Derbyshire. The succeeding Odes were composed a few years after. The Authoress, Anna Seward, is the fruit of that marriage. Two of her sisters died in their infancy, and one lived to attain the age of nineteen. Mr. Seward was the celebrated editor of Beaumont and Fletcher's Plays, in conjunction with a Mr. Simpfon, of London. The ingenious and critical notes were chiefly Mr. Seward's. He afterwards became Canon of Lichfield, and made that city his home.
While Cupids, in the face of day,
Their little, wanton brands display,
And scatter round their rays,
Shall Hymen's pure and equal flame
Suppress in indolence, or shame,
The Heaven-enkindled blaze?
A wiser and more virtuous rule
In Nature's uncorrupted school
The feather'd Songsters learn,
The linnet, nightingale, and thrush,
Still fluttering chirp from bush to bush
When first with love they burn.
But when compleat the genial nest,
Each of his pretty mate possest,
Their joys then know no bound,
Music expands their little throats,
And with the wild, ecstatic notes
Hills, woods, and skies resound.
TYAM, APRIL 5, 1743.
ELIZA, Love his fire hath spent
Betwixt myself and thee,
His ardent heat in me is pent,
His light all shines in thee.
We had broke the elemental right
Had we from wedlock run,
For Nature wills that heat and light
Incorporate in one.
KYAN, MARCH 7, 1743,
FIRST CONJUGAL ODE.
ADDRESSED TO MRS. SEWARD.
OFT to my memory rise the fanes,
Adorning bright Italian plains,
Which erst my steps had trac'd *,
When, having pass'd each Alpine height,
I mark'd, with wonder and delight,
The Boasts of Art and Taste:
Saw streets of palaces appear
Where stately GENOA shines afar;
Saw VENICE crown the Main;
Gay FLORENCE, in her pride, impart
The GLORIES, which existing art
Still emulates in vain;
And NAPLES her fair form display
Reflected in her ample bay,
When Suns their lustre pour,
Yet sighing moraliz'd her fate,
And felt of its tremendous date
Th' inevitable hour†:
And when the Moon, with softer
Stood silvering wide the darksome sky,
Saw red Vesuvius stand,
While o'er the waveless flood serene
The sanguine glare and silver sheen
Dividually expand :
* Mr. Seward had visited several of the French and Italian Cities with his Pupil, Lord Charles Fitzroy, who died on his travels. He was youngest son to the late Duke of Grafton.
By the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius from which her narrow and repeated escapes have been almost miraculous.
And trod with awe the scene sublime,
Those Wrecks august, which ruthless Time
On seven proud hills hath strown,
Where ROME, her radiant skies beneath,
Sits with the solemn air of Death
Upon her ruin'd throne.
O, ITALY! how vast the boons
Which Empires, Arts, and cloudless Suns
Have lavish'd on thy plains!
Woods, that in pomp theatric wave,
As Tybur, Po, and Arno lave
Thy vallies, and thy fanes.
Triumphs of NATURE, Power, and ART,
Ye may, ye must delight impart,
Yet mournful the survey,
Where loose Intrigue and Bigot Zeal,
And fell Revenge, with coward steel,
Eclipse the moral day.
How pleas'd, my foreign circuit o'er,
Thy wayward skies, thy storm-beat shore,
Green vales, and thymy hills,
My native Isle, again I hail'd,
While all the patriot pride prevail'd
The British heart that fills!
And I have built my nest where rise
Mountains that stand in loftiest guise,
Peak's windy shrine to shield;
Rocks, on whose summits, far and wide,
Bleak cliffs and grey lone heaths divide
Each stone-fenc'd, naked field.
Yet oft we meet the tangled dale
Low sunk, or rich romantic vale,
Where foliag'd rivers twine;
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