She comes! ye zephyrs bland, Your purple plumes expand; Ye blooming flowers, your balmy breath diffuse; Ye birds, with warbled air, Salute the peerless fair, Sacred to love, to beauty, and the muse. R. A. DAVENPORT. TO SLEEP. THOUGH oft in hours of grief and pain, Yet, once again thy aid imploring, Think not I ask thee to befriend Awhile this breast in anguish sighing: To me no succour thou canst lend; My woes, such feeble force defying, But fly to Lesbia's couch, and there And O thy visions, heavenly bright! R. A. DAVENPORT. ODE. LET the sons of Lucre pine For glittering heaps of golden ore, To swell the' accumulated store, Contemn the terrors of the mine; Explore the caverns dark and drear, Mantled around with deadly dew; Where congregated vapours blue, Fired by the taper glimmering near, Bid dire explosion the deep realms invade, And earth-born lightnings gleam athwart the' infernal shade. Pride, on thy vesture's purple fold, To meet the forked lightning's flash; Or let his freight secure the surges sweep, And of their prey defraud the monsters of the deep: VOL. III. X My bark the tide of young desire, Amid ensanguined fields of war, His spectre shapes, a ghastly band: Nor Death his fierce unconquer'd soul can tame, Or from his grasp withhold the glorious meed of Fame. But let me wander far away From the loud drum and neighing steed, Through many a pansie-painted mead, Where Isis' bright-hair'd Naiads stray; High o'er my head a pendent bower Let the broad elm and branching pine With intermingling umbrage twine; There Love's impassion'd song I'll pour, And summon every wave that dances near, Bridling his wanton speed my Lesbia's praise to hear. Where the pale lamp's waning eye But o'er my haunts with influence bland Bind in harmonious chains my soul, While to the charmed ear in heavenly strains, Enamour'd of thy touch, each trembling chord complains. Then, fairest, let my bosom feel Grateful as, mid noon's sultry hour, The grot where trickling dews congeal : So shall my song exalt thy praise above REV. G. HUDDISFORD. AMATORY ODE. Now hath the Sun his evanescent fires Quench'd in the billows of the western main; Cease their soft carols all the feather'd choirs, And gloomy solitude usurps the plain. Rise, ye deep shades, ye waves in darkness roll, Pale Dryads mourn in many a ruin'd shade; Wake not my love:-Let not your thundering cry With dread alarm the haunt of peace infest; Here breathe in soft Æolian melody Each cadence sweet that charms the soul to rest. Ye spectres (whom belated pilgrims fear, Issuing in throngs from charnel, vault, or tomb, What time deep shadowing clouds thy radiant sphere, Cynthia, involve in night's meridian gloom), Hence to deserted fane or mouldering hall, Or the gaunt felon's ruthless course control; With monitory shriek the wretch appal, And to compunction wake his torpid soul. But walk not near the couch were Lesbia lies Like some rich pearl in its enamel'd shell, Or sainted relic, from profaner eyes Secluded in the dim shrine's silver cell. |