Page images
PDF
EPUB

Old Neptune guides us while we swim,
To check the haughty foe.

United let each Briton join,
Courageously advance,

We'll baffle every vain design,
And check the pride of France.

[ocr errors]

SONG.

LOOSE ev'ry sail to the breeze,

The course of my vessel improve :
I've done with the toils of the seas,
Ye sailors, I'm bound to my love.

Since Emma is true as she's fair,

My griefs I fling all to the wind: 'Tis a pleasing return for my care, My mistress is constant and kind.

My sails are all fill'd to my dear;
What tropic bird swifter can move?

Who, cruel, shall hold his career

That returns to the nest of his love?

Hoist ev'ry sail to the breeze,

Come, shipmates, and join in the song; Let's drink, while the ship cuts the seas, To the gale that may drive her along.

HENRY HEADLEY.

BORN 1766.-DIED 1788.

HENRY HEADLEY, whose uncommon talents were lost to the world at the age of twenty-two, was born at Instead, in Norfolk. He received his education at the grammar school of Norwich, under Dr. Parr; and, at the age of sixteen, was admitted a member of Trinity college, Oxford. There the example of Warton led him to explore the beauties of our elder poets. About the age of twenty he published some pieces of verse, which exhibit no very remarkable promise; but his "Select Beauties of the Ancient English Poets," which appeared in the following year, were accompanied with critical observations, that shewed an unparalleled ripeness of mind for his years. On leaving the university, after a residence of four years, he married, and retired to Matlock, in Derbyshire. His matrimonial choice is said to have been hastily formed, amidst the anguish of disappointment in a previous attachment. But, short as his life was, he survived the lady whom he married.

The symptoms of consumption having appeared in his constitution, he was advised to try the benefit of a warmer climate; and he took the resolution of repairing to Lisbon, unattended by a single friend. On landing at Lisbon, far from feeling any relief

from the climate, he found himself oppressed by its sultriness; and, in this forlorn state, was on the point of expiring, when Mr. De Visme, to whom he had received a letter of introduction from the late Mr. Windham, conveyed him to his healthful villa, near Cintra, allotted spacious apartments for his use, procured for him the ablest medical assistance, and treated him with every kindness and amusement that could console his sickly existence. But his malady proved incurable; and, returning to England at the end of a few months, he expired at Norwich.

FROM HIS INVOCATION TO MELANCHOLY.

*

CHILD of the potent spell and nimble eye,
Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd,
Points to new scenes that in succession pass
Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears,
And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye
A wider range o'er all her prospects take;
Lo, at her call, New Zealand's wastes arise!
Casting their shadows far along the main,
Whose brows, cloud-cap'd in joyless majesty,
No human foot hath trod since time began;
Here death-like silence ever-brooding dwells,
Save when the watching sailor startled hears,
Far from his native land at darksome night,
The shrill-ton'd petrel, or the penguin's voice,
That skim their trackless flight on lonely wing,

Through the bleak regions of a nameless main:
Here danger stalks, and drinks with glutted ear
The wearied sailor's moan, and fruitless sigh,
Who, as he slowly cuts his daring way,
Affrighted drops his axe, and stops awhile,
To hear the jarring echoes lengthen'd din,
That fling from pathless cliffs their sullen sound:
Oft here the fiend his grisly visage shews,
His limbs, of giant form, in vesture clad
Of drear collected ice and stiffened snow,
The same he wore a thousand years ago,
That thwarts the sunbeam, and endures the day.
'Tis thus, by Fancy shewn, thou kenn'st entranc'd
Lone tangled woods, and ever stagnant lakes,
That know no zephyr pure, or temperate gale,
By baleful Tigris banks, where, oft they say,
As late in sullen march for prey he prowls,
The tawny lion sees his shadow'd form,
At silent midnight by the moon's pale gleam,
On the broad surface of the dark deep wave;
Here, parch'd at mid-day, oft the passenger
Invokes with lingering hope the tardy breeze,
And oft with silent anguish thinks in vain
On Europe's milder air and silver springs.
Thou, unappall'd, canst view astounding fear
With ghastly visions wild, and train unbless'd
Of ashy fiends, at dead of murky night,
Who catch the fleeting soul, and slowly pace,
With visage dimly seen, and beckoning hand,
Of shadowy forms, that, ever on the wing,

Flit by the tedious couch of wan despair.
Methinks I hear him, with impatient tongue,
The lagging minutes chide, whilst sad he sits
And notes their secret lapse with shaking head.
See, see, with tearless glance they mark his fall,
And close his beamless eye, who, trembling, meets
A late repentance, and an early grave.

With thine and elfin Fancy's dreams well pleas'd, Safe in the lowly vale of letter'd ease,

From all the dull buffoonery of life,
Thy sacred influence grateful may I own;
Nor till old age shall lead me to my tomb,
Quit thee and all thy charms with many a tear.
On Omole, or cold Soracte's top,
Singing defiance to the threat'ning storm,
Thus the lone bird, in winter's rudest hour,
Hid in some cavern, shrouds its ruffled plumes,
And through the long, long night, regardless hears
The wild wind's keenest blast and dashing rain.

« PreviousContinue »