I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown; While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, I fancied that Mossop himself was outshown.[24] Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation, By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, I regarded myself as a Garrick revived. Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you! Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast; Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you. Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest. To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me, While fate shall the shades of the future unroll! Since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me, More dear is the beam of the past to my soul! But if, through the course of the years which await me, Some new scene of pleasure should open to view, I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me, "Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew!" * * * * * LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCH-YARD OF HARROW. Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky; Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod; With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore, Like me, the happy scenes they knew before: Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill, Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay, And frequent mused the twilight hours away; Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, But ah! without the thoughts which then were mine: How do thy branches, moaning to the blast, Invite the bosom to recall the past, And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, "Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!" When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast, And calm its cares and passions into rest, Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour-- If aught may soothe when life resigns her power-- To know some humble grave, some narrow cell, Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell. With this fond dream, methinks, 'twere sweet to die-- And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie; Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose; Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose; Forever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade, Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd; Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved, Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved; Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear, Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here; Deplored by those in early days allied, And unremember'd by the world beside.