Farewell, false Friend!--our scenes of kindness close! To cordial looks, to sunny smiles farewell! To sweet consolings, that can grief expel, And every joy soft sympathy bestows! For alter'd looks, where truth no longer glows, Thou hast prepar'd my heart;--and it was well To bid thy pen th' unlook'd for story tell, Falsehood avow'd, that shame, nor sorrow knows.-- O! when we meet,--(to meet we're destin'd, try To avoid it as thou may'st) on either brow, Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye, Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how We once were to each other;--nor one sigh Flatter with weak regret a broken vow! SONNET XX. ON READING A DESCRIPTION OF POPE's GARDENS AT TWICKENHAM. Ah! might I range each hallow'd bower and glade Musæus cultur'd, many a raptur'd sigh Wou'd that dear, local consciousness supply Beneath his willow, in the grotto's shade, Whose roof his hand with ores and shells inlaid. How sweet to watch, with reverential eye, Thro' the sparr'd arch, the streams he oft survey'd, Thine, blue Thamésis, gently wandering by! This is the POET's triumph, and it towers O'er Life's pale ills, his consciousness of powers That lift his memory from Oblivion's gloom, Secure a train of these heart-thrilling hours By his idea deck'd in rapture's bloom, For Spirits rightly touch'd, thro' ages yet to come. SONNET XXI. Proud of our lyric Galaxy, I hear Of faded Genius with supreme disdain; As when we see the Miser bend insane O'er his full coffers, and in accents drear Deplore imagin'd want;--and thus appear To me those moody Censors, who complain, As [1]Shaftsbury plain'd in a now _boasted_ reign, That “POESY had left our darken'd sphere.” Whence may the present stupid dream be traced That now she shines not as in days foregone? Perchance neglected, often shine in waste Her LIGHTS, from number into confluence run, More than when _thinly_ in th' horizon placed Each Orb shone separate, and appear'd a Sun. 1: Of the Poets, who were cotemporary with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden, Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay, Addison, &c. in the Period which _this_ Age styles AUGUSTAN, his Lordship speaks with _sovereign scorn_. In his Characteristics he, without making any exception, labors to prove, that the compositions of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an Author in the second Volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous reflections in the third Volume; “If,” says he to the authors, “your Poets are still to be _Mr. Bayses_, and your prose writers _Sir Rogers_, without offering at a _better_ manner, must it follow that the manner is good, and the wit genuine?”