From the fragrant wild-flowers which blow on thy border The playful Zephyrus oft steals an embrace, And curling thy surface in beauteous order, The willows bend forward to kiss thy clear face. Flow on, lovely Tyne, &c. One favour I crave--O kind Fortune befriend me-- When downhill I totter, in nature’s decline;-- A competent income--if this thou wilt send me, I’ll dwindle out life on the banks of the Tyne. Flow on, lovely Tyne, undisturb’d be thy motion, Thy sons hold the threats of proud France in disdain; As long as thy waters shall mix with the ocean, The fleets of Old England will govern the main. THE SPRING. _Written the beginning of May, 1809._ BY HENRY ROBSON. Now the feathered train in each bush, Court their mates, and love’s melody sing-- The blackbird, the linnet, and thrush, Make the echoing vallies to ring: The bird with the crimson-dy’d breast, From the hamlet has made his remove; To join his love-song with the rest, And woo his fond mate in the grove. The lark, high in æther afloat, Each morn, at the usher of day, Attunes his wild-warbling throat, And sings his melodious lay. Yon bank lately cover’d with snow, Now smiles in the spring’s bloomy pride; And the sweet-scented primroses grow, Near the streamlet’s sweet-gurgling tide. To the banks of the Tyne we’ll away, And view th’ enrapturing scene; While Flora, the goddess of May, With her flow’rets bespangles the green. THE BANKS OF THE TYNE. BY JAMES WILSON. James Wilson, the author of this, and the four following poetical pieces, belonged to Hexham, where he taught school until he removed to Morpeth, under pecuniary embarrassment: while here, he found a friend in the late Wallis Ogle, Esq. and was by him conducted to Cawsey Park School, where he shortly after died. When at Hexham, he published a volume of Poems printed by T. Angus, Newcastle, in 1778. Apollo, your aid I request, Direct and embellish each line; With influence warm my breast, To sing the sweet Banks of the Tyne. If Phœbus proposes the theme, Both reason and duty combine, To pay my respects to the stream, And honour the Banks of the Tyne. Here oft with great pleasure I stray, Nor ever find cause to repine, While Nature’s rich beauties display Themselves on the Banks of the Tyne. Here Liberty’s pleas’d to resort, Her banners with lustre here shine; No place, since she left the vile court, Can please like the Banks of the Tyne. Her sons are with Liberty fir’d, Their Freedom they’ll never resign; But what their forefathers acquir’d, Defend on the Banks of the Tyne. The man let me freely explain, Who would as a senator shine, ’Tis THERON, who holds his domain Enclos’d by the Banks of the Tyne.