Adieu, ye lays that Fancy's flowers adorn, The soft amusement of the vacant mind! He sleeps in dust, and all the Muses mourn, He, whom each virtue fired, each grace refined, Friend, teacher, pattern, darling of mankind! He sleeps in dust. [8] Ah, how shall I pursue My theme? To heart-consuming grief resign'd, Here on his recent grave I fix my view, And pour my bitter tears. Ye flowery lays, adieu! 63 Art thou, my GREGORY, for ever fled? And am I left to unavailing woe? When fortune's storms assail this weary head, Where cares long since have shed untimely snow, Ah, now for comfort whither shall I go? No more thy soothing voice my anguish cheers: Thy placid eyes with smiles no longer glow, My hopes to cherish, and allay my fears. 'Tis meet that I should mourn: flow forth afresh, my tears. [Footnote 1: See Plato's 'Timæus.'] [Footnote 2: 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.' (Shakspeare.)] [Footnote 3: 'Cheronean sage:' Plutarch.] [Footnote 4: The influence of the philosophic spirit, in humanizing the mind, and preparing it for intellectual exertion and delicate pleasure;--in exploring, by the help of geometry, the system of the universe;--in banishing superstition; in promoting navigation, agriculture, medicine, and moral and political science.] [Footnote 5: 'To explore:' this, from Thomson, who says in his 'Summer'-- 'Which even imagination fears to tread.'] [Footnote 6: General ideas of excellence, the immediate archetypes of sublime imitation, both in painting and in poetry. See Aristotle's 'Poetics,' and the 'Discourses' of Sir Joshua Reynolds.] [Footnote 7: 'Great shepherd of the Mantuan plains:' Virgil.] [Footnote 8: This excellent person died suddenly on the 10th of February 1773. The conclusion of the poem was written a few days after.] MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. ODE TO HOPE. I. 1. O thou, who gladd'st the pensive soul, More than Aurora's smile the swain forlorn, Left all night long to mourn Where desolation frowns, and tempests howl, And shrieks of woe, as intermits the storm, Far o'er the monstrous wilderness resound, And 'cross the gloom darts many a shapeless form, And many a fire-eyed visage glares around! O come, and be once more my guest: Come, for thou oft thy suppliant's vow hast heard, And oft with smiles indulgent cheer'd And soothed him into rest. I. 2.