When on the lake's damp marge I lay, And mark'd the northern meteor's dance, Bland Hope and Fancy, ye were there To inspirate my trance. Twin sisters, faintly now ye deign Your magic sweets on me to shed, In vain your powers are now essay'd To chase superior pain. And art thou fled, thou welcome orb! So swiftly pleasure flies, So to mankind, in darkness lost, The beam of ardour dies. Wan Moon, thy nightly task is done, And now, encurtain'd in the main, Thou sinkest into rest; But I, in vain, on thorny bed Shall woo the god of soft repose-- * * * * * TO THE MUSE. WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. Ill-fated maid, in whose unhappy train Chill poverty and misery are seen, Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene. Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel So keenly all the scorns--the jeers of life? Why not endow them to endure the strife With apathy's invulnerable steel, Of self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal? Ah! who would taste your self-deluding joys, That lure the unwary to a wretched doom, That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise, Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb? What is the charm which leads thy victims on To persevere in paths that lead to woe? What can induce them in that route to go, In which innumerous before have gone, And died in misery poor and woe-begone? Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found; I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill, And tasted all the pleasures that abound Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill? I, through whose soul the Muse's strains aye thrill! Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied; And though our annals fearful stories tell, How Savage languish'd, and how Otway died, Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide. TO LOVE. Why should I blush to own I love? 'Tis Love that rules the realms above. Why should I blush to say to all, That Virtue holds my heart in thrall? Why should I seek the thickest shade, Lest Love's dear secret be betray'd? Why the stern brow deceitful move, When I am languishing with love? Is it weakness thus to dwell On passion that I dare not tell? Such weakness I would ever prove; 'Tis painful, though 'tis sweet to love. ON WHIT-MONDAY. Hark! how the merry bells ring jocund round, And now they die upon the veering breeze Anon they thunder loud Full on the musing ear. Wafted in varying cadence, by the shore Of the still twinkling river, they bespeak A day of jubilee, An ancient holiday. And lo! the rural revels are begun, And gaily echoing to the laughing sky, On the smooth shaven green Resounds the voice of Mirth. Alas! regardless of the tongue of Fate, That tells them 'tis but as an hour since they Who now are in their graves Kept up the Whitsun dance.