Nor even the voice of honour can recal Thy hasty steps: thee Pleasure sues in vain; A stranger to the gay, licentious crowd, The giddy flutt’ring sons of dance and song. Thou to the libertine dost ever prove An airy phantom; mock’st his eager grasp; Leaves him to cruel disappointment’s rage, Remorse, despair, the inmates of his soul. In hopes to meet thee in some distant clime, The ardent warrior quits his native shore, Inur’d to martial toil; at danger smiles, And unconcern’d treads o’er the heaps of slain: His en’mies fly before him; at his feet Millions fall prostrate, and for mercy call: Yet still in vain he makes his court to thee; Thou scarce vouchsafes him one auspicious smile. See lovers too, in yon sequester’d grove, Seek lonely walks, and spend their sighs in vain, For thee! For what? for some bewitching fair, Whose smiles they deem can boundless bliss secure: Their views contracted would thee thus confine. Nor art thou found in Hymen’s sacred rites, Though silken cords of sweet affection bind. A thousand ills encompass the fond pair, And mix their sweets with bitterness and wo. Bent in pursuit, through many a devious track, All seem to say, “Successless is the search; To nobler objects henceforth bend your view.” All hail, Religion! thou celestial power! Thy force alone can soothe the anxious breast, And quite dispel the solitary gloom, These sullen shades that steal upon the soul. O let me hear thy salutary voice! Thy sacred dictates let me still revere; And ever prone in virtue’s steps to tread, My hopes, my wishes center’d all in Him, Whose hand omnipotent the world did frame. O Thou, great Source of all supreme delight! Without reluctance may I ever prove Submissive to thy providential sway, To know and to observe thy laws divine, My sole solicitude. How mean soe’er my humble station be, Content, and calm serenity of mind, Shall pave my paths along the rugged vale; And when the vain delusive vision’s past, Then happiness, in all its vast extent Unmeasurable, ignorant of bounds, Shall through eternal ages be my lot; The lot of all whose hope is fix’d on thee. UPON A YOUNG LADY’S LEAVING _LOUDOUN CASTLE_. What means this silent, solitary gloom? All nature in her dishabille appears; Contracted flow’rets yield no sweet perfume, And ev’ry grove a dismal aspect wears. Nor do the joys of Autumn glad our plains; Our landscapes are in sable weeds array’d; No jocund sound is heard among the swains, And nought but sighs from each dejected maid. Rude Eurus echoing through the distant woods, With harsh, discordant note, augments our wo; While rains, impetuous, from the bursting clouds, Our verdant walks and pleasure-grounds o’erflow. Incumber’d by their foliage now, the trees, With leaves, untimely dropp’d, bestrew the ground: Because Matilda’s presence does not please, All bleak and dismal seem the fields around.