TO THE

MEMORY of Mr. OLDH A M.

my own i

AREWEL, too little, and too lately known,

Whom I began to think, and call For sure our fouls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike. To the same goal did both our studies drive; The last set out, the soonest did arrive. Thus Nisus fell upon the flipp’ry place, Whilft his young friend perform’d, and won the

race.

O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the smoothness of thy native tongue,
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Thro the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When

poets are by too much force betray'd,
VOL. II..

P

Thy gen'rous fruits, tho gather'd ere their prime,
Still Thew'd a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write, to the dull sweets

of rhyme.
Once more, hail, and farewel; farewel, thou

young, But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue ! Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound; But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.

I.
HOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,

Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palıns, new pluck'd from paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,

T

Rich with immortal green above the rest :
Whether, adopted to some neighb'ring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,

Or, in proceflion fix'd and regular,
Mov'd with the heaven's majestic pace;

Or, call’d to more superior bliss,
Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss :
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Ceafe thy celestial song a little space;
Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal

year

is thine. Hear then a mortal muse thy praise rehearse,

In no ignoble verse ;
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of Poesy were given ;
To make thyfelf a welcome inmate there :

While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.

II.
If by traduction came thy mind,

Our wonder is the lefs to find
A soul fo charming from a stock so good ;
Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein,

But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form’d, at first, with myriads more, It did thro all the mighty poets roll,

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho laft, which once it was

before. If so, then cease thy flight, О heaven-born

mind ! Thou hast no drofs to purge from thy rich ore : Nor can thy foul a fairer manfion find,

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial

kind..

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,
New joy was sprung in heaven, as well as here on

earth.
For sure the milder planets did combine
On thy auspicious horoscope to thine,
And e'en the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother-angels at thy birth

Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high,

That all the people of the sky
Might know a poetess was born on earth.

And then, if ever, mortal ears
Had heard the music of the spheres,