Foreign visits still receiving,
And to herself a stranger living.
Never, never, would she buy
Indian dust or Tyrian dye;
Never trade abroad for more,
If she saw her native store:

If her inward worth were known
She might ever live alone.

TO MR. NICHOLAS CLARK

THE COMPLAINT.

"TWAS in a vale where osiers grow By murm'ring streams we told our woe, And mingled all our cares:

Friendship sat pleased in both our eyes, In both the weeping dews arise,

And drop alternate tears.

The vigorous monarch of the day,
Now mounting half his morning way,
Shone with a fainter bright;
Still sick'ning, and decaying still,
Dimly he wander'd up the hill,
With his expiring light.

In dark eclipse his chariot roll'd,
The queen of night obscur'd his gold

Behind her sable wheels:

Nature grew sad to lose the day,
The flow'ry vales in mourning lay,
In mourning stood the hills.

Such are our sorrows, Clark, I cried,
Clouds of the brain grow black, and hide
Our darken'd souls behind;

In the young morning of our years
Distempering fogs have climb'd the spheres,
And choke the lab'ring mind.

Lo, the gay planet rears his head,
And overlooks the lofty shade,

New-bright'ning all the skies:
But say, dear partner of my moan,
When will our long eclipse be gone,
Or when our suns arise?

In vain are potent herbs applied,
Harmonious sounds in vain have tried
To make the darkness fly:

But drugs would raise the dead as soon,
Or clatt'ring brass relieve the moon
When fainting in the sky.

Some friendly spirit from above,

Born of the light, and nurst with love,

Assist our feeble fires;

Force these invading glooms away;

Souls should be seen quite through their clay,
Bright as your heav'nly choirs.

* An allusion to the well known accounts given by travellers, of the superstitious ceremonies, practised by uncivilized nations with the design of assisting the heavenly bodies, when labouring uuder eclipse.-ED.

But if the fogs must damp the flame,
Gently, kind death, dissolve our frame,
Release the prisoner-mind:

Our souls shall mount, at thy discharge,
To their bright source, and shine at large,
Nor clouded, nor confin'd.

TO THE

RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN CUTS.

At the Siege of Namur.

THE HARDY SOLDIER.

"O WHY is man so thoughtless grown? Why guilty souls in haste to die? Vent'ring the leap to worlds unknown, Heedless to arms and blood they fly.

"Are lives but worth a soldier's pay?
Why will ye join such wide extremes,
And stake immortal souls, in play
At desperate chance, and bloody games?

"Valour 's a nobler turn of thought,
Whose pardon'd guilt forbids her fears:
Calmly she meets the deadly shot,
Secure of life above the stars.

"But frenzy dares eternal fate,

And spurr'd with honour's airy dreams,

R

Flies to attack th' infernal gate,
And force a passage to the flames."

Thus hov'ring o'er Namuria's plains,
Sung heav'nly love in Gabriel's form,
Young Thraso felt the moving strains,
And vow'd to pray before the storm.

Anon the thundering trumpet calls;
"Vows are but wind," the hero cries:
Then swears by heav'n, and scales the walls,
Drops in the ditch, despairs and dies.

TO MRS. B. BENDISH.

AGAINST TEARS.

1699.

MADAM, persuade me tears are good,
To wash our mortal cares away;
These eyes shall weep a sudden flood,
And stream into a briny sen.

Or if these orbs are hard and dry,
(These orbs that never use to rain,)
Some star direct me where to buy

One sovereign drop for all my pain.

Were both the golden Indies mine,
I'd give both Indies for a tear:
I'd barter all but what's divine:
Nor shall I think the bargain dear.

But tears, alas! are trifling things,
They rather feed than heal our woe;
From trickling eyes new sorrow springs,
As weeds in rainy seasons grow.

Thus weeping urges weeping on:
In vain our miseries hope relief;
For one drop calls another down,
Till we are drown'd in seas of grief.

Then let these useless streams be staid,
Wear native courage on your face:
These vulgar things were never made
For souls of a superior race.

If 'tis a rugged path you go,

And thousand foes your steps surround, Tread the thorns down, charge through the foe: The hardest fight is highest crown'd.

SAY, mighty love, and teach my song,

To whom thy sweetest joys belong,
And who the happy pairs

Whose yielding hearts, and joining hands,

Find blessings twisted with their bands,
To soften all their cares.

Not the wild herd of nymphs and swains
That thoughtless fly into the chains,
As custom leads the way