TO THE MEMORY OF W. H. BROWN.
PALE sleeps the moonbeam on the shadowy surf;
Lorn to the gale, elegiack willows wave;
Cold-glistening, fall the night-dews on the turf;
And Nature leans upon her Pollio's grave.
Clouds veil the moon-'tis Nature garbed in woe;
The willow droops-'tis plaintive Nature sighs;
The night-dews fall-they are the tears, that flow
On Pollio's flower-wreathed urn, from Nature's eyes.
Yes! he was doating Nature's favourite son;
The fostering muses fondly nursed the child;
His infant prattle into numbers run,
And Genius, from his opening eyelids, smiled.
In life maturing, Fancy's attick germ
The stalk of judgment with its blossoms graced ;
Nor feared corroding Envy's latent worm,
The frost of criticks, nor the drought of taste.
At length full beamed the summer of his prime;
No fixed star-a rolling sun, he shone;
Now glanced his rays on Beauty's temperate clime;
Now flamed his orb o'er Grandeur's torrid zone.
As burnt the bush to Moses' raptured gaze,
Nor lost its verdure 'mid the flame divine;
Thus bloomed his song in rhetorick's splendid blaze,
Nor drooped the vigour of his nervous line.
With charms to move, with dignity to awe,
His tragick muse the lyre of pathos strung;
Loud wailed the horrors of fraternal war,
And dying Andre struggled on her tongue.
In either eye, a liquid mirror moved;
A tender ray illumed each crystal sphere; While thus she sung the hapless chief beloved, His life, the smile received-his fate, the tear.
With features, formed the moral laugh to hit,
Thalia knew his useful scene to frame;
And, scorning ribaldry, that trull of wit,
Preserved the chastity of lettered fame.
Ithaca'st queen, his comick pencil drew,
Whom suitor-hosts, so long, in vain, adored;
Who, to the widowed bed of wedlock true,
Lived Sorrow's nun at riot's festive board.
His prose, like song, without its numbers, glowed;
Correctly negligent, with judgment bold:
Here reasoned sentiment, there humour flowed;
Now flashed the thought, and now the period rolled.
Mr. Brown chose this unfortunate Officer for the hero of a tragedy, whick received the highest approbation of many gentlemen of taste.
He wrote a comedy, entitled Penelope, in the style of the West-Indian.
Swift, as the light to Nature's suburbs wings;
Quick, as the wink of Heaven's electrick eye;
Lo! Pollio's mind, with subtle vigour, springs;
And volumes, sketched in thoughts, perspective lie.
Not Cato-like, a miser of applause,
He loved the genius, that eclipsed his own; Nor dreamt, like Johnson, that by Nature's laws, He reigned the Sultan of the classick throne,
To censure, modest-generous, to commend;
To veteran bards he left of taste the van;
A keen eyed critick-still, a tender friend;
An idol'd poet-but, a modest man.
Such Pollio was !-but heaven, with hand divine,
Deducts in period, what it adds in boon;
Life's April day, with brighter beams, may shine,
But meets a sunset, in a cloud, at noon,
Felt ye the gale?—It was the Sirock blast,
That spreads o'er burning climes Death's gelid sleep!
Hear ye that groan? 'tis dying Pollio's last;
And Friendship, Genius, Virtue, speechless, weep!
"Oh, Pollio, Pollio!"-all Parnassus cries !—
Their breasts the grief-delirious muses beat;
Torn from their brows, the withering garland dies;
And drooping groves this funeral dirge repeat:
"Lamented Pollio, o'er thy sacred tomb,
"The laurel-sprig we plant, the turf to shade; "Bathed by our tears, its spreading boughs shall bloom, ""Till Fame's most verdant amaranths shall fade!
"No towering marble marks thy humble dust,
"Yet there shall oft our pensive choir repair;
"Thy modest grave can boast no sculptured bust,
"Yet Nature stands a weeping statue there!"
With these verses Mr. Paine concludes a prose Essay on the Pleasures of
LET no rude Care, with anxious thoughts, invade,
Nor print her footstep in my chosen shade!
O'er the wide world I've traced the tour of day,
Where restless Love has taught my feet to stray;
If Anna's taste this favourite spot approve,
I'll drop the Scythian, and forget to rove.
All hail, ye deserts, bend a pitying ear,
A sound unknown, a human voice to hear!
Wave your tall brows, to hail a stranger-guest,
Whose throbbing bosom seeks in you a rest.
Proud earth, adieu! Your smile I ask no more,
Nor all your sordid, soul-contracting ore!
The Syren's bowl, and pleasure's deep abyss
Yield to the crystal fount a tranquil bliss.
The purest joy will ever love to dwell
In the lone confines of the hermit's cell;
On him the day lamp sheds its mildest beam,
His board the forest, and his cup the stream.
Like him, the menial arts of life forsook,
To hold pure converse with the babbling brook ;
Here let me rove amid these wild retreats,
The bee of Nature's yet untasted sweets;
Here let my feet, o'erwearied, find repose,
My head a pillow, and my griefs a close!
The simple pleasures of uncultured earth
Can please no palate of exotick birth;
Lost is the social fire, with all its joys,
Lost is the splendid dome, with all its toys.
A long adieu! to all the world calls great,
Fame's glittering baubles, and the pomp of state!
Far from the tumults of the roaring sea,
The waves of Fortune roll no more for me.
Far from the vultures of corroding strife,
And all the senseless butterflies of life,
Here have I flown to trace new soils of bliss,
And clasp rude Nature in her loose undress;
Her naked graces Rapture's throb impart,
And spurn the pencil and the veil of art.
Beauty ne'er blushed, of harmless man afraid,
Nor asked a fig-leaf in the secret shade.
Oft in the modish circle, have I seen
The thoughtless canvass of a pictured mien;
And grown genteel, by Fashion's dire constraints,
The well-laced spider in a hectick faints.
Art can but mimick; Heaven alone must give
That innate force, by which the graces live.
The form and colour artists oft disclose,
But who has sketched the fragrance of the rose?
Ye dames, ambitious of applauding eyes,
Shall vile cosmeticks tempt the dubious prize?
Refine the heart, nor stoop to arts so base;
Sense never sparkled in a painted face!
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