SONNET TO ELIZA.

AH! do the Muses, once so coy and shy,
Pursue Menander, hard as legs can lay?
By Heavens, Menander swears, he will not fly,
But meet their gentle ladyships half way!

What! shall this coward bard turn pale with fear,
When clinging round his knees these virgins lie?
Is he afraid of drowning in a tear,

Or being blown to atoms by a sigh?

No, dear Eliza, with expanded arms

I turn to clasp the fair one that pursues; But, struck with such divinity of charms,

Shrink from alliance with so bright a muse.

Yet weep not, that from Hymen's yoke I've slipt my neck, For you've escaped a bite, while I have lost a spec.

PATHETIC

SONNET TO BELINDA.

ATHETICK chantress! Nature's feeling child! Thou, like thy parent, rulest a variant sphere Where Judgment ripens, Fancy blossoms wild; Thy page the landscape, and thy mind the year.

Oft in the rainbow's heaven-enchasing beams,
Thy hand, sweet limner, many a pencil dips;
And oft receive Pieria's sacred streams
New inspiration from Belinda's lips.

Pure, as the bosom of the virgin rose,

Blooms the rich verdure of a heart sincere; And e'en Belinda's smile more radiant glows, Through the clear mirror of the pearly tear.

But, ah! her lyre in hushed oblivion sleeps,
While Edwin mourns, and all Parnassus weeps.

During the years 1792 and 1793, Mr. Paine, beside other contributions to that Miscellany, published in the Massachusetts Magazine such pieces, as appeared there under the signature of Menander. As those pieces are addressed to a lady whose title to the first place among our native poetesses is undisputed and indisputable; and as, in order to understand Menander, it is indispensably necessary, that Philewia may be easily consulted, no apology is required for inserting Mrs. Morton's verses in this collection. The first piece of this correspondence, which was originally published in the Massachusetts Mercury of February, 1795, as were also the second and third pieces, alludes to a Poem entitled, "Beacon-Hill," supposed to be then preparing by Philenia for the press,

MENANDER TO PHILENIA.

BLEST be the task, along the stream of Fame,

To waft the Patriot's and the Hero's name!
Blest be the Muse, whose soft Orphean breath
Recalls their memories from the realms of death!
And blest Philenia, noblest of the choir,
Whose hallowed hands attune Columbia's lyre!
"Tis thine to bid the deathless laurel bloom,
And shade departed Virtue's sacred tomb;
While pruned by thee, its loftier branches grow,
And yield new honours to the dust below!

'Tis thine, like Joshua, sun of Glory stand!
And gild the urn of Freedom's martyred band!
While in thy song, with charms illustrious, shine
Gods, shaped like men, and men, like gods, divine!
Hail, lofty Beacon, hill of Freedom, hail!

Thy torch her herald to the distant vale!

What various scenes, from thy commanding height,
The horizon paint-the turning eye delight!
Loud Ocean here, with undulating roar,

Calls daring souls to worlds unknown before;
While mazing there, like Fancy's wanton child,
Charles curls along, irregular and wild.
Here, Commerce, decked in all the wings of Time,
Courts the fleet breeze, and ranges every clime;

There the gay villa lifts its lofty head,

The social mansion, and the humbler shed.
But nobler honours to thy fame belong,

And owe their splendour to Philenia's song.
Beacon shall live the theme of future lays ;
Philenia bids obsequious Fame obeys.
Beacon shall live, enbalmed in verse sublime,
The new Parnassus of a nobler clime.
No more the fount of Helicon shall boast
Its peerless waters, or its suitor-host;
To thee shall every fabled muse aspire,
And learn new musick from Philenia's lyre.
No more the flying steed the bard shall bear,
Through the wild regions of poetick air;
On nobler gales of verse his wings shall rise,
While Beacon's eagle wafts him through the skies.
"Tis here Philenia's muse begins her flight,
As Heaven clate, extensive as the light:

Here, like this bird of Jove, she mounts the wind,
And leaves the clouds of vulgar bards behind.

Her tuneful notes, in tones mellifluous flow,

With charms more various, than the coloured bow.
Here, softly sweet, her liquid measures play,
And mildest zephyrs gently sigh away;

There, towering numbers stalk, majestick rise,
Like ocean storm, and lighten like the skies.
While here, the gay Canary charms our ears,
There, the lorn Philomel dissolves in tears.
While here, the deep, grave verse slow loiters on,
There, the blythe lines in swift meanders run.
Thus to each theme responds her echoing lay;
Bold, without rashness; without trifling, gay :
Serene, yet nervous; easy, yet sublime;
With modulation's unaffected chime;

Soft, without weakness; without frenzy, warm;
The varying shade of Nature's varying form.
Let souls, elated by the pomp of praise,
The arch triumphal, or the busto raise;
Bid marble, issuing into life, proclaim

Their bubble greatness in the ear of Fame !

Gay trifles, pictured out on Glory's shore,

Which Time's first rising billow leaves no more! 'Tis thine, Philenia, loveliest muse, to raise

A firmer monument of nobler praise!

Thou shalt survive, when Time shall whelm the bust,
And lay the pyramids of Fame in dust.

Unsoiled by years, shall thy pathetick verse
Melt Memory's eye upon the Patriot's hearse ;
And while each distant age and clime admire

The funeral honours of thy epick lyre,

What Hero's bosom would not wish to bleed, That you might sing, and raptured ages read? 'Till the last page of Nature's volume blaze, Shall live the tablet, graven with thy lays!

PHILENIA TO MENANDER.

BLEST Poet! whose Eolian lyre
Can wind the varied notes along,
While the melodious Nine inspire
The graceful elegance of song.

Who now with Homer's strength can rise,
Then with the polished Ovid move;

Now swift as rapid Pindar flies,

Then soft as Sappho's breath of love.

To nobler themes attune that strain
Whose magick might the soul subdue,
Calm the wild frenzies of the brain,
And every fading hope renew.

Ne'er can my timid Muse aspire,

To wake the harp's majestick string;
Nor with Menander's "epick" fire,
The deeds of godlike heroes sing.

My lute, with many a willow bound,
Flings the lorn pathos to the gale;
While o'er the modulated sound,

The sighs of Sympathy prevail.