Then, ye fair Nine, the trembling muse inspire;
In raptured notes awake her feeble lyre;
Now swell your boldest strains! Maria's praise
Claims all the majesty of Homer's lays.

MORNING.

Now Phosphor swells the clarion note of morn,
And all the hostile clouds of night are gone;
Ambrosial zephyrs ope the fragrant flowers,
And rosy Health attends the jocund hours.
The Morn, with pearly feet advancing, leads
Joy's smiling train, and blushes o'er the meads.
The golden flood of light o'er eastern hills
She
pours, and
every breast with rapture fills.
The ocean, sheathed in light's effulgent arms,

Rolls his high surges bright with borrowed charms.

The little hills around their carols sing;

The vales with soft mellifluous echoes ring;

The early lark attunes her matin lay,
And vocal forests hail the approach of day,

The vigorous huntsman leaves his downy bed, And mounted swiftly scours along the mead. Hark! the shrill clarion's winding note resounds; Hark! the air trembles with the cry of hounds. The raging wolves through gloomy forests prowl, The tawny lions through the meadows howl. Lo! o'er the fields Maria bends her way; The gazing hounds forget their trembling prey; The grateful woods repeat Maria's name, And all the savage race, inspired, grow tame.

The youthful shepherd, who had housed his flock
Within the dark recesses of a rock,

To screen them from the wolf's resistless jaw,
Needs now no crook to keep his foe in awe;
For, while his notes Maria's name resound,
The wolf no more infests the peaceful ground.

In beauty clad, more beauteous than the morn,
The fair Maria trips the dewy lawn ;
The ambroisal zephyrs, from each meadow, seek,
To steal new perfumes from her fragrant cheek;
Celestial Virtue guides her wandering feet,
And Science courts her to her fair retreat.

Here shall the rose grow, free from every thorn,
And here her life be fair, be sweet as morn.

NOON.

Now the fierce coursers of the sultry day Breath from their nostrils the meridian ray; Beneath such heat the landscape faints around; The birds forget to sing, the woods to sound; The withered rose forgets perfumes to yield,

And murmuring brooks mourn o'er the drooping field.

The sprightly lambs, which in the morning played, And near a fount their fleecy form surveyed,

On the green tuft, the limpid stream o'erflows,
Subdued by heat, their weary

limbs repose.

The sweating ploughman leaves his sultry toil, To quench his thirst from crystal streams, that boi!

O'er the rough pebbles, which incessant chide,

As o'er the fields they in meanders glide.

The love-sick swain now leaves his drooping flock, And seeks retreat beneath some shelving rock, Which Spring's fair hand, with fairest flowers, has graced; Here he retires the heat of day to waste.

All Nature droops; no joy the meadow yields:
How languid is the green, which graced the fields!
But see, Maria comes, by zephyrs fanned;
See how the gales the enlivening flowers expand.
Spontaneous roses in her footsteps spring;
The fields revive, the cheerful warblers sing;
The drooping forest now the lyre resumes,
In fair Maria's praise each landscape blooms;
Now tears of joy array the smiling lawn,
And soaring larks would fondly think, 'twas morn.

EVENING.

Retiring day now blushes o'er the heaven,
And slow in solemn brown brings on the even;
Now silent dews along the grass distil,
And all the air with their sweet fragrance fill;
Now chaste Diana, with her silver train,

In her bright chariot rising quits the main;
Now all the stars in bright confusion roll,
And with their lustre gild the glowing pole.
The happy swains now seek the ambrosial groves,
On their sweet pipes to warble forth their loves.
'Twas here reclined beneath the leafy shade,
While busy thought Maria's form surveyed,

The artless **** with his rude pipe retired,

To sing those carols, which his love inspired.

His pipe, though rude, ne'er swelled a treacherous lay;

His pipe and bosom owned Maria's sway.

'Twas here he taught the woods her name to sound,

And her soft praises echoed all around.

Not far retired, the object of his love
With her sweet strains enchanted all the grove;
While bending forests listened to the tale,
And her sweet notes re-echoed o'er the vale.
A nightingale, who, from a neighbouring spray,
Attentive heard Maria's matchless lay,

With envy saw the well deserved meed,
Bloom with new honours to adorn her head.

She thrice essayed to emulate the lay,

And thrice her wandering thoughts were led astray.
Charmed by the musick of Maria's song,
Her heedless notes forgot to pass along.

A sudden quivering seized her tender throat;
She ceased to breathe her sweetly plaintive note;
Her languid wings she fluttered on the spray,
And at the shrine of Envy sighed her life away.

Thus, fair Maria, in your wondrous praise, The youthful muse has sung her feeble lays; And though your name is all that in them shines, Forgive the errors of her artless lines.

Your true, conspicuous merit e'en will claim

A rank immortal on the list of fame.

11

As on one tree, when sin had not beguiled,
Blossoms and fruits in sweet confusion smiled.

So youth's gay flowerets in your features bloom,
And wisdom's sacred rays your mind illume.

REFLECTIONS ON A LONELY HILL, WHICH COMMANDED THE PROSPECT OF A BURYING GROUND.

H

ERE museful Thought and Contemplation dwell;
Here Silence spreads her horrors round;

Hark! the dull tinkling stream from yonder cell!

The soul recoils at every sound!

Startled, I view new phantoms round me rise,

And seem to chide my dull delay;

View yonder spot where human greatness lies;

Thus all must moulder and decay.

Hark! from afar the solemn sounding bell
Fills the dull car with plaints of woe;

'Tis Death awakes, and spreads the warning knell;
Through the sad gates the mourners flow.

The distant landscape fades; thick glooms arise;
Twilight the sombre scene surveys;

While tears, in dew drops, glisten in her eyes,
And faintly shroud her pitying rays.