May Health infuse her balm; And some soft virtue in thee flow, To mitigate the pangs of woe, And bid the heart be calm. O! may thy salutary streams, For what avails the wretch to bear The lessons of distrust and fear, He sees the gathering tempest lour, The bursting cloud impend Towards the wild waste he turns his eye, Nor can that happy port descry, The bosom of a friend. How changed since that propitious time, The swelling tide, the sportive breeze His bounding pinnace bore- But if those gleams fallacious prove If men fair faith, fair fame deride, MERCER. HOME. TO THE bandit whom the laws pursue, A tent, a cave, or hollow tree, Thither they hie with joy, and call it Home. There if a doxy or a wife Receive the wretch escaped from strife; While thus the poor and wretched find The' asylum for a wounded mind,— Distemper'd men there are, estranged from home, Cold to an angel's kind embrace, Cheerless amid a blooming race, And dead to comforts in a princely dome: Men in the lap of Fortune nursed, With all her froward humours cursed, And teased by wishes ever on the wing; Who, wandering still through Folly's maze, In search of bliss consume their days, Nor taste her genuine draught at Nature's spring. Yet such the men who lead the gay, The pride and patterns of the day, Whose high prized friendship fools and strangers boast; Blush, thou! to court their barren fame; Let Home, sweet Home, thy presence claim, And those enjoy thy smiles who love thee most! MERCER. TO TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name For oh! dear child of thoughtful Truth, And left the bark, and bless'd the steadfast shore, Ere yet the tempest rose, and scared me with its roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, Thy spirit rests, Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: But me thy gentle hand will lead And when the gust of Autumn crowds Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, [moon. Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding VOL. III. BB The feeling heart, the searching soul, The present works of present man A wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile, Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile! COLERIDGE. TO CONTEMPLATION. FAINT gleams the evening radiance through the sky, The sober twilight dimly darkens round; In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by, And the slow vapour curls along the ground. Now the pleased eye from yon lone cottage sees And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze. And whiten o'er his breast; For lo! the moon with softer radiance gleams, And lovelier heave the billows in her beams. |