if my charmer should frown when I sing, Ah! what are the beauties, the glories of spring! The flowers will be faded, all happiness fly, And clouds veil the azure of every bright sky.
I have received both your favours-The Muse alone must tell my joy.
O'ERWHELM'D with pleasure at the joyful news,
I strung the chorded shell, and woke the Muse,
Begin, O Servant of the Sacred Nine!
And echo joy through ev'ry nervous line;
Bring down th' ethereal Choir to aid the Song;
Let boundless raptures smoothly glide along.
My Baker's well! Oh words of sweet delight!
Now! now! my Muse, soar up th' Olympic height.
What wondrous numbers can the Goddess find,
To paint th' extatic raptures of my mind?
I leave it to a Goddess more divine,
The beauteous Hoyland shall employ my line.
TO THE BEAUTEOUS MISS HOYLAND.
FAR distant from Britannia's lofty Isle,
What shall I find to make the Genius smile? The bubbling fountains lose the power to please, The rocky cataracts, the shady trees,
The juicy fruitage of enchanting hue,
Whose luscious virtues England never knew:
The variegated Daughters of the Land,
Whose numbers Flora strews with bounteous hand;
The verdant vesture of the smiling fields,
All the rich pleasures Nature's storehouse yields,
Have all their powers to wake the chorded string;
But still they're subjects that the Muse can sing.
Hoyland, more beauteous than the God of Day,
Her name can quicken and awake the lay ;
Rouse the soft Muse from indolence and ease,
To live, to love, and rouse her powers to please.
In vain would Phoebus, did not Hoyland rise:
"Tis her bright eyes that gilds the Eastern skies;
'Tis she alone deprives us of the light;
And when she slumbers, then indeed 'tis night.
To tell the sep'rate beauties of her face
Would stretch Eternity's remotest space,
And want a more than man, to pen the line;
I rest-let this suffice, dear Hoyland's all divine.
SWEET are thy charming smiles, my lovely maid,
Sweet as the flow'rs in bloom of spring array'd;
Those charming smiles thy beauteous face adorn,
As May's white blossoms gayly deck the thorn.
Then why, when mild good-nature basking lies
'Midst the soft radiance of thy melting eyes;
When my
fond tongue would strive thy heart to
And tune its tones to every note of love;
Why do those smiles their native soil disown, And (chang'd their movements) kill me in a frown?
Yet, is it true, or is it dark despair,
That fears you 're cruel whilst it owns you fair?
O speak, dear Hoyland! speak my certain fate,
Thy love enrapt'ring, or thy constant hate.
If death's dire sentence hangs upon thy tongue,
E'en death were better than suspense so long.
1 From a MS. of Chatterton's, in the British Museum.
AMIDST the wild and dreary dells,
The distant echo-giving bells,
The bending mountain's head;
Whilst Evening, moving thro' the sky,
Over the object and the eye,
Her pitchy robes doth spread;
There, gently moving thro' the vale,
Bending before the blust'ring gale,
Fell apparitions glide;
Whilst roaring rivers echo round,
The drear reverberating sound
Runs through the mountain side
Then steal I softly to the grove,
And singing of the nymph I love,
Sigh out my sad complaint;
To paint the tortures of my mind,
Where can the muses numbers find?
Ah! numbers are too faint.
Ah! Hoyland, empress of my heart,
When will thy breast admit the dart,
And own a mutual flame?
When, wand'ring in the myrtle groves,
Shall mutual pleasures seal our loves,
Pleasures without a name?
Thou greatest beauty of the sex,
When will the little god perplex
The mansions of thy breast?
When wilt thou own a flame as pure
As that seraphic souls endure,
And make thy Baker blest?
O! haste to give my passion ease,
And bid the perturbation cease
That harrows up my soul!
The joy such happiness to find,
Would make the functions of
In peace and love to roll.
ACROSTIC ON MISS HOYLAND.
ENCHANTING is the mighty power of love;
Life stript of amorous joys would irksome prove:
E'en Heaven's great Thund'rer wore th' easy chain,
And over all the world, Love keeps his reign.
No human heart can bear the piercing blade,
Or I than others, am more tender made.
Right thro' my heart a burning arrow drove,
Hoyland's bright eyes were made the bows of Love.
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