MASQUE OF ALFRED:
SUNG BY A SHEPHERDESS WHO HAS LOST HER
Youth, adorn'd with every art,
To warm and win the coldest heart,
In fecret mine possest.
The morning bud that fairest blows,
The vernal oak that straightest grows,
His face and shape expreft.
In moving founds he told his tale,
Soft as the fighings of the gale,
That wakes the flowery year.
What wonder he could charm with ease,
Whom happy Nature taught to please,
Whom Honour made fincere.
At morn he left me fought-and fell!
The fatal evening heard his knell,
And faw the tears I shed:
Tears that must ever, ever fall;
For ah! no fighs the past recall,
No cries awake the dead!
INVOCATION, addressed to Fancy. Subject pro-
posed; a short excursive survey of the Earth and
Heavens. The poem opens with a description of
the face of Nature in the different scenes of morning,
fun-rise, noon, with a thunder-storm, evening, night,
and a particular night-piece, with the character of a
friend deceased.
With the return of morning Fancy continues her ex-
cursion, first northward-A view of the arctic conti-
nent and the deferts of Tartary-From thence fouth-
ward: a general profpect of the globe, followed by
another of the mid-land part of Europe, suppose
Italy. A city there upon the point of being fwal-
lowed up by an earthquake: figns that usher it in:
described in its causes and effects at length-Erup-
tion of a burning mountain, happening at the fame
time and from the fame causes, likewise described.
Contains, on the fame plan, a survey of the folar
system, and of the fixed stars.
This poem is among the author's earliest performances.
Whether the writing may, in some degree, atone
for the irregularity of the composition, which he
confeffes, and does not even attempt to excuse, is
submitted entirely to the candour of the reader.
COMPANION of the Muse, creative power,
Imagination! at whose great command
Arise unnumber'd images of things,
Thy hourly offspring: thou, who can'st at will
People with air-born shapes the filent wood,
And folitary vale, thy own domain,
Where Contemplation haunts; Oh come, invok'd,
To waft me on thy many-tinctur'd wing,
O'er Earth's extended space: and thence, on high,
Spread to fuperior Worlds thy bolder flight,
Excursive, unconfin'd. Hence from the haunts
Of vice and folly, vanity and man-
To yon expanse of plains, where Truth delights,
Simple of heart; and, hand in hand with her,
Where blameless Virtue walks. Now parting Spring,
Parent of beauty and of fong, has left
His mantle, flower-embroider'd on the ground.
While Summer laughing comes, and bids the Months
Crown his prime season with their choicest stores;
Fresh roses opening to the folar ray,
And fruits flow-fwelling on the loaded bough.
Here let me frequent roam, preventing morn,
Attentive to the cock, whose early throat,
Heard from the distant village in the vale,
Crows chearly out, far-founding through the gloom.
Night hears from where, wide-hovering in mid-sky,
She rules the fable hour: and calls her train
Of visionary fears; the shrouded ghost,
The dream distressful, and th' encumbent hag,
That rise to Fancy's eye in horrid forms,
While Reason slumbering lies. At once they fly,
As shadows pass, nor is their path beheld.
And now, pale-glimmering on the verge of heaven,
From east to north in doubtful twilight seen,
A whitening lustre shoots its tender beam;
While shade and filence yet involve the ball.
Now sacred Morn, afcending, smiles serene
A dewy radiance, brightening o'er the world.
Gay daughter of the air, for ever young,
For ever pleasing! lo, she onward comes,
In fluid gold and azure loose-array'd,
Sun-tinctur'd, changeful hues. At her approach,
The western grey of yonder breaking clouds
Slow-reddens into flame: the rifing mists,
From off the mountain's brow, roll blue away
In curling spires; and open all his woods,
High waving in the sky: th' uncolour'd stream,
Beneath her glowing ray, translucent shines.
Glad Nature feels her through her boundless realms
Of life and sense: and calls forth all her sweets,
Fragrance and fong. From each unfolding flower
Transpires the balm of life, that Zephyr wafts,
Delicious, on his rosy wing: each bird,
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