Ye proud, ye selfish, ye severe,
How vain your mask of state!
The good alone have joy sincere,
The good alone are great :

Great, when, amid the vale of peace,
They bid the plaint of sorrow cease,
And hear the voice of artless praise;
As, when along the trophied plain,
Sublime they lead the victor train,
While shouting nations gaze.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LADY CHARLOTTE GORDON,

DRESSED IN A TARTAN SCOTCH BONNET,

WITH PLUMES, &c.

WHY, Lady, wilt thou bind thy lovely brow, With the dread semblance of that warlike helm, That nodding plume, and wreath of various glow, That graced the chiefs of Scotia's antient realm?

Thou knowest that virtue is of power the source,
And all her magic to thy eyes is given;
We own their empire, while we feel their force,
Beaming with the benignity of heaven.

The plumy helmet, and the martial mien, Might dignify Minerva's awful charms; But more resistless far the Idalian queenSmiles, graces, gentleness, her only arms.

THE HERMIT.

Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,

When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove:
'Twas then, by the cave of the mountain afar,
A Hermit his song of the night thus began;
No more with himself, or with nature, at war,
He thought as a sage, while he felt as a man :

"Ah! why thus abandoned to darkness and woe?
Why thus, lonely Philomel, flows thy sad strain?
“ For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
"And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain.

'Yet, if pity inspire thee, ah! cease not thy lay,

“Mourn, sweetest complainer! man calls thee to mourn : "O sooth him, whose pleasures like thine pass away— "Full quickly they pass-but they never return.

66

Now gliding remote on the verge of the sky,

The moon, half-extinguished, her crescent displays : “But lately I marked, when majestic on high,

“She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
"Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
"The path that conducts thee to splendour again :
“But man's faded glory no change shall renew—
"Ah fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

66

" "Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; “I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; "For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, “ Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew. "Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; "Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save.— "But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn? O, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?"

66

'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads, to bewilder, and dazzles, to blind;
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

R