Was now no more. Enjoyment past,

The favage hunger'd for the feaft;
But (as we find in human race,
A mafk conceals the villain's face)
Juftice muft authorize the treat;
'Till then he long'd, but durft not eat.
As forth he walk'd, in quest of prey,
The hunters met him on the way;

Fear wings his flight; the marsh he fought;
The fnuffing dogs are fet at fault.

His fromach baulk'd, now hunger gnaws,
Howling, he grinds his empty jaws;
Food must be had, and lamb is nigh;
His maw invokes the fraudful lie.

Is this (diffembling rage, he cry'd)
The gentle virtue of a bride?

'That, leagu'd with man's deftroying race,
She fets her husband for the chace ?
By treach'ry prompts the noify hound
To fcent his footfeps on the ground?
Thou trait'refs vile! for this thy blood
Shall glut my rage, and dye the wood!
So faying, on the lamb he flies,
Beneath his jaws the victim dies.

THE

THE STORY OF

LAVINI A.

By Mг. THOMSON.

OON as the morning trembles o'er the fky,

SOON

And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the fpreading day;

Before the ripened field the reapers ftand,
In fair array; each by the lafs he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.

At once they floop and fwell the lufty fheaves.
While thro' their chearful band the rural talk,*
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,

Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,
And steal unfelt the fultry hours away.
Behind the mafter walks, builds up the shocks;
And conscious, glancing oft on every side
His fated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling
From the fuli fheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think!
How good the God of Harvest is to you;
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;

While thefe unhappy partners of your kind
Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder; that your fons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends;
And fortune fmil'd deceitful on her birth.
For, in her helplefs years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, fave innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By folitude and deep furrounding fhades,
But more by bafhful modefty, conceal'd.
Together thus they fhunn'd the cruel fcorn
Which virtue, funk to poverty, would meet
From giddy paffion and low-minded pride:
Almost on nature's common bounty fed;
Like the gay birds that fung them to repofe,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was frefher than the morning rofe,
When the dew wets its leaves; unitain'd, and pure,
As is the lily, or the mountain fnow.

The modell virtues mingled in her eyes,

Still on the ground dejected, darting all

Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:

Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithlefs fortune promis'd once,

Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy ftar
Of evening, fhone in tears.
A native grace
Sat fair-proportion'd on her polifh'd limbs,
Veil'd in a fimple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of drefs; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is when unadorn'd adorn'd the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, fhe was beauty's felf.
Reclufe amid the clofe-embowering woods,
As in the hollow breaft of Appenine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rifes, far from human eye,

And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourish'd blooming, and unfeen by all,
The fweet Lavinia; till, at length, compell'd
By ftrong neceffity's fupreme command,
With fmiling patience in her locks, fhe went
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of fwains
Palemon was, the generous, and the rich;
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, fuch as Arcadian fong
Tranfmits from ancient uncorrupted times;
When tyrant cuftom had not fhackled man,
But free to follow nature was the mode.

He

He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amufing, chanc'd befide his reaper-train
To walk, when foor Lavinia drew his eye;
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze:
He faw her charming, but he faw not half
The charms her down-caft modefty conceal'd.
That very moment love and chaste defire
Sprung in his bofom, to himfelf unknown.
For fill the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which fcarce the firm philofopher can fcorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field:
And thus in fecret to his foul he figh'd.
"What pity! that fo delicate a form,

By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense
"And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell,
"Should be devoted to the rude embrace

"Of fome indecent clown! She looks, methinks, "Of old Acafto's line; and to my mind

Recalls that patron of my happy life,

"From whom my liberal fortune took its rife; "Now to the duft gone down; his houfes, lands, "And once fair-fpreading family, diffolv’d.

'Tis faid that in fome lone obfcure retreat,

Urg'd by remembrance fad, and decent pride,

Far from thofe fcenes which knew their better days,

"His