As late I stray'd, with careless step,
And raptur'd eye, o'er hills and plains;
Sudden a sylvan, cool retreat
A while my roving foot detains.

The trees, in scatter'd clusters, spread
Their green relief from summer's blaze!
The feather'd concourse throng'd the shade,
Chanting their wild and choral lays.

Sweet glades the leafy glooms divide
With pleasing intervals of light;
While the rich landscape's distant pride,
Thro' happiest inlets, reach'd the sight.

Eusebus, fond a Patriot to commence,
With self-conceit supplies his want of sense.
In Power an ideot, striving still to rise;
Tho' void of wisdom, arrogantly wise.
A slander fond from whispering lips to steal,
And fonder still those whispers to reveal.
Amid a group of tattling matrons set,
How flows his eloquence! how beams his wit!
With dark suspicion struck, he shakes the head,
Just hints what some folk were, what some folk did;
For nought delights him more than others woe;
To see them fall, or strive to lay them low.

AN EPIGRAM.

Tho' Florio revell'd, subtile as a fox,
Thrice in six weeks poor Florio caught a p — x;
The next six weeks brought weeping to his door,
Three pregnant wenches and a brimstone wh — re.
Mad at the sight, and tortur'd with the evil,
He drove the black assembly to the devil.
Well, here his griefs would end? Ah! piteous tale,
Six following weeks beheld him in a Jail;
The next six saw him, ere their time flew by,
Roar, curse, blaspheme, pine, mortify and die.

Blest had'st thou been, O Florio! blest indeed!

Hail! kind, free, honest-hearted swain,
My ne'er forgotten frien',
Wha aft has made me, since wi' pain
We parted, dight my e'en;
Ance mair frae aff a lanely plain,
Whare Warlocks wauk at e'en,
An' witches dance, I'll raise my strain
Till to your bield bedeen
It sound this day.

Wide muirs that spread wi' purple sweep,
Beneath the sunny glowe;
Hills swell'd vast here — there dark glens deep,
Whare brooks embosom'd rowe;
Cots hingin' owre the woody steep,
Bields reekin' frae the howe,

Day's sinking fount now pours a milder flood
And burnishes with deeper gold the green:
A lucid autumn paints the summer wood;
And the pleas'd eye smiles on the saffron scene.
The long-grown shades announce advancing night;
With faintest breath the languid zephyr blows;
Th' unruffled trees sleep in the yellow light;
And all surrounding things instil repose.
Calm Evening's tranquil pupil, let me stray;
From hectic care, from sultry anger free;
All cool my bosom as abated day;
Nor clouded, Conscience, by a frown from thee!

Bright meteore of day,
For mee in Thetis' bowres for euer staye:
Night, to this flowrie globe
Ne're show for mee thy starre-embrodred robe;
My night, my day doe not proceede from you,
But hang on Mira's browe;
For when shee lowres, and hides from mee her eyes,
Midst clearest day I finde blacke night arise,
When, smyling, shee againe those twinnes doth turne,
In midst of night I finde noone's torch to burne.

Cool animation, hail! escap'd a while
From the hot scene where burns man's fever'd life;
Whose purple tides so oft impetuous boil,
Inflam'd with riot foul, and furious strife:
Refresh'd I view your life that calmly glows,
And its first innocence till death retains;
Whose purer blood for ever temperate flows
Through the chaste conduits of your finer veins.
Come here and cool, fierce Hate, and, Discord, come;
And learn of these so mild a life that lead:
And red Intemperance let 'em teach to bloom,

And wilt thou go, bright regent of the day?
Farewel, awhile! we part to meet again.
Ere long shall I review thy golden ray;
Ere long shalt thou resume thy glorious reign.
The sea that now absorbs thy falling light,
Compel'd shall soon its rosy prey restore;
Bereav'd, but not for ever, is my sight;
Without despair, these eyes thy loss deplore.
Oh Virtue! when thine orb droops towards its bed,
With such calm faith sad Friendship breathes adieu:
Thou shalt emerge, fair star, from death's black shade,
The splendid course of glory to renew.

When raging Summer, from his blazing throne,
Darts his fierce rays o'er all the breezeless skies,
How soft a night, the grove, to which he flies,
Flings o'er the languid fugitive from noon!
There, screen'd from Heaven's oppressive fervour, soon
His sense revives, as stretch'd at ease he lies:
Reliev'd from glare, to his recovering eyes
The sylvan scene, by graver light, is shown:
Such, pleasing Melancholy, thy bland power!
Shade of the heart! the panting soul's retreat
From scorching joys! blest is thy sombrous hour,

To forge to mightie Ioue
The thunder-bolts aboue,
Nor on this round below
Rich Midas' skill to know,
And make all gold I touch,
I doe not craue, nor other cunning such:
For all those artes bee vnderneath the skie,
I wish but Phillis' lapidare to bee.