North Court House

H ERE Solitude her mantle throws
On Sylvan Beauty's chaste repose;
Congenial Nymphs have charge alone
To soothe her bed, and grace her throne;
Their tribute is that plaintive stream,
Those Caves in which the Muses dream;
Elysian bowers of hallow'd shade,
For heaven-descending visions made;
The mossy hillock's verdant hue,
And sweets that Zephyr's pinions threw;
The path in rural beauty lost,
From hill to dale by magic tost,
Unless where Fancy on her waist
Had bound in sport the zone of Taste . —
And yet in this enchanted ground
A pensive character is found:
It sheds a melancholy charm,
That all the passions can disarm,
Except the love that scorns relief,
And guards with jealous pride its grief.
" But what's the scene without a mind
In which its gems can be enshrin'd?
Perhaps the Lord of this domain
Is of inferior treasures vain;
Has on his Ancestors rely'd,
Or made the charm of gold his pride;
In sympathies no time would lose,
And with contempt would spurn the Muse. "
Thus to himself the Rambler said
As o'er the landscape he was led;
His guide, a Wood-Nymph, still was near,
And smil'd upon him through a tear,
When Genius open'd Beauty's door,
And Praise could hesitate no more.
I care not whose the chisel's art,
But read the language of the heart ;
Melt in the sympathizing tear,
And the departed shade revere.
To me the Parent's grief is known;
The Sister's anguish is my own;
The sigh that never can forget,
That feeds upon its own regret,
And through its mirror still can trace
The cherish'd form, the living grace.
I love the heart, and bless the Muse;
Her tear is of Castalian dews:
From thought inspir'd the numbers came,
And Melody their note shall claim.
The Bard compar'd with his domain,
I view his Genius there again;
The harmony and soul of grace,
That breathe upon the mind and place .
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