The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer Part 22

Still grief recoils--How vainly have I strove Thy power, O Melancholy, to withstand!

Tired I submit; but yet, O yet remove Or ease the pressure of thy heavy hand.

41

Yet for a while let the bewilder'd soul Find in society relief from woe; O yield a while to Friends.h.i.+p's soft control; Some respite, Friends.h.i.+p, wilt thou not bestow?

42

Come, then, Philander! for thy lofty mind Looks down from far on all that charms the great; For thou canst bear, unshaken and resign'd, The brightest smiles, the blackest frowns of Fate:

43

Come thou, whose love unlimited, sincere, Nor faction cools, nor injury destroys; Who lend'st to misery's moans a pitying ear, And feel'st with ecstasy another's joys:

44

Who know'st man's frailty: with a favouring eye, And melting heart, behold'st a brother's fall; Who, unenslaved by custom's narrow tie, With manly freedom follow'st reason's call.

45

And bring thy Delia, softly-smiling fair, Whose spotless soul no sordid thoughts deform: Her accents mild would still each throbbing care, And harmonize the thunder of the storm.

46

Though blest with wisdom, and with wit refined, She courts not homage, nor desires to s.h.i.+ne: In her each sentiment sublime is join'd To female sweetness, and a form divine.

47

Come, and dispel the deep surrounding shade: Let chasten'd mirth the social hours employ; O catch the swift-wing'd hour before 'tis fled, On swiftest pinion flies the hour of joy.

48

Even while the careless disenc.u.mber'd soul Dissolving sinks to joy's oblivious dream, Even then to time's tremendous verge we roll With haste impetuous down life's surgy stream.

49

Can Gaiety the vanish'd years restore, Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed, Or soothe the sad inevitable hour, Or cheer the dark, dark mansions of the dead?

50

Still sounds the solemn knell in Fancy's ear, That call'd Cleora to the silent tomb; To her how jocund roll'd the sprightly year!

How shone the nymph in beauty's brightest bloom!

51

Ah! beauty's bloom avails not in the grave, Youth's lofty mien, nor age's awful grace: Moulder unknown the monarch and the slave, Whelm'd in the enormous wreck of human race.

52

The thought-fix'd portraiture, the breathing bust, The arch with proud memorials array'd, The long-lived pyramid shall sink in dust To dumb oblivion's ever-desert shade.

53

Fancy from comfort wanders still astray.

Ah, Melancholy! how I feel thy power!

Long have I labour'd to elude thy sway!

But 'tis enough, for I resist no more.

54

The traveller thus, that o'er the midnight waste Through many a lonesome path is doom'd to roam, Wilder'd and weary sits him down at last; For long the night, and distant far his home.

[Footnote 1: Such, according to the description given by Plutarch, was the scene of Brutus's death.]

ELEGY.

1

Tired with the busy crowds, that all the day Impatient throng where Folly's altars flame, My languid powers dissolve with quick decay, Till genial Sleep repair the sinking frame.

2

Hail, kind reviver! that canst lull the cares, And every weary sense compose to rest, Lighten the oppressive load which anguish bears, And warm with hope the cold desponding breast.