The wounds which now each moment bleed,

Each moment then shall close,

And tranquil days shall ftill fucceed

To nights of calm repose.

O fairy elf! but grant me this,

This one kind comfort fend;

And fo may never-fading bliss
Thy flow'ry paths attend!

So may the glow-worm's glimm'ring light
Thy tiny footsteps lead

To fome new region of delight,
Unknown to mortal tread.

And be thy acorn goblet fill'd

With heav'n's ambrofial dew;

From sweetest, fresheft flow'rs diftill'd,
That shed fresh fweets for you.

And what of life remains for me

I'll pass in fober ease;
Half-pleas'd, contented will I be,

Content but half to please.

N

ODE

ΤΟ

ADVERSIT Y.

GRAY.

DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless pow'r,

Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour

The bad affright, afflict the best!

Bound in thy adamantine chain,

The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone."

When first thy Sire to fend on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd,
To thee he gave the heav'nly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore;

What forrow was thou bad'ft her know,

And from her own she learn'd to melt at others woe.

ODE TO ADVERSIT Y.

Scar'd at his frown terrific, fly

Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,

Wild laughter, noise, and thoughtless joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.

Light they difperfe; and with them go

The fummer-friend, the flatt'ring foe;

By vain prosperity receiv'd,

55

To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.

Wisdom in fable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound.

And Melancholy, filent maid

With leaden eye, that loves the ground,

Still on thy folemn steps attend:

Warm charity, the general friend,

With juftice to herself severe,

And pity, dropping foft the fadly-pleafing tear.

O, gently on thy fuppliant's head,
Dread Goddess, lay thy chafst'ning hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen)

With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,
With screaming horror's fun'ral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghafly Poverty.

56

O DE TO ADVERSITY.

Thy form benign, oh Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,

Thy philofophic train be there

To foften, not to wound my heart.
The gen'rous fpark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,

Exact my own defects to fcan,

What others are to feel; and know myfelf a man.

ODE

DISTANT

ON A

PROSPECT,

O F

ETON COLLEGE.

YE

E distant spires, ye antique tow'rs,
That crown the wat'ry glade,

Where grateful science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;

And ye, that from the stately brow

Of Windfor's heights th' expanfe below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

Whose turf, whofe shade, whofe flow'rs among,

Wanders the hoary Thames along

His filver-winding way.

Ah happy hills! ah pleasing shade!

Ah fields belov'd in vain!

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A ftranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow,

A momentary blifs bestow;

As waving fresh their gladfome wing,
My weary foul they seem to footh,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.

GRAYI