SINCE now the hour is come at last,
When you must quit your anxious lover;
Since now our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all is over.
Alas! that pang will be severe,
Which bids us part to meet no more, Which tears me far from one so dear, Departing for a distant shore.
Well: we have pass'd some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant years;
Where from the gothic casement's height,
We view'd the lake, the park, the dale,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We lingering look a last farewell.
* This poem is inserted from the private volume.-ED.
O'er fields through which we used to run, And spend the hours in childish play; O'er shades where, when our race was done, Reposing on my breast you lay ;
Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,
Forgot to scare the hov'ring flies,
Yet envied every fly the kiss
It dared to give your slumbering eyes:
See still the little painted bark,
In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm I clamber'd for your sake.
These times are past-our joys are gone,
You leave me, leave this happy vale;
These scenes I must retrace alone:
Without thee what will they avail?
Who can conceive, who has not proved,
The anguish of a last embrace?
When, torn from all you fondly loved,
You bid a long adieu to peace,
This is the deepest of our woes,
For this these tears our cheeks bedew;
This is of love the final close,
Oh, God, the fondest, last adieu!
DELIVERED PREVIOUS TO THE PERFORMANCE OF "THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE" AT A PRIVATE THEATRE.
SINCE the refinement of this polish'd age
Has swept immoral raillery from the stage;
Since taste has now expunged licentious wit,
Which stamp'd disgrace on all an author writ;
Since now to please with purer scenes we seek,
Nor dare to call the blush from Beauty's cheek;
Oh! let the modest Muse some pity claim,
And meet indulgence though she find not fame.
Still, not for her alone we wish respect,
Others appear more conscious of defect:
To-night no veteran Roscii you behold,
In all the arts of scenic action old;
No Cooke, no KEMBLE, can salute you here,
NO SIDDONS draw the sympathetic tear;
To-night you throng to witness the debut
Of embryo actors, to the Drama new:
Here, then, our almost unfledged wings we try;
Clip not our pinions ere the birds can fly:
Failing in this our first attempt to soar,
Drooping, alas! we fall to rise no more.
Not one poor trembler only fear betrays,
Who hopes, yet almost dreads, to meet your praise; But all our dramatis personæ wait
In fond suspense this crisis of our fate.
No venal views our progress can retard,
Your generous plaudits are our sole reward;
For these, each Hero all his power displays,
Each timid Heroine shrinks before your gaze.
Surely the last will some protection find;
None to the softer sex can prove unkind:
Whilst Youth and Beauty form the female shield,
The sternest Censort to the fair must yield.
Yet, should our feeble efforts nought avail,*
Should, after all, our best endeavours fail,
Still let some mercy in your bosoms live,
And, if you can't applaud, at least forgive.
* Our. In the private volume, their.-Ed.
In the private volume, critic.-ED.
THE FOLLOWING ILLIBERAL IMPROMPTU APPEARED IN A
MORNING PAPER *.
"OUR nation's foes lament on Fox's death,
But bless the hour when PITT resign'd his breath:
These feelings wide, let sense and truth unclue,
We give the palm where Justice points its due."
TO WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THESE PIECES SENT THE FOLLOWING
REPLY †.
Oн factious viper! whose envenom'd tooth
Would mangle still the dead, perverting truth,
What though our "nation's foes" lament the fate,
With generous feeling, of the good and great,
Shall dastard tongues essay to blast the name
Of him whose meed exists in endless fame?
When PITT expired in plenitude of power,
Though ill success obscured his dying hour,
Pity her dewy wings before him spread,
For noble spirits "war not with the dead:"
His friends, in tears, a last sad requiem gave,
As all his errors slumber'd in the grave;
"In the Morning Post."- Private volume.-ED.
"For insertion in the Morning Chronicle," was here added in
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