Does youth, does beauty, read the line?
Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?
Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine:
Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.
2 Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;
Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;
And if so fair, from vanity as free;
As firm in friendship, and as fond in love;
Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,
('Twas even to thee,) yet the dread path once trod,
Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'
AN HEROIC EPISTLE TO SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS, KNIGHT,
COMPTROLLER-GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S WORKS, ETC.
Knight of the Polar Star! by fortune placed
To shine the Cynosure of British taste;
Whose orb collects in one refulgent view
The scattered glories of Chinese virtu;
And spreads their lustre in so broad a blaze,
That kings themselves are dazzled while they gaze:
Oh, let the Muse attend thy march sublime,
And, with thy prose, caparison her rhyme;
Teach her, like thee, to gild her splendid song,
With scenes of Yven-Ming, and sayings of Li-Tsong;
Like thee to scorn dame Nature's simple fence;
Leap each ha-ha of truth and common sense;
And proudly rising in her bold career,
Demand attention from the gracious ear
Of him, whom we and all the world admit,
Patron supreme of science, taste, and wit.
Pages:
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320