ODE TO PITY. O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacroś GRAY. O Thou, whose sweetly melting eye For thou canst still my throbbing breast, I'll follow where thy footsteps rove, . Slow winding thro' thy magic cell, The tender passions throng. And O, down yon sequester'd vale, What mingled murmurs speak! Oh sweet enthusiast ever near Now bid thy sorrows part. O'er him, to Death's cold arm assign'd, For whose green turf shall fancy bind The wreaths that never fade, And where, as eve's mild dews descend, Sad forms of meek-ey'd mercy bend, And bless the hallow'd shade. Where still, as shuts the eye of day, Where twilight glim'rings dwell, Where art thou Sterne? O spirit sweet! To what lov'd scene dost thou retreat, To pour thy pensive talé ? There, on the wild shore flitting round, O'er what rapt sprites, in dying sound, Do thy soft tones prevail? The tender tear shall Petrarch shed, From fair Fidele's grassy grave, For whom, on Arun's sedgy side, Or Shakspeare, bard divine! from where The ling'ring thunders rend the air, And red-tongu'd lightnings play, From where on yonder clifted brow, He views the mingling war below, Glad take his silent way? Oh master of the human soul!. As lost Maria, rapt in care O yes, while breathes thy tender page, And still, to thy meek sorrows true, Ah maiden lov'd! from earliest youth To thee I've vow'd unblemish'd truth, Each trembling pulse is thine. To thee first lisp'd my artless Muse, And cull'd for thee, of choicest hues, The flowers that deck thy shrine. Ah me to thoughtless mirth assign'd, And leave the wretch to weep, The following Epitaph, the poetical part of which, at the request of the relations of the deceased Lady, I have lately been induced to compose, can lay claim, I believe, to the uncommon merit, of a close adherence to matter of fact. Mrs. Gastrell was a woman singularly pious and amiable, most liberally yet judiciously charitable and benevolent, who waited not until the hand of Death necessarily transferred her wealth, but some years anterior to that event, distributed among her relatives sixteen thousand pounds. She brought up also, and under her immediate 'care, several young persons, to whom she left property proportioned to their expectations and the style of education they had received.. |