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HORACE*, ODE VII. BOOK III.

TRANSLATED BY THE LATE REV. W. B. STEVENS,

WHY fall those tears on fair Asterie's breast?
Spring's earliest zephyrs shall restore;

With faith, that cannot change, with fortune blest,
Thy lover to his native shore.

A distant port withholds him from thy sight,
Whilst adverse tempests rend the deep:
And his lone pleasure thro' the wakeful night
Is but to think of thee, and weep.

In vain fair Chloe spreads her festive snare,
And bids her prompted friend in vain,
With words of artful sympathy declare
The sighing progress of her pain.

In vain she tells his constant heart to prove,
How from the dame cold Peleus fled,
And found a fit reward of slighted love,
The verge of Hell for Beauty's bed:

How Argos' amorous queen, with cruel thought,
To heal a woman's wounded pride,

Her credulous lord to her dire humour wrought,
And the chaste fool had nearly died.

"The true forte of Horace, in his Odes, is not perhaps the "sublime. It seems to me that he is never so much at home as "when he expatiates upon common topics, where he can indulge "his genius in a certain vein of elegant familiarity.

"STEVENS."

In vain her treacherous eloquence assails
With soft insinuating aim,

Deaf as a rock to her allusive tales,

His ears, his heart reject her claim.

But thou, whilst thus his manly faith disarms
Th' artillery of the wanton fair,

Beware thy gallant neighbour's graceful charms,
Ah, lest he charm too much beware!

What tho' he winds at will the fiery steed,
The martial plain's superior pride;
What tho' his arms victoriously precede
Each youth who swims the Tuscan tide;

Still from thy threshold, at approach of eve,
Let thy barr'd gate his steps deny;
And tho' his lyre melodiously may grieve
With airs of tenderest minstrelsy,

Trust not the open'd casement with thine car,
But let the baffled gallant find,

That whilst he artful swears thou art severe,
He may not hope to prove thee kind!

TO MAJOR ROOKE, OF MANSFIELD, On the Publication of his Diurnal Register of the Winds for the last Two Years.

No gale unlucky may thy fortunes find,
Benign Historian of the wayward wind!
But, when it rises with proverbial sway,
O may it cast all fickleness away!

On grateful wings, from blight and tempest free,
Blow only GooD from ev'ry point to THEE!

ANNA SEWARD,

ANACREONTIC.

COME reach me old Anacreon's lyre,
For wint'ry snows are lowering near,
And soon shall chill th' autumnal fire
That gleams on life's declining year.

Then let me wake the rapturous shell,

With cords of sweet remembrance strung;

While grateful Age delights to tell

Of joys that glow'd when life was young.

And, lest the languid pulse forego

The throb that Fancy's flight inspires, Anacreon's flowing cup bestow,

And urge with wine the waning fires.

But temper me the Teian bow!!

And chasten me the Teian shell!
The visions that in memory roll
Are such as Nature's bosom swell.

Yet, Nature!thine the votive string,
To no polluted ear addrest;
That of no blooming boys can sing,
But boys that hang on Beauty's breast.

Nor lawless thro' the realms of love,
Where native Venus lights the way,

Shall yet excursive Fancy rove,
Inebriate with the wanton lay.

If, while the mantling goblet flows,

I sing of Beauty's charms divine ;—
The breast that heaves, the cheek that glows,
And beaming eyes, like stars that shine;-
The draft on Memory's tablet true
That pictures each entrancing grace,
Without a frown shall Stella view,
Or there some lov'd memorial trace.

And when with high-enraptur'd air
My lavish verse shall most commend,
She'll find her youthful image there,
Or in each portrait own a friend.
Then reach me old Anacreon's lyre,
And temper me Anacreon's bowl;
That youthful Joy's remember'd fire
May Age's numbing frost controul.

J. THELWALL.

On a LADY'S FAN of her own Painting. Of danger careless, while the youth admires The emblematic toy on which thy art, In rich device, has shadow'd Hymen's fires, Love's sacred altar, and the votive heart; As from the author to the work he turns, Th' insidious flame steals on him by degrees, Till with the rapture all his bosom burns, And his heart proves the sacrifice he sees.

R. FENTON, ESQ.

ODE.

BY MR. SHAW.

O THAMES with chrystal face,
Whose waters visit as they stray,
The hamlets, where the shepherds play,
And seats that princes grace,
O Thames, still let me by thy stream,
Waste life away in pleasing dream.

Not where thy wave beside,
The city rears her turrets proud,
And the mad tumult of the croud
Resounds along thy tide,

O! let not there my youth pursue
False joys that sober age will rue.
Nor where thy bank along,
Some princely villa crowns the plain,
Whose gilded halls the glittering train
Of courtly flatterers throng,
O see me not there by thy wave,
Of show and idle state the slave.

But where thy silver springs
Thro' nameless vales their smooth way take,
Ere yet the shepherd they forsake,

To seek the seats of kings;

O! Thames, there let me rear my bower,
And deck it round with many a flower.

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