The Nightingale no longer fwelled her throat
With love-lorn plainings tremulous and flow,
And on the wings of filence ceas'd to float
The gargling Notes of her melodious woe :
The God of fleep myfterious vifions led
In gay proceffion, 'fore the mental eye;
freed foul awhile her manfion fled,

And my

To try her plumes for immortality.

Through fields of air, methought, I took my flight, Through every clime, o'er every region pass'd, No Paradice or ruin 'fcap'd my fight,

HESPERIAN garden, or CIMMERIAN wafte.

On Avon's banks I lit, whofe ftreams appear
To wind with eddies find round SHAKSPEARE'S

tomb,

The year's first feath'ry fongfters warble near,
And vi'lets breate, and earliest rofes bloom.

Here FANCY fat, (her dewy fingers cold
Decking with flow'rett fresh th' unfullied fod,)
And bath'd with tears the fad fepulchral mold,
Her fav'rite offspring's long and last abcde.

Ah! what avails, fhe cry'd, a Poet's name?
Ah! what avails th' immortalizing breath

Το

To fnatch from dumb oblivion others fame? My darling child here lies a prey to death! Let gentle OTWAY, white-rob'd Pity's priest, From grief domestic teach the tears to flow, Or SOUTHERN captivate th' impaffion'd breast With heart-felt fighs and fympathy of woe

For not to these his genius was confin'd,

Nature and I each tuneful pow'r had given, Poetic transports of the madding mind,

And the wing'd words that waft the foul to heaven.

The fiery glance of th' intellectual eye,
Piercing all objects of creations store,
Which in this world' extended furface lie ;
And plastic thought that ftill creat'd more,

O grant,

with eager rapture I reply'd,

Grant me, great goddess of the changeful eye, To view each Being in poetic pride,

To whom thy fon gave immortality,

Sweet Fancy fmil'd, and wav'd her mystic rod, When strait these visions felt her powerful arm, And one by one fucceeded at her nod,

As vaffal Sprites obey the wizard charm.

Firft a celeftial form (of azure hue

Whose mantle, bound with brede aetherial, flow'd To each foft breeze its balmy breath that drew) Swift down the fun-beams of the noon-tide rode. Obedient to the necromantic fway

Of an old fage to folitude refign'd, With fenny vapors he obfcur'd the day, Launch'd the long lightning, and let loose the wind.

He whirl'd the tempeft through the howling air,
Rattled the dreadful thunder-clap on high,
And rais'd the roaring elemental war

Betwixt the fea green waves and azure sky.

Then, like heaven's mild embassador of love

To man repentant, bade the tumult cease, Smooth'd the blue bofom of the realms above, And hush'd the rebel elements to peace.

Unlike to this in spirit or in mein

Another form fucceeded to my view;

A two-legg'd brute which Nature made in fpleen,
Or from the loathing womb unfinished drew.

Scarce could he fyllable the curfe he thought,
Prone were his eyes to earth, his mind to evil,
A carnal fiend to imperfection wrought,
The mongrel offspring of a Witch and Devil.

L

Next bloom'd, upon an ancient forest's bound,
The flow'ry margin of a filent ftream,
O'er-arch'd by oaks with ivy mantled round,
And gilt by filver CYNTHIA's maiden beam.

On the green carpet of th' unbended grass,
A dapper train of female fairies play'd,
And ey'd their gambols in the wa'try glass,

That smoothly stole along the fhad'wy glade.

Through these the queen TITANIA pafs'd ador'd,
Mounted aloft in her imperial car,

Journeying to fee great OBERON her lord
Wage the mock battles of a sportive war.

Arm'd cap-a-pee forth march'd the fairy king,
A ftouter warrior never took the field,
His threat'ning lance a hornet's horrid fting,
The harded beetle's fcale his fable fhield.

Around their chief the elfin hoft appear❜d;
Each little helmet íparkled like a ftar,
And their sharp fpears in pierceless phalanx rear'd,
A grove of thistles, glitter'd in the air.

The scene then chang'd, from this romantic land,
To a bleak wafte by bound'ry unconfin'd,

Where three fwart fifters of the weird band Were mutt'ring curfes to the troublous wind.

Pale

Pale Want had wither'd every furrow'd face,
Bow'd was each carcafe with the weight of years,
And each funk eye-ball from its hollow cafe
Distill'd cold rheum's involuntary tears.

Hors'd on three ftaves they posted to the bourn
Of a drear ifland, where the pendant brow
Of a rough rock, fhagg'd horribly with thorn,
Frown'd on the boift'rous waves which rag'd
below.

Deep in a gloomy grot remote from day,

Where fmiling Comfort never fhew'd her face, Where light ne'er enter'd, fave one rueful ray Discovering all the terrors of the place.

They held damn'd myft'ries with infernal state,
Whilft ghaftly spectres glided flowly by,
The screech-owl fcream'd the dying call of fate,
And ravens croak'd their baleful augury.

No human footstep cheer'd the dread abode,
No fign of living creature could be seen,
Save where the reptile snake, or fullen toad,

The murky floor had foil'd with venom green.

Sudden I heard the whirlwind's hollow found,
Each weird fifter vanish'd into smoke,

Now a dire yell of fpirits underground

Thro' troubled Earth's wide yawning furface

broke;

E 2

When