Doth so beguile the lover's easy mind,

Still turning it to Fancy's idiot eye,

That Reason's self forgets her majesty

To join the gaze; till the fond phantoms pass,

And Grief and stern Repentance rise behind.

SONNET

TO PETRARCH.

O FOR that shell, whose melancholy sound,
Heard in Valclusa by the lucid stream

Of laurel-shaded Sorga, spread thy theme,

Fair Laura and her scorn, to all around

High-built Avignon, on the rocky mound

That banks the impetuous Rhone, and like a

steam

From some rich incense rising, to the extreme

Of desolate Hesperia did rebound,

And gently waked the Muses :-so might I,

Studious of song like thee, and ah! too like

In sad complaint of ill-requited love,

So might I, hopeless now, have power to strike Such notes, as lovers' tears should sanctify,

And cold Fidele's melting sighs approve.

TO A LADY,

WHO DESIRED SOME SPECIMENS OF THE AUTHOR'S POETRY.

LET not Eliza bid me now rehearse

The unvalued rhymes that long forgotten lie:

For all unfit is my rude-fashioned Verse

To meet the censure of her curious eye:

But for her sake a subject could I choose

To draw down fame and envy on the Bard,

Thy lovely Self should be my theme and Muse,

And thy sweet smile, Eliza, my reward.

EPITAPH

ON A CHILD WHO DIED OF A SCARLET FEVER IN THE FIFTEENTH MONTH OF HIS AGE. 1802.

THOUGH thou wert dear, for lovely was thy form, And fair thy mind, and hopeful from thy birth ; Though sudden was the pestilential storm

That beat thy tender blossom to the earth;

For thee we grieve not; certain that the soul

Yet sinless, bursting from its earthy clod,

Is borne on angel wings beyond the pole,

Where infant innocence hath place with God.