But most we mark the wonders of her reign,
When Sleep has locked the senses in her chain.
When sober Judgment has his throne resigned,
She smiles away the chaos of the mind;
And, as warm Fancy's bright Elysium glows,
From Her each image springs, each color flows.
She is the sacred guest! the immortal friend!
Oft seen o'er sleeping Innocence to bend,
In that dead hour of night to Silence given,
Whispering seraphic visions of her heaven.

When the blithe son of Savoy, roving round,
With humble wares and pipe of merry sound,
From his green vale and sheltered cabin hies,
And scales the Alps to visit foreign skies;
Tho' far below the forkèd lightnings play,
And at his feet the thunder dies away,
Oft, in the saddle rudely rocked to sleep,
While his mule browses on the dizzy steep,
With MEMORY's aid, he sits at home, and sees
His children sport beneath their native trees,
And bends, to hear their cherub voices call,
O'er the loud fury of the torrent's fall.

But can her smile with gloomy Madness dwell?
Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell?
Each fiery flight on Frenzy's wing restrain,
And mold the coinage of the fevered brain?

Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam supplies,
There in the dust the wreck of Genius lies!
He whose arresting hand sublimely wrought
Each bold conception in the sphere of thought;
Who from the quarried mass, like PHIDIAS, drew
Forms ever fair, creations ever new!

But, as he fondly snatched the wreath of Fame, The specter Poverty unnerved his frame. Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore: And Hope's soft energies were felt no more. Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art! From the rude stone what bright ideas start! Even now he claims the amaranthine wreath, With scenes that glow, with images that breathe! And whence these scenes, these images, declare. Whence but from Her who triumphs o'er despair?

Awake, arise! with grateful fervor fraught,
Go, spring the mine of elevated thought.
He who, thro' Nature's various walks, surveys
The good and fair her faultless line portrays;
Whose mind, profaned by no unhallowed guest,
Culls from the crowd the purest and the best;
May range, at will, bright Fancy's golden clime,
Or, musing, mount where Science sits sublime,
Or wake the spirit of departed Time.
Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral muse,
A blooming Eden in his life reviews!
So richly cultured every native grace,
Its scanty limits he forgets to trace:

But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky,
Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!
The weary waste, that lengthened as he ran,
Fades to a blank, and dwindles to a span!

Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind, By truth illumined, and by taste refined? When Age has quenched the eye and closed the ear, Still nerved for action in her native sphere, Oft will she rise—with searching glance pursue Some long-loved image vanished from her view; Dart thro' the deep recesses of the past, O'er dusky forms in chains of slumber cast; With giant grasp fling back the folds of night, And snatch the faithless fugitive to light.

So thro' the grove the impatient mother flies,
Each sunless glade, each secret pathway tries;
Till the light leaves the truant boy disclose,
Long on the wood moss stretched in sweet repose.

Nor yet to pleasing objects are confined The silent feasts of the reflective mind. Danger and death a dread delight inspire; And the bald veteran glows with wonted fire, When, richly bronzed by many a summer sun, He counts his scars, and tells what deeds were done.

Go, with old Thames, view Chelsea's glorious pile; And ask the shattered hero, whence his smile? Go, view the splendid domes of Greenwich, go; And own what raptures from Reflection flow.

Hail, noblest structures imaged in the wave!
A nation's grateful tribute to the brave.

Hail, blest retreats from war and shipwreck, hail!
That oft arrest the wondering stranger's sail.
Long have ye heard the narratives of age,
The battle's havoc, and the tempest's rage;
Long have ye known Reflection's genial ray
Gild the calm close of Valor's various day.

Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece, Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease: A softer tone of light pervades the whole, And breathes a pensive languor o'er the soul. . . .

But is Her magic only felt below?
Say, thro' what brighter realms she bids it flow;
To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere,
She yields delight but faintly imaged here:
All that till now their rapt researches knew,
Not called in slow succession to review;
But, as a landscape meets the eye of day,
At once presented to their glad survey!

Each scene of bliss revealed, since chaos fled,
And dawning light its dazzling glories spread;
Each chain of wonders that sublimely glowed,
Since first Creation's choral anthem flowed;
Each ready flight, at Mercy's smile divine,
To distant worlds that undiscovered shine;
Full on her tablet flings its living rays,
And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze.

There thy bright train, immortal friendship, soar;
No more to part, to mingle tears no more!
And, as the softening hand of Time endears
The joys and sorrows of our infant years,

So there the soul, released from human strife,
Smiles at the little cares and ills of life;

Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers;
As at a dream that charmed her vacant hours!

Oft may the spirits of the dead descend,
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend;
To hover round his evening walk unseen,
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green;