Placed in the mild domestic sphere,
With highest grace her charms appear;
Expos'd to the broad glare of day,
Each modest beauty fades away.
When woman would be learn'd or great,
She seeks what's foreign to her state;
"Tis hers to know each winning way,
And rule, by seeming to obey.
BY G. W. O. ESQ. OF BALTIMORE.
NYMPH of ever-placid mién!
With humble look and soul serene,
In fortune's adverse day;
Who calmly sits amid the storm
That bursts around thy angel form,
Nor murmur'st at its sway.
Oh! now regardless of thy spell,
While heaves my aching bosom's swell,
Each grief, each pain reveal'd;
Still trembling in the dang'rous maze,
Where ills assail be near to raise
Thy strong protecting shield!
Full many a heart, by sorrow tri'd,
Has felt the balm thy hand suppli'd,
To ease its throbbing woes-
As resignation lifts on high,
Nor vainly so, the trusting eye,
And soothes to soft repose.
Yet, ah! upon thy steps no less
The watchful fiends relentless press,
To urge their fell controul:
How oft they point the pois'nous dart,
And aim to wound thy gentle heart,
And fright thy tranquil soul!
Methinks I see thee even now,
With hands compos'd, and halcyon brow,
While glaring near thee stand,
(Undaunted thou beholds't them wait)
The vengeful ministers of fate,
A dreadful, num'rous band!
There steru misfortune sullen lours,
And chills the heavy passing hours;
Mad anguish writhing nigh:
And weeping misery and scorn,
And drooping poverty forlorn,
Their diff'rent efforts try:
There curst ingratitude, and lo!
Sly falsehood, dealing oft the blow
In friendship's specious guise;
Whose hell-born art none can avoid,
By sad experience fully tried,
The guarded nor the wise!
Tho' ne'er invok'd before, thy aid
Refuse not thou, propitious maid,
This warmly votive hour:
A suppliant at thy shrine decreed
By many a bitter wrong to bleed,
Implores thy pitying pow'r.
With pious Hope, thy sister-friend,
Oh! hither come, thy succour lend,
To quell this painful strife;
And teach me how, with rising thought,
And breast with conscious virtue fraught,
To bear the ills of life.
THE ABSENCE OF HER DAUGHTER.
BY A GENTLEMAN OF PHILADELPHIA.
OH! wherefore should those trembling tears,
Successive, dim a mother's eye!
Oh, chase away those useless fears
Which prompt the sorrow-freighted sigh!
Remember that the faithful dove,
When bidden from the ark to roam,
Was guided by a God of love,
And brought the peaceful olive home.
So she, whose absence now ye mourn,
By no maternal fondness press'd,
Shall soon with flutt'ring heart return,
To plant the olive in thy breast.
Then, as the new-born rainbow stream'd
Its beauteous colours o'er the skies,
To tell the wanderers redeem'd
From floods, that floods no more should rise.
So she, when safe within thy arms,
With sweetest smiles her lips shall dress,
To quiet all thy heart's alarms,
And bid thy tears for ever cease!
TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear, Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave! To Bristol's fount I bore, with trembling care, Her faded form-she bow'd to taste the wave
And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line, Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dear Maria! breathe a strain divine;
Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm,
Bid them be chaste, be innocent like thee;
Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move, And if as fair, from vanity as free,
As firm in friendship, and as kind in love. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, ('Twas ev'n to thee) yet the dread path once trod,
Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids "the pure in heart behold their God."
EPITAPH BY LORD PALMERSTONE,
DEATH OF HIS WIFE.
WHOE'ER like me, with trembling anguish
brings,
. His heart's whole treasure to fair Bristol's springs;
Whoe'er like me, to soothe disease and pain,
Shall seek these salutary springs in vain;
Condemn'd like me, to hear the faint reply,
To mark the fading cheek, the sinking eye;
From the chill brow to wipe the damps of death,
And watch in dumb despair, the shortening breath:
If chance direct him to this artless line,
Let the sad mourner know his pangs were mine.
Ordain'd to lose the partner of my breast,
Whose virtues warmed me, and whose beautics
blest;
Framed every tie that binds the soul. to prove
Her duty friendship, and her friendship love;
But yet remembering that the parting sigh,
Appoints the just to slumber, not to die,
The starting tear I check'd, I kiss'd the rod,
And not to earth resign'd her, but to God.
FROM LORD LITTLETON'S MONODY,
MEMORY OF HIS LADY.
YE tufted groves, ye gentle falling rills,
Ye high o'er-shadowing hills,
Ye lawns gay smiling with eternal green,
Oft have you my Lucy seen!
But never shall ye now behold her more;
Nor will she now with fond delight
And taste refin'd, your rural charms explore: Clos'd are those beauteous eyes in endless night! In vain I look around,
O'er all the well known ground,
My Lucy's wonted footsteps to descry;
Where oft we us'd to walk,
Where oft in tender talk,
We saw the summer sun go down the sky.
Nor by yon fountain's side,
Nor where its waters glide,
Along the valley can she now be found,
In all the wide stretch'd prospect's bound!
No more my mournful eye,
Can ought of her espy,
But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie. Sweet babes, who like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns, By your delighted mother's side,
Who now your infant steps shall guide?
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