290 poetry. Oct. 24, 
» On sicep-chain’d health thou steal’st amain: 
But slowly fhines thy lingering ray 
To him, that on the bed of pain 
At even laments the night, at morn bewails the day, 
And slow’s thy welcome to the wight 
That haplefs toils the tedious night 
‘Tempestuous through the wintry wild, 
Where horror roams, Gorgonian child : . 
And to the storm tofs’d wretch, forlorn 
Amidst the darksome ocean’s roar, 
Who, by the boisterous waters born, 
Dreads the unpitying strand, or rude basaltic fhore; 
Long, long in Thetis’ caverns lost, 
Thou quitt’st Lapponia’s guilelets * coast, ~ 
And Nova Zembla’s icy plains, 
Or where the Oby + sleeps in chains: 
Long mourns in Greenland’s snow-clad cave 
The Troglodyte thine absence drear; 
Till o’er th’ Ulumin’d arctic wave 
Thy saffron robe he spies, and hails the vernal year. 
When Chaos held his throne of old 
Where frightful desolation scowl’d, 
And o’er the monstrous waste profound 
Night brooded horrible around ; 
‘Thy cheering light, full sweet, I ween, 
Upspringing broke the midnight gloom ; 
‘ And o’er creation’s varied scene 
Dispers’d its orient hues, and bade all nature lenis 
And*sweet thy face, when first it glow’d . 
On Eden's heavenly prime, and sow’d Bias 
With glittering pearis the garnith’d ground, 
And balmy odours breath’d around, 
Or sweeter still, with pure delight 
When soft eyed cherubs hail’d thy ray ; 
And, spoiling death, the lord of might 
Victorious burst the tomb, and sought the realms of day. 
Well may the muse, with rapturous voice, 
In thy transporting charms rejoice: 
Oft from Parnafsus’ flowery swell, 
Enchanted as by magic spell, 
She views thy kindling form divine 
Disporting in the eastern fky ; 
And borrows oft, to grace her line, 
The roses of thy cheek, and radiance of thine eye. 
Peterhead, May,'1'793: AA t. 
* Concerning the blest innocence of the Laplanders, see Linngus’s 
preface tovhis Flora Lapponica, 
/ A river of Siberia. 
$ The farther cerrespondence of this writer will prove very at- 
ceptable. 
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