POEMS. 



Amidst this savage landscape, bleak and bare, 

 Hangs the chill hermitage in middle air ; 

 Its haunts forsaken, and its feasts forgot, 

 A leaf-strown, lonely, desolated cot ! 



Is this the scene that late with rapture rang, 

 Where Delphy danced, and gentle Anna sang? 

 With fairy step where Harriet tripp'd so late, 

 And, on her stump reclined, the musing Kitty sate ? 



Return, dear nymphs ; prevent the purple spring, 

 Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing ; 

 Ere the first swallow sweeps the fresh'ning plain, 

 Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain ; 

 Let festive glee th' enlivened village raise, 

 Pan's blameless reign, and patriarchal days ; 

 With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise, 

 And bring all Arcady before our eyes. 



Return, blithe maidens ; with you bring along 

 Free, native humour ; all the charms of song ; 

 The feeling heart, and unaffected ease ; 

 Each nameless grace, and ev'ry power to please. 

 November ], 1763. 



ON THE RAINBOW. 



Look upon the Rainbow, and praise him that made it : very beautiful is 

 it in the brightness thereof. Eccles. xliii. 11. 



ON morning or on evening cloud impress'd, 

 Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines 

 Delightfully, to th' level'd sun opposed : 

 Lovely refraction ! w r hile the vivid brede 

 In listed colours glows, th' unconscious swain, 

 With vacant eye, gazes on the divine 

 Phenomenon, gleaming o'er the illumined fields, 

 Or runs to catch the treasures which it sheds. 

 Not so the sage : inspired with pious awe, 

 He hails the federal arch ; * and, looking up, 

 Adores that God, whose fingers form'd this bow 

 Magnificent, compassing heaven about 

 With a resplendent verge : " Thou mad'st the cloud 

 x Maker omnipotent, and thou the bow ; 

 And by that covenant graciously hast sworn 



* Genesis, ix. 1217. 



