ON TASTE, GENIUS, AND IMAGINATiON. 



Can erminVl guilt, when every scheme succeeds. 

 Feel half the joy that stirs your generous breast, 



As, pleas'd ye ponder o'er these simple meads. 



Compute their charms, and share their balmy rest ? 



And mark, untouch'd by city broils, the reign 

 Of rural comfort, cheerfulness and ease ; 



Of health, embloom'd from every sweet-briar lane. 

 And faith and morals wholesome as the breeze. 



Go— climb yon castle cliff that meets the sky, 

 And tells of times tradition cannot reach ; 



And o'er the ruins, as ye throw your eye. 

 Of rocks and towers, with many a hoary breach, 



Say— does the wreck of nature and of art, 



The wild cascade, and echo undefin'd. 

 The grandeur, and the solitude impart 



No pleasing train of image to the mind ? 



Or would ye change, for all that wealth Can stake. 

 Ambition's plume, or lawless Pleasure's prime, 



The feelings, then, that through the bosom wake, 

 And rouse the soul to ecstasies sublime ? 



Yet these — and countless sympathies like these, 

 Of purest zest, are yours, and yours alone : 



Guilt knows them not, nor dull unwieldy Ease, 

 For Sensibility and Taste are one. 



And well, thus gifted, may ye bear the thrill 



Of social sorrows and ideal wrong ; 

 Th* Eolian harp that heaven's pure breezes fill, 



Must breathe at times, a melancholy song. 



THE END. 



