454 
Z turn my back-on thy detefted walls, 
' Proud City! and thy fons I leave behind, 
A fordid, felfith, money- getting kind 5 
Brute things, who fhut their ears when Freedom 
calls, | 
I pafs not thee fo lightly, well-known fpire, 
That minded me of many a pleafure gone, 
Of merrier days, of love and Iflington ; 
Kindling afteth the flames of paft defire. _ 
And | fhail mufe on thee, flow journeying on 
. To the green plains of pleafant Hertfordthire. 
1795. CHARLES LAMB. 
TO THE NIGHTINGALE. © 
TRANSLATION OF THE I§TH ODE OF 
RovussEAu. 
WH plaintive warbler ! tell me why, 
For ever fighs thy troubl’d heart ? 
Cannot thefe groves, that glowing fky, 
A folace to thy «oes impart ? 
Shall Spring his humid wreaths. entwine, 
To circle every brow but thine ? 

See nature at thy wifh’d return, 
Renews her robe of gaye green? 
And can thy wayward bofom inourn 
When nature wakes the vernal fcene 3 
When-every Dryad lends her fhade, 
For thine and Contemplation’s atd ? 
See from thine haunts the ftermy north 
His furly blafts leads far away; 
Each bloffom of the teeming earth, 
The glories of the op’ning day, 
The-promife of the coming year, 
All, all, fweet bird,! for thee appear. 
For thee, Aurora fteeps in dews 
The new-born flow’rets of the dale 5 
For thee, with liberal hand fhe firews 
Her fragrance on the weitern gale 5 
And rifles all the fweets of motn 
To deck her fav’rite’s moffy thurn } 
‘Hark ! while thy fad frain feems to tell 
Some mournful tale of lucklefs lovey 
On each foft note’s extatic {well, 
In filence hang the warbling grove; 
And e’en the fowler loves to {pare 
The poet of the midnight air! 
© ‘if a friend’s untimely tomb 
Bids all that tide of forrow flow ! 
Alas! e’en there thy wretched doom 
Is mercy tomy weight of woe ; 
For pain now pait thy bofom fighs, 
Mine, prefent always—never flies. 
‘Thee, bounteous Nature blooms to cheer, 
And beauty {miles thy woes to itill; 
‘To nature, love, and pity dear, 
Well may’f thou yield thy load of ill 
To beings as forlorn as I, ' 
Deny d the freedom of a tear, 
The rapture of a fingle figh! 
Edinburgh. AUGUSTA, 

ABIRTH-DAY EPIGRAM. 
ay OT once the fun has.deign’d to fhine, _. 
= 1 My Sufan ! through this day fo dyear 5 ~ 
’ 
Original Poetry. 
{Decs 
*Tis yet, fave that which made thee mine, 
To me, the brighteft of the year, 
This day firtt faw thofe eyes fo blue, 
Their fafcinating beams difplay: 
Bleft day f to come with rapture new, 
And never fteal a charm away ! 
. Now. 5, 1797. 
O# gentle fleep! could I -command chy 
pow’r 
To bind my fenfes in thy magic fway, 
And let unfetter’d fancy freely play, 
Through the wild myery of the midnight hour; - 

SONNET. 
Borne on thy fofteft pinions, I would fly, 
And feek the downy bed of her { love ; 
Over all her beauties, unrefifted, rove, 
And fea with charms my mind’s creative eye. 
Traitor! beguil’d with hopes of fcenes like 
thele, Sie 
Each night J court thy vifionary reign; 
Each night I fink but to oblivion’s eafe, — 
Each morn but wake to abfence and to pain. 
Oh, Sleep ! or bring me to her fancied armas, _ 
Or crufh not, by thy power, the memory of her 
charms. 
G-C. B. 

TRANSLATION FROM HORACE, 
Ode 2g. Lib. i, ‘ 
‘AY what -reftraint toendlefs woe? 
Shall fober reafon check the tear— 
The tear,that friendfhip. bids to fow—— 
The figh that mourss a friend fo dear? ~ 
O thou, to whom the heavenly fire 
A fweetly penfive tafk confign’d, 
And tun’d the fympathetic lyre, 
{n pity to the mournful mind ; 
Come, raife the tributary fong— 
Cold on his bier Quintilius fies ; 
Come, gentle Mufe, to thee belong 
The ftrains to grace his obfequies. 
Ah, where thall modeft worth abound, 
And faith to juftice near allied ? 
Ah, where fhall naked truth be found }—. 
With him they flourith’d, and they died: — 
Lamented by the good and wife— A 
To thee remains a bitterer thare 5 
For him you vainly beg the fkies, 
Not thus entrufted to their’care. 
What though, like Orpheus, fmoothly fweet, 
You charm the lift'ning trees again, 
No more his lifelefs pulfe fhall bear, 
No more fhall glow the pallid vein. 
Deaf to my pray’rs, the ruthlefs wand 
Conduds thee to the Srygian coaft ; 
E’en thou mvft join the dreary band, 
And wander there, a penlive ghoft, _ 
Ah, haplefs fate! ah, ftern decree ! 
Come, Patience, calm the mournful breait 
Affuage the pangs of mifery, vt 
‘And lull the troubl’d foul to reft. R. B. 
. ORIGINAL 
ol 
. 
