ODE TO PITY.

O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros :
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater

Felix! in imo qui scatentem i
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.

GRAY.

O Thou, whose sweetly melting eyes.
Whose heaving heart, and frequent sigh,

The soul of sorrow breathe, i
O Nymph, to each soft sense alive at
For thee, with many a tint, I strive ::

To bind a suiting, wreathe.

For thou canst still my throbbing breast,
Canst calm the ruder thought to rest,

And bid the milder glow;
I'll follow where thy footsteps royes
Where'er for grief, or pining love

Thou giv'st the tear to flow.

VOL. III.

Slow winding thro' thy magic cell,
I hear the solemn-breathing shell

Its mellow tones prolong;
And, trembling to each dying fall,
Around, at thy subduing call,

The tender passions throng.

And O, down yon sequester'd vale,
As wildly swells the hollow gale,

What mingled murmurs speak!
Ah sure, from some deluded maid,
Some wand'rer of the lonely glade,

Yon sad complainings break.

Oh sweet enthusiast ! ever near
To bathe, with thy delicious tear,

The woundings of the heart;
Now, from thy soul-dejecting lyre,
O virgin of each soft desire !

Now bid thy sorrows part.

O'er him, to Death's cold'arm assign'd, For whose green turf shall fancy bind

The wreaths that never fade, And where, as eve's mild dews descend, Sad forms of meek-ey'd mercy bend,

And bless the hallow'd shade.

of day,

Where still, as shuts the eye
As slow the pilgrim takes his way,

Where twilight glim'rings dwell,
He starts to hear the frequent sigh,
And wonders at the strange sounds righ

That sweep the haunted dell.

Where art thou Sterne? O spirit sweet ! To what lov'd scene dost thou retreat,

To pour thy pensive talé ? There, on the wild shore fitting round, O’er what räpt sprites, in dying sound,

Do thy soft tonės prevail ?

The tender tear shall Petrarch shed,
And, mourning o'er Le Fevre's bed,

The sigh of love repress;
And sad Rousseau, to passion dear,
And plaintive Otway, pausing near;

Thy gentle shade caress?

From fair Fidele's grassý grave,
Shall hapless Collins haunt thy cave,

And breathe his magic song ?
For whom, on Arun's sedgy side,
Still loud the notes of sorrow glide

At eve the woods along.

Or Shakspeare, bard divine! from where The ling’ring thunders rend the air,

And red-tongu'd lightnings play, From where on yonder clifted brow, He views the mingling war below,

Glad take his silent way?

Oh master of the human soul!
Fast did the stream of pity roll,

And bathe thy manly breast,
As lost Maria, rapt in care
And hopeless love, to thy sad ear.

Her wand'rings wild address:d.

O yes, while breathes thy tender page,
Yes, Sterne, thro' every distant age,

Shall steal the heart-felt sigh ;
And still, to thy meek şorrows true,
Still warmly flow the hallow'd dew,

That starts in Pity's eye.

Ah maiden lov'd! from earliest youth
To thee I've vow'd unblemish'd truth, i

Each trembling pulse is thine;
To thee first lisp'd my artless Muse, ,
And culld for thee, of choicest hues,

The flowers that deck thy shrine,

Ah me! to thoughtless mirth assign'd,
If e'er I fail thy wounds to bind,

And leave the wretch to weep,
May I, in sorrow, beg my bread,
And dead tojoy, to pity dead,

In dull oblivion sleep.

The following Epitaph, the poetical part of which, at the request of the relations of the deceased Lady, I have lately been induced to compose, can lay claim, I believe, to the uncommon merit, of a close adherence to matter of fact. Mrs. Gastrell was a woman singularly pious and amiable, most liberally yet judiciously charitable and benevolent, who waited not until the hand of Death neces sarily transferred her wealth, but some years anterior to that event, distributed among her relatives sixteen thousand pounds. She brought up also, and under her immediate care, several young persons, to whom she left property proportioned to their expectations and the style of education they had received.