For who, untaught in Neptune's school, Though all the powers of genius he possess, Though disciplined by classic rule,
With daring pencil can display
The fight that thunders on the watery way, And all its horrid incidents express?
To him, my muse, these warlike strains belong! Source of thy hope, and patron of thy song.
To him, my muse, these warlike strains belong! Source of thy hope, and patron of thy song.
A NYMPH of every charm possess'd,
That native virtue gives, Within my bosom all confess'd, In bright idea lives.
For her my trembling numbers play
Along the pathless deep,
While sadly social with my lay
The winds in concert weep.
If beauty's sacred influence charms
Say why the pleasing soft alarms
Such cruel pangs create?
Since all her thoughts by sense refined,
Unartful truth express,
Say wherefore sense and truth are join'd
To give my soul distress?
If when her blooming lips I press,
Which vernal fragrance fills,
Through all my veins the sweet excess
In trembling motion thrills;
Say whence this secret anguish grows,
Congenial with my joy?
And why the touch, where pleasure glows
Should vital peace destroy?
If when my fair, in melting song,
Awakes the vocal lay,
Not all your notes, ye Phocian throng,
Such pleasing sounds convey;
Thus wrapt all o'er with fondest love,
Why heaves this broken sigh?
For then my blood forgets to move,
I gaze, adore, and die.
ON THE UNCOMMON SCARCITY OF POETRY
IN THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE FOR DECEMBER
LAST, 1755, BY I. W. A SAILOR.
THE springs of Helicon can winter bind,
And chill the fervour of a poet's mind?
What though the lowering skies and driving storm
The scenes of nature wide around deform,
The birds no longer sing, nor roses blow,
And all the landscape lies conceal'd in snow;
Yet rigid winter still is known to spare
The brighter beauties of the lovely fair:
Ye lovely fair, your sacred influence bring,
And with your smiles anticipate the spring.
ON THE SCARCITY OF POETRY.
Yet what avails the smiles of lovely maids,
Or vernal suns that glad the flowery glades;
The wood's green foliage, or the varying scene
Of fields and lawns, and gliding streams between,
What, to the wretch whom harder fates ordain,
Through the long year to plough the stormy main!
No murmuring streams, no sound of distant sheep,
Or song of birds invite his eyes to sleep:
By toil exhausted, when he sinks to rest,
Beneath his sun-burnt head no flowers are prest:
Down on his deck his fainting limbs are laid,
No spreading trees dispense their cooling shade,
No zephyrs round his aching temples play,
No fragrant breezes noxious heats allay.
The rude rough wind which stern
Drives on in blasts, and while it cools, offends.
He wakes, but hears no music from the grove;
No varied landscape courts his eye to rove.
O'er the wide main he looks to distant skies,
Where nought but waves on rolling waves arise;
The boundless view fatigues his aching sight,
Nor yields his eye one object of delight.
No" female face divine" with cheering smiles,
The lingering hours of dangerous toil beguiles.
Yet distant beauty oft his genius fires,
And oft with love of sacred song inspires.
DESCRIPTION OF A NINETY GUN SHIP,
FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, MAY, 1759.
AMIDST a wood of oaks with canvass leaves,
Which form'd a floating forest on the waves,
There stood a tower, whose vast stupendous size
Rear'd its huge mast, and seem'd to gore the skies,
From which a bloody pendant stretch'd afar
Its comet-tail, denouncing ample war;
Two younger giants* of inferior height
Display'd their sporting streamers to the sight:
The base below, another island rose,
To pour Britannia's thunder on her foes:
With bulk immense, like Etna, she surveys
Above the rest, the lesser Cyclades:
Profuse of gold, in lustre like the sun,
Splendid with regal luxury she shone,
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