For thee my muse awakes her lays,
For thee the unequal viol plays,

The tribute of a soul sincere.

Nor thou, illustrious chief, refuse

The incense of a nautic muse!

For ah! to whom shall Neptune's sons complain, But him whose arms unrivall'd rule the main? Deep on my grateful breast

Thy favour is imprest:

No happy son of wealth or fame
To court a royal patron came !
A hapless youth, whose vital page
Was one sad lengthen'd tale of woe,

Where ruthless fate, impelling tides of rage,

Bade wave on wave in dire succession flow,
To glittering stars and titled names unknown,
Preferr'd his suit to thee alone.

The tale your sacred pity moved;

You felt, consented, and approved.

Then touch my strings, ye blest Pierian quire!
Exalt to rapture every happy line!
My bosom kindle with Promethean fire!
And swell each note with energy divine.
No more to plaintive sounds of woe
Let the vocal numbers flow!

Perhaps the chief to whom I sing
May yet ordain auspicious days,

To wake the lyre with nobler lays,
And tune to war the nervous string.
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.

CHORUS.

To him, my muse, these warlike strains belong! Source of thy hope, and patron of thy song.

THE FOND LOVER.

A BALLAD.

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
The rage of adverse fate,

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.

Accept, my charming maid, the strain

Which you alone inspire;

To thee the dying strings complain
That quiver on my lyre.

O! give this bleeding bosom ease,
That knows no joy but thee;

Teach me thy happy art to please,
Or deign to love like me.

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.
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,
song of birds invite his eyes to sleep:

Or