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Title: To William Hayley, Esq [book The Fourth, Ode The Seventh, Imitated]
Author: Anna Seward [
More Titles by Seward]
[PARAPHRASES AND IMITATIONS OF HORACE.]
The snows dissolve, the rains no more pollute,
Green are the sloping fields, and uplands wide,
And green the trees luxuriant tresses shoot,
And, in their daisied banks, the shrinking rivers glide.
Beauty, and Love, the blissful change have hail'd,
While, in smooth mazes, o'er the painted mead,
[1]Aglaia ventures, with her limbs unveil'd,
Light thro' the dance each Sister-Grace to lead.
But O! reflect, that Sport, and Beauty, wing
Th' unpausing Hour!--if Winter, cold and pale,
Flies from the soft, and violet-mantled Spring,
Summer, with sultry breath, absorbs the vernal gale.
Reflect, that Summer-glories pass away
When mellow Autumn shakes her golden sheaves;
While she, as Winter reassumes his sway,
Speeds, with disorder'd vest, thro' rustling leaves.
But a short space the Moon illumes the skies;
Yet she repairs her wanings, and again
Silvers the vault of Night;--but no supplies,
To feed their wasting fires, the lamps of Life obtain.
When our pale Form shall pensive vigils keep
Where COLLINS, AKENSIDE, and SHENSTONE roam,
Or quiet with the Despot, JOHNSON, sleep,
In that murk cell, the Body's final home,
To senseless dust, and to a fleeting shade
Changes the life-warm Being!--Ah! who knows
If the next dawn our eye-lids may pervade?
Darken'd and seal'd, perchance, in long, and last repose!
When vivid Thought's unceasing force assails,
It shakes, from Life's frail glass, the ebbing sands;
Their course run out, ah! what to us avails
Our fame's high note, tho' swelling it expands!
Reflect, that each convivial joy we share
Amid encircling Friends, with grace benign,
Escapes the grasp of our rapacious Heir;--
Pile then the steaming board, and quaff the rosy wine!
Illustrious HAYLEY!--in that cruel hour,
When o'er thee Fate the sable flag shall wave,
Not thy keen wit, thy fancy's splendid power,
Knowledge, or worth, shall snatch thee from the grave.
Not to his MASON's grief, from Death's dim plains
Was honor'd GRAY's departed form resign'd;
No tears dissolve the cold Lethean chains,
That, far from busy Life, the mortal semblance bind.
Then, for the bright creations of the brain,
O! do not thou from health's gay leisure turn,
Lest we, like tuneful MASON, sigh in vain,
And grasp a timeless, tho' a LAUREL'D URN!
[Footnote 1: Aglaia, the eldest of the Graces.]
[The end]
Anna Seward's poem: To William Hayley, Esq [book The Fourth, Ode The Seventh, Imitated]
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