ANNA SEWARD, Now young-ey'd Spring, on gentle breezes borne, Mid the deep woodlands, hills, and vales, and bowers, Unfolds her leaves, her blossoms, and her flowers, Pouring their soft luxuriance on the morn. O, how unlike the wither'd, wan, forlorn, And limping Winter, that o'er russet moors, A form like his; and, should thy gifts be mine, I tremble lest a kindred influence drear Steal on my mind; but pious Hope benign, And gild existence in her dim decline. ANNA SEWARD. TO SYLVIA, ON HER APPROACHING NUPTIALS. HOPE Comes to Youth, gliding through azure skies, Marks it afar. From Waning Life she flies The shining texture of her spotless vest Gilds; and the Month that gives the early day, The scent odorous, and the carol blest, Pride of the rising year, enamour'd May, ROBERT SOUTHEY. A WRINKLED, crabbed man they picture thee, Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, Or circled by them as thy lips declare Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night, WILLIAM COWPER. TO MRS. UNWIN. MARY! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, In verse as musical as thou art true, But thou hast little need. There is a book, By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look, A chronicle of actions just and bright; There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine, And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. WILLIAM CROWE. : TO PETRARCH. O FOR that shell, whose melancholy sound, That banks the impetuous Rhone; and like a steam Of desolate Hesperia did rebound, And gently wak'd the Muses!—so might I, So might I, hopeless now, have power to strike |