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He reigns the lord of every mortal heart:
He wounds the peasant, wounds the king,
And is the fairest, falsest thing

That e'er excited joy, or bade a bosom smart.

Light as the wind, wild as the wave,
He's both a tyrant and a slave;

A fire that freezes and a frost that's hot;
A bitter sweet, and luscious sour!—
Wretched is he who knows his power,
Yet far more wretched still is he who knows it not.

His tongue is with persuasion tipp'd;
His darts, in poison'd honey dipp'd,
Speed to the bosom their unerring flight;
His lips are rich in flattering lies,
And oft a fillet o'er his eyes

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He binds, and so conceals his faults from his own

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He has two cheeks of blushing red; He has two wings which still are spread, When most his stay is wish'd, most swift to fly: He joys in wanton tricks and wiles,

And mark! that when he sweetest smiles, Then is the rogue most sure those tricks and wiles to try.

For well, alas! too well I know,
He is the source of every woe,

To faith a stranger, 'gainst contrition steel'd;
But yet when first the false one came,

And kindled in my heart a flame,

Who had believed deceit in such a form conceal'd!

He begged so gently on my breast

Awhile his little head to rest!

He seem'd so good, so grateful, and so meek!

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He said, he long had sought around

A resting place-but none had found!'

And then I saw a tear pearl down his rosy cheek.

Who could, unmoved, his accents hear?
Who had not wiped away that tear?
His tale of guile my ready ear believed;
He look'd so sweet, he spoke so fair,
With ease the traitor gain'd his prayer,
And in my heart of hearts with transport was
received.

But since I find his friends most true
Have reason most his spite to rue,

I'll take dear-bought Conviction's sage advice,
And drive him from my breast away:

He shall no more my trust betray,
But be the slave of him who bids the highest price.

Observe, whoe'er shall buy this boy,
This offspring of Despair and Joy,
May have besides (I've use for them no more)
A lot of jealous doubts and fears,

Of fainting Virtue's last pure tears,

Of treacherous smiles, and oaths which perjured lovers swore:

Of torches, their unsteady fires
Kindled by sweet fifteen's desires;
Of hopes created by a guileful sigh ;

Of worn out wings; of broken darts,
Whose points still rankle in the hearts

Of fond forsaken maids!-Come buy! come buy! come buy!

But see him now for pardon sue!

See, how his eye of glossy blue

With mingled hope and grief he lifts to me.
Ah! lovely boy, thy fears dismiss,

Convinced by that forgiving kiss,

That I can never part from Julia and from thee.

M. G. LEWIS.

TO MISS SARAH FOWLER.

WHEN first Aurora's gorgeous car

Springs from night's dreary vault released, And beauty's consecrated star

Retires behind the blushing east,

Can Titan's orient beams dispense

A more propitious influence

To animate the' exulting earth
Than sheds bright Fancy o'er the mind,
When, from Care's grosser dregs refined,
It gives the fruits of genius birth.

Not in the solitary gloom,

By the dim taper's sickly ray,
Sunk in the rust of Greece and Rome
Does Genius point the doubtful way,
While in abstracted thought the sage
Revolves the stern Socratic page;
Or by the tedious rules of art
In melancholy search pursues,
Yet finds the gay the bashful Muse
Unseen and unattain'd depart.

Where Poesy erects her seat,

The myrtle's fragrant branches twine. Beneath the Pleasures' nimble feet Upstarts the new born columbine. VOL. III.

Methinks I see the jocund band
Of Loves and Graces hand in hand
Their artless symphony inspire;
The Muses catch the dulcet sound,
They waft the sportive echoes round,
And wake the sympathetic lyre.

The rose's aromatic bloom

Adorns their wild fantastic grove, And o'er the violet's perfume

Angelic forms delighted rove; Fair Sappho in Elysian bowers Beguiles the gently stealing hours,

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And soothes entranced Despair to rest; Her strains so feelingly express The force of elegant distress,

Implanted in a female breast.

Careless tripping o'er the green

The sprightly Deshoulieres appears With winning air and brow serene, Unclouded by the frown of years; Around the Nymph in graceful state A thousand smiling Cupids wait,

And each performs his destined part; Some give the cheeks a livelier glow, Some tune the lyre, some twang the bow, To pierce the most obdurate heart.

The plaintive Rowe, whose warbling breath
Dispersed the melancholy gloom
Which at her dear Alexis' death

O'erhung the sickening vales of Frome,

To the soft Cyprian lute recites

The fears, the hopes, the fond delights,

The tender blandishments of love, Their mutual happiness completing, Where Innocence and Pleasure meeting Have fix'd them in the realms above.

Beside them Cytherea stands

In Virtue's snowy garb array'd,
And reunites their social hands

Severed by Death's remorseless blade:
The Loves with elegiac verse
Meanwhile adorn the sable hearse
In which their mortal ashes lie,
And in due chaplet Phoebus weaves
The laurel's never fading leaves,
The pledge of immortality.
Yet not from these romantic shades,
Whene'er I wake the Teian string,
Will I invoke the' harmonious Maids

To' unlock Castalia's vaunted spring:
The palms of Genius thinly spread
Where cypress glooms o'erarch the dead
Let others glean :-My raptured ear
Has caught the soul-enchanting strains
That on Salopia's happy plains

The bright Sabrina joys to hear:

She, blameless Nymph, whose piteous doom Poetic annalists relate,

Immersed in Severn's watery tomb

By Guendoline's remorseless hate,
O'er the smooth current still presides,
And bids the spring flowers on its sides
Diversify the broider'd green,
Where to the spheres' aerial sound
The light Fays trip their antic round,
By meditating shepherds seen.

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