When far away, each recollection dear,

Was well preserv'd in memory's faithful store,
We interchang'd each thought, each sigh, each tear,
And with a pen retraced past pleasures o'er.

Children of poesy we both were born,

From earliest years our fond pursuits the same; Deceived by Hope, he thought some future morn Mary, for his, would yield her virgin name.

He long indulged his faithless dreams of joy,
Long ponder'd happiness that must not come;
Long cherish'd, self-deluded hapless boy,

The favourite thought that I should bless his home,

He loved to think the chosen of his breast
Some future day would live for him alone;
Illume his path, hush all his cares to rest,
And, by domestic bliss, past strokes atone.

Lull'd by these visions fair, again we met:
He came, he said, to offer me his hand!
But ah! too soon the Sun of Hope was set,
Too soon destroy'd the schemes so fondly plann'd!

A deep despondency now seized his soul,
As persecution came in copious showers;
Round our devoted heads harsh thunders roll,
And blast at once fond fancy's choicest flowers.

Those eyes, so lately sparkling with delight,

Now melt with sorrow, and now beam despair; His gloomy thoughts invoke death's endless night, To finish all his grief, his woe, his care.

For her alone he lov'd, he cherish'd life,

For her he wish'd to live, for her would die; Refused his dearest Mary for a wife,

His bleeding heart would own none other tie.

Dark meditations all his looks bespeak,

He ponders o'er the dank untimely grave;
While melancholy marks his youthful cheek,
And big cold dewy drops his temples lave.

But meek Religion takes the form he loves,
And, as his weeping Mary soothes his grief,
That cherish'd form too much his heart approves,
To banish from his soul the kind relief.

But

But hush, my muse, abruptly end the strain;
Why should the world be troubled with our woes?
O let us to ourselves alone complain,

But not to passers-by our griefs disclose!

Condemn'd to sorrow from our early years,
Our fond affection deem'd our greatest crime,
Sharers alike in bitterest sighs and tears,
We wait submissive for a happier clime;

Where persecution shall no more oppress,
Where proud Ambition shall no more destroy
The Hymeneal links of happiness,

Form'd by the pensive much-enduring boy.

THE SABINE FARM.

[From the Poem of this name, by ROBERT BRADSTREET, Esq. A. M.]

OT from the wealth of Rome,' her smoke and noise,'

For these no more Earth's fallen queen enjoys,

But from the miracles of Art, that rise,

eyes;

Endless, to tempt, and tire the dazzled
From glittering shows, and conversations gay-
A never-ceasing round-I steal away,

To where, behind Vacuna's mould'ring fane,'
The Sabine poet pour'd his moral strain:
And, in the very shades where he retir'd,
Echo th' immortal verse they once inspir'd:

5

10

Nor pass, unsung, cach interesting scene.

Whose ruins mark the classic ground between.

But, as we leave Rome's less'ning towers behind,

How the past ages croud upon the mind!

As seen through History's inverted glass,

15

We mark the distant generations pass;

Till faint, and fainter still, the shadowy host,

Fade gradual on our sight, and all is lost.

In times, that 'scap'd the babbling tongue of Fame,

Ere Rome, or elder Ilion, was a name!

20

Times, that beheld this very soil aspire,

In awful burst of subterraneous fire!

Hor. B. 1. E. 10.

Line 1. Fumum, et opes, strepitumque Romæ. Hor. B. 3. O. 29. V. 19. Line 7. Hæc tibi dictabam post fanum putre Vacunæ. Line 22. The whole country about Rome is evidently of volcanic origin, and there are many quarries of lava, which must have flowed before any date of Roman history, as fresh as if they had flowed but yesterday, while others are in an evident state of dissolution. So great have been the natural as well as political revolutions of this most interesting country!

A desart

A desart horrible, of molten stone,
Where Desolation, on her smoking throne,
Reign'd o'er th' inhospitable waste alone!
Till (after many an age had o'er it roll'd)
The crumbling lava turn'd to fertile mould :
While, emblematic of her future doom,
Fate, in th' extinct volcano, cradled Rome.
The rich Saturnian soil becoming then,
"The nighty mother both of fruits and men,"
Gave Valour, Wisdom, Arts, and Virtue birth,
And Rome arose," fair wonder of the earth."

25

30

'Twas here, e'en here, the wide Tiburtine way, 'Mid heroes' tombs, through arcs of triumph lay! Still, Fancy views the nations swarm along,

35

Thro' the proud city-gates, a vast and various throng!

Some guide the wheel, some, flying steeds control,
Some in luxurious litters idly roll:

Part seek the town, and part, the cooling rills,
That winding trickle round yon airy hills;
While in the pomp of peace, or pride of var,
Rome's laurell'd chiefs adorn the trophied car:
And monarch-slaves their various tribute bring,
To swell the triumph of the people-king.

40

45

How chang'd the scenel-where'er I turn my eye,

The very ruins, whelm'd in ruin lie!

Save where, fit archetype of mortal change,

The tomb's huge fragment, or the broken range

Of some far-stretching aqueduct, remain

50

The "sad historians" of the Roman plain:

Athwart whose widely desolated span,

"Lies, at full length, the nothingness of men."

Muse! check the swelling strain-nor dare rehearse

Themes that demand a Milton's mighty verse.

55

Line 29. Varro says, that when Rome was first built, the lower ground was a marshy lake, the remains of an extinct volcano; which may account for the story of Curtius leaping into the gulph, &c. See "Description of Latium," an elegant work, highly interesting to all lovers of classical antiquity. Line 30. Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, Mazna virum. Line 35. The modern road to Tivoli-follows the ancient Via Tiburtina with very little deviation.

Line 46. The "Campagna di Roma," an immense flat of about 40 miles in diameter, is almost wholly surrounded by the sea and the Appenines-the former is of course seldom visible, but the Sabine Hills, as we approach them, present a very magnificent boundary, while to their left

But (excepting occasional fragments of ruin) the painter will for many miles seek in vain for a foreground; for he will not find even so much as a tree, or cottage; while the present scene of desolation is made to appear still more desolate, by the recollection of its former populousness and fertility. Line 53. Qu, dans tout son etendu, git le Neant de l'homme.

De Lille.

Not

Not thine to tell, how Time's destroying mace,
Smote the colossal empire's solid base-
Rome's giant image rel'd: then, headlong hurl'd,
Shakes, with its mighty fall, the liberated world.
Not even thine, O Muse, with fond regret,
To mourn the sun of Roman glory set:
No-sport, light insect! in the lingering gleam
Of splendor, which adorns his evening beam.

Yet, of that splendor, scarce a twilight ray
Remaining, gilds the solitary way--
Not e'en thy baths, Agrippa! the proud boast
Of Albula's once hospitable coast;
Whose self incrusting and sulphureous tide
At once the building and the stream supplied!
Still, on its milky breast, the traveller smiles
(Well-pleas'd) to view the sedge concreted isles,
At anchor in their rushy moorings keep,
Or floating jostle in the stormy deep.

Thus, it we less compare to greater things
(For still the British heart to Britain springs),
Thus, on the queen of ocean's freighted tide,
In guardian state, her floating bulwarks ride:
Or, to the breath of Heav'n (their country's call)
Obedient, rush against th' affrighted Gaul,
And drive his batter'd vessel on the shore,
Or whelm him in the deep, to rise no more.
"Twas this "unfathomable, pale profound,

"That once Albunea's matchless forest crown'd;

"Whose high embowering woods, with shade divine, "Wav'd o'er old Faunus' venerable shrine;

85

"Where Latium's anxious King enquir'd his doom,

"Big with the fate of yet unfounded Rome."

Now Rome, with all her pride, is past away,
Like the brief sunshine of a winter-day;
Still the pale stream (no longer sacred) roars
Between its self-form'd, melancholy shores;

Line 66. These baths, which were in such repute as to be frequented by Augustus (by whose name they are more generally known,, were built of the stone formed by successive depositions from the inundations of this sulphureous gulph. The colosseum, and the principal buildings of Rome, both ancient and modern, are of the same materials. The quarries now working, being composed of an infinity of such strata, give a pleasing ocular demonstration of the mode of their formation.

Line 72. These exactly answer to Piiny's description of the Lacus Vadimonis-innatant insula herbidæ, &c. The middle part of the lake is so deep, that all attempts to fathom it are said to have been hitherto unsuccessful

Line 82. Virgil could not have invented a more interest ng scite for the ora ele of Faunus (En. B. 9. v. 81) than this lake, when surrounded by a vast forest. Mr. Burke considered the words "ræva Mephitis" as so sublime an expression for an intolerable stink, that the author was almost tempted to retain it in his very close imitation of that fine passage, and read," Breathes insup portable Mephitis round."

And,

And, with o'er-arching forests unin brown'd,
Still breathes intolerable vapour round.

So short the boast of transitory man,

While Nature, fix'd, pursues her everlasting plan.

95

Yet lo! where Hadrian's long drawn towers arise,
Whose giant ruins still invade the skies!
As Satan, blasted by th' Almighty frowu,
And hurl'd to bottomless perdition down—
Still from the burning lake his bulk up-rear'd,
The wreck of heav'nly glory, not appear'd
Less than Archangel ruin'd-their sublime,

100

And batter'd grandeur braves the wrath of time.
Ye awful ruins! say, can Fancy view
Your grandeur, nor the palace build anew,
Such as when Earth's great Master bade it be,

105

Of his whole subject world, the proud epitome!
The closing vault of yonder rifted dome
The gods re-enter, and confess their home.
Here fruitful Isis, on Canopus' strand,
Osiris, and the horned Ammon stand;
And dog Anubis guards his sable throne,
Howling for ever in the well-wrought stone.
While every birth of monster-brooding Nile,
Th' ichneumon small, th' enormous crocodile;
With every idol shape that brain-sick fear
Made, and ador'd in Egypt, re-appear.

110

115

To the huge concave of yon massy walls,

The long-forgotten Naiads she recalls

From all their mountains: on whose treasur'd tide,

120

In hostile state, th' embattled navies ride.

The vanquish'd groan, the victors shout amain!

See real blood the mimic ocean stain

While Rome's fierce sepators, with rude delight,

125

And loud applause, enjoy the martial sight.
Quick, Fancy! let thy fairy footsteps rove
Thro' mimic Tempe's visionary grove;

Line 107. He built his Tiburtine Villa in a wonderful manner, and named its principal parts after the most celebrated places and provinces, as the Lycæum, Academia, Prytaneum, Canopus, Poecile and Tempe: and that nothing might be omitted, even made an imitation of the infernal regions. Spart. in Hadrian. Line 110. The Canopus. The four here mentioned were among the chief deities of the Egyptians, whose statues have been dug up in this place; Anubis is represented with the head of a dog. The mouth of the Nile at Canopus is supposed to have been imitated by a channei be ween the walls terminating in the dome here alluded to. Some are of opinion that Neptune was worshipped under the name of Canopus.

Line 111. The Nauma.hia; a favourite place of entertainment with the ancient Romans, who carried their representations of these naval combats so far, that the combatants were frequen.lv wounded and oven killed.

Line 127. The imitation of the Vale of Tempe mast of course have borne a very distant resemblance to its archetype, for although the ground is not unBut