"Though fondly sooth'd with Pity's tenderest care, Ah, let not Nature, Nancy, plead in vain! For kindness sure should grace a form so fair: Restore me to my native wilds again, To the free forest and the boundless air.' TO MISS CRACROFT. WRAPPED ROUND A NOSEGAY OF VIOLETS. 1761. DEAR object of my late and early prayer! Bloom on thy breast, and smile beneath thine eye! And sweeter breathe their little lives away! TO MISS CRACROFT: ON THE MORAL REFLECTIONS CONTAINED IN HER ANSWER TO THE ABOVE VERSES. 1761. SWEET moralist! whose moving truths impart Though human joys their short-liv'd sweets exhale, Like the wan beauties of the wasted vale [last, Yet trust the Muse, fair Friendship's flower shall When life's short sunshine, like its storms, is past; Bloom in the fields of some ambrosial shore, Where Time, and Death, and Sickness are no more ་ AUTUMNAL ELEGY, TO MISS CRACROFT, 1763. Ware yet my poplar yields a doubtful shade, Wilt thou, my Nancy, at this pensive hour, O'er Nature's ruin hear thy friend complain; While his heart labours with the' inspiring power, And from his pen spontaneous flows the strain? Thy gentle breast shall melt with kindred sighs, Though fondly sooth'd with Pity's tenderest care, Though still by Nancy's gentle hand carest, For the free forest and the boundless air, The rebel, Nature, murmurs in my breast. 'Ah, let not Nature, Nancy, plead in vain! For kindness sure should grace a form so fair: Restore me to my native wilds again, To the free forest and the boundless air." TO MISS CRACROFT. WRAPPED ROUND A NOSEGAY OF VIOLETS. 1761. DEAR object of my late and early prayer! Bloom on thy breast, and smile beneath thine eye! And sweeter breathe their little lives away! TO MISS CRACROFT: ON THE MORAL REFLECTIONS CONTAINED IN HER ANSWER TO THE ABOVE VERSES. 1761. SWEET moralist! whose moving truths impart Though human joys their short-liv'd sweets exhale, [last, Yet trust the Muse, fair Friendship's flower shall When life's short sunshine, like its storms, is past; Bloom in the fields of some ambrosial shore, Where Time, and Death, and Sickness are no more ད AUTUMNAL ELEGY. TO MISS CRACROFT. 1763. WHILE yet my poplar yields a doubtful shade, Wilt thou, my Nancy, at this pensive hour, O'er Nature's ruin hear thy friend complain; While his heart labours with the' inspiring power, And from his pen spontaneous flows the strain ? Thy gentle breast shall melt with kindred sighs, Why are ye silent, brethren of the grove, O mix once more thy gentle lays with mine; Yet, ere ye slumber, songsters of the sky, Farewell, ye wild hills, scatter'd o'er with spring! Ye tuneful groves of Belvidere, adieu! Kind shades that whisper o'er my Craufurd's rest!" From courts, from senates, and from camps to you, When Fancy leads him, no inglorious guest. Dear shades adieu! where late the moral Muse, Farewell, the walk along the woodland-vale! • See Enlargement of the Mind, p. 145. |