Where Judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of Reason, with unerring gaze;
Where Fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes
His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise;
Where social Love exerts her soft command,
And plays the passions with a tender hand;
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.

LVIII.

MY BIRTH-DAY.

"My birth-day!"-what a different sound
That word had in my youthful ears!
And how, each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears!

When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And, as Youth counts the shining links,

That time around him binds so fast,
Pleased with the task, he little thinks

How hard that chain will press at last.

Hail, Queen of Manners! test of truth!
Hail, charm of age! and light of youth!
Sweet refuge of distress!

Ev'n business you can make polite,
Can give Retirement its delight,
Prosperity its grace.

Of pow'r, wealth, freedom, thou the cause,
Foundress of order, cities, laws,

Of arts, inventress thou!

Without thee, what were human kind?
How vast their wants, their thoughts how blind,
Their joys how mean, how low!

Sun of the soul! thy beams unveil !
Let others spread the daring sail

On Fortune's faithless sea:

While undeluded, happier I,

From the vain tumult timely fly,

And sit in peace with thee.

LI.

THE ROSES.

Two roses on one slender spray
In sweet communion grew,
Together hail'd the morning ray,
And drank the evening dew;
While, sweetly wreath'd in mossy green,

There sprang a little bud between.

Through clouds and sunshine, storms and showers,

They open'd into bloom,

Mingling their foliage and their flowers,

Their beauty and perfume;

While foster'd on its rising stem,

The bud became a purple gem.

But soon their summer splendour pass'd,

They faded in the wind,

Yet were these roses to the last

The loveliest of their kind,

Whose crimson leaves, in falling round,
Adorn'd and sanctified the ground.

When thus were all their honours shorn,

The bud unfolding rose,

And blush'd and brighten'd as the morn
From dawn to sunrise glows,

Till o'er each parent's drooping head
The daughter's crowning glory spread.

My friends! in youth's romantic prime,
The golden age of man,

Like these twin roses spend your time,
Life's little, lessening span;

Then be your breasts as free from cares,
Your hours as innocent as theirs.

And in the infant bud that blows
In your encircling arms,
Mark the dear promise of a rose
The pledge of future charms,

That o'er your withering hours shall shine,

Fair, and more fair, as you decline:

Till planted in that realm of rest

Where roses never die,

Amidst the gardens of the blest,
Beneath a stormless sky,

Every day and every night

Bring to thee the same delight;
Winter, summer, cold or hot,
Late or early, matters not;
Mirth and Music still declare

Thou art ever void of care:
Whilst with sorrows and with fears,
We destroy our days and years,
Thou, with constant joy and song,
Ev'ry minute dost prolong,
Making thus thy little span
Longer than the age of Man.

LX.

ON HOPE.

REFLECTED in the lake, I love
To see the stars of evening glow,
So tranquil in the heaven above,
So restless in the wave below.
Thus heavenly hope is all serene :

But earthly hope, how bright soeʼer, Still flutters o'er this changing scene, As false, as fleeting as 'tis fair.