SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.❤ Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to impórtune; Could love and could hate, so was thought somewhat No odd; very great Wit, he believed in a God. A post or a pension he did not desire, But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.t • Written in 1761, and found in one of his pocket-books. POEMS, ADDRESSED TO, AND IN MEMORY OF MR. GRA Y. UPON HIS Ódes. By David Garrick, Esq. REPINE not, Gray, that our weak dazzled eyes Each gentle reader loves the gentle Muse, No longer now from Learning's sacred store Though nursed by these, in vain thy Muse appears In vain to sightless eyes and deaden'd ears The lightning gleams, the thunder rolls: Yet droop not, Gray, nor quit thy heaven-born art; Wake slumb'ring Virtue in the Briton's heart, With ancient 'eeds our long-chill'd bosoms fire, Make Britons Greeks again, then strike the lyre, And Pindar shall not sing in vain. ་ ON THE BACKWARDNESS OF SPRING. By the late Mr. Richard West. DEAR Gray, that always in my heart What mean these sudden blasts that rise Come, fairest Nymph, resume thy reign! See all her works demand thy aid; Come, then, with Pleasure at thy side, And Heaven and Earth be glad at heart. ON THE DEATH OF MR. GRAY. Me quoque Musaruin studium sub nocte silenti Claudian ENOUGH of fabling, and th' unhallow'd haunts Since not Diana nor all Delia's train Are subjects that befit a serious song; For who the bards among May but compare with thee, lamented Gray! Drew all the list'ning shepherds in a ring, Thy moving notes, on sunny hill or plain, And catch new grace from thy immortal strain. O wood-hung Menaï, and ye sacred groves "Twas there of old where mused illustrious Gray! To Pindar's lofty lyre, or Sappho's Lesbian lute Oft would he sing, when the still Eve came on, To scorn the great, and love the wise and good; Told us, 'twas virtue never dies, And to what ills frail mankind open lies; How safe through life's tempestuous sea to steer, Where dang❜rous rocks, and shelves and whirlpools, oft appear. And when fair Morn arose again to view, That blooms like Eden in his charming lays, The musky gale, in rosy vale, And gilded clouds on azure hills, The fragrant bow'rs, and painted flow'rs, And tinklings of the silver rills; The very insects, that in sunbeains play, But ah! sad Melancholy intervenes, And draws a cloud o'er all these shining scenes The troubler of each great unbounded mind, Will tremble lest the turning sphere, And sinking earth, and reeling planets run In dire disorder with the falling sun. But now, great Bard, thy life of pain is o'er; "Tis we must weep, though thou shalt grieve no more. Through other scenes thou now dost rove, And clothed with gladness walk'st the courts above Hymning their God, while seraphs strike the lyre. |