And floats the waste with waters not its own. As eager crowding in the draught they join, Forgot her own consuming inward fire, With scenes too sad Salvator strives to please, As on Avernus' banks the hero stood, Scar'd at the dreary darkness of the wood, Till through the leaves fair shot th' auspicious light, And with the branching gold reliev'd his sight; So rescued from the horrid scene we stand, By the sweet effluence of Guido's hand. Soft to the sight his every color flows, As to the scent the fragrance of the rose. Pure beams of light around the Virgin play, Clad in the brightness of celestial day; Be as they may the broils of fierce divines, Pure and unspotted here at least she shines. Thee too, Lorrain, the well-pleas'd Muse should name, Nor e'er forget Domenichini's fame, But sudden sorrow stops the flowing line, And not one smile is found among the nine. Then sink to tears, nor stop the bursting groan, Thou, then, my Friend, no farther verse demand, Full swells my breast, and trembling shakes my hand; And these sad lines conclude my mournful lay, Since we too once must fall to Death a prey, May we like Walpole meet the fatal day! EPISTLE IV. DESCRIBING A VOYAGE TO TINTERN-ABBEY, In Monmouthshire. FROM WHITMINSTER In Gloucestershire. BY SNEYD DAVIES, D.D. FROM where the Stroud, smooth stream, serenely glides, We reach the peopled Severn's rapid tides; We sail; now steadily; now gulphs inform The tumbling waves to imitate a storm. The rising shores a thousand charms bestow, These lines, my C**, read, and pity too The shadowing pencil to the scene untrue: See the bright image of thy thought decay'd, And all its beauties in description fade. Where to each other the tall banks incline, The streight is past; the waves more strongly beat, Towns, palaces, and run with tide and wind? Seek a calm coast, and up the channel ride, The sister streams, from the same hill their source Deriving, took, when young, a various course, And, many a city, many a country seen, High towers, and walls antique, and meadows green, Now glad to meet, nor now to part again, Go hand in hand and slide into the main. In spite of Time, and War, and Tempest, great, Ascending Chepstow shews its castled seat, Beneath slope hills, and by the rolling flood, Clasp'd in a theatre of aged wood, With air majestic, to the eye stands forth, Erect, and overlooks the climbing tide. Pass but some moments, the returning sea Shall those high-stranded vessels sweep away; That airy bridge, whence down we look'd with fear, Will low and level with the flood appear. The crooked bank still winds to something new, |