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194 ANNUAL REGISTER  For the YEAR 1772. 195

With front erect and brightly beaming eye,
Fresh as the star which gilds the evening sky.
As the young plant, the favourite of some fair,
Her early solace, and her later care,
Uprising soft, with living verdure crowned,
Puts forth its blooms, and spreads it's fragrance round;
Flushed with the gift of health, sweet rosy hue,
Thus breaks the riper stripling on the view;
In all the pride of youth he stands displayed,
Nor dreams that beauty blossoms but to fade.
Blest season! brightest in life's varied year,
Too soon, alas! thy verdures disappear;
Too soon thy roses wither in the wind,
And leave the sharp unsightly thorn behind.
Mean time from violet beds and wreathed bowers
Advance the graces and the smiling hours,
With yonder son of hope to sport and play,
And crown the revels of his flowery May.
No more of artless words, which on the tongue
With untaught lisp e'er while imperfect hung;
Proud of his opening reason, nor less vain
Of stature that o'er-tops the younger train,
He glances on them with averted eye,
Admires himself, and walks superiour by.

Thus speeds the morn; now sits the sun on high,
And a fierce lustre breaks thro' all the sky;
Parched are the flowers and blossoms, all around
The panting flocks lie scattered o'er the ground,
And from the reach of Phœbus' sultry fires
Imbowered the visionary muse retires.
Not thus the glowing youth; he on the shore,
Where breezy waters spread their grateful store,
Forthwith disrobes, and in the midway flood
Allays the tumult of his boiling blood.
Too daring thou, thus fond the deep to brave,
Be taught the dangers of the insidious wave;
It chills, relaxes, deadly cramps assail;
Ah what shall then thy boasted art avail,
When with exhausted limbs thou strivest in vain
To reach the shores thou never shalt regain?
Such was Ambrosio's, such Endymion's doom,
Oh early lost in youth's ethereal bloom!
Twin brothers they, the only loved remains
Of many sons that payed a mother's pains.
Ill-fated dame! to early sorrows bred,
The wretched mourner of a widowed bed,
Whose

Whose lord the chance of battle snatched away
E'er yet the double off-spring saw the day:
But now the blooming pair her hopes renew,
In these she seems again her lord to view;
Their filial piety, their rising years.
Sooth all her losses, and assuage her tears.
'Twas on a day, the feverish heat to cool,
They fought the windings of the well known pool, 
Along whose margin flowers were thickly spread,
And many a poplar reared it's graceful head.
Like two fair swans elate in youthful pride
They breast the waves, and roll the deep aside;
They sport, they toss, now vanish, now appear,
Fate overlooks them with malignant leer.
Ambrosio now the safer shore had gained,
Endymion still within the flood remained;
Full oft the former chid his long delay,
In vain, Death challenges the destined prey:
Chill torture now had seized on all his frame,
Ambrosio saw, he heard the fearful scream;
What doubts, what thrilling woes the youth surprize!
What boding horrours in his bosom rise!
Swift to relieve into the deep he drove;
Oh sad requital of fraternal love!
Exhausted, faint, Endymion round him clings,
And marrs the generous aid his friendship brings.
Vain are all efforts, in the embrace he holds,
Fate ratifies the indissoluble folds;
Nor can or youth find grace, or beauty save
The tender victims from a watry grave;
At once they sink, and once again they rise,
The deep at length ingulfs the precious prize.
Hail hapless pair! ye names for ever dear,
Whose sad remembrance draws the painful tear,
Loved youths, companions of my brighter days,
These mournful rites the song of friendship pays;
So may the song survive when I decay,
Nor die like you, the blossom of a day.

But see, the sun declines, a fresher breeze
Breathes on the flowers, and rustles thro' the trees:
Far in the vale, where calm retirement dwells
Mid solitary rocks, and moss-grown cells,
O'erhung with shade, that breaks the evening beam,
Now plies the youthful angler on the stream;
Marks the crisped waters with attentive eye,
And cautious flings the well dissembled fly.
Meantime his toils are soothed with various sounds,
The mingled musick of the rural grounds,
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