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198  ANNUAL REGISTER  For the YEAR 1772.  199

  When, chill'd with fear, the trembling pilgrim roves
Through pathless deserts, and through tangled groves,
Where mantling darkness spreads her dragon wing,
And birds of death their fatal dirges sing,
While vapours pale a dreadful glimm'ring cast,
And thrilling horrour howls in ev'ry blast;
She cheers his gloom with streams of bursting light,
By day a sun, a beaming moon by night,
Darts through the quiv'ring shades her heav'nly ray,
And spreads with rising flow'rs his solitary way.
  Ye heav'ns, for this in show'rs of sweetness shed
Your mildest influence o'er her favour'd head!
Long may her name, which distant climes shall praise,
Live in our notes, and blossom in our lays;
And, like an od'rous plant, whose blushing flow'r
Paints ev'ry dale, and sweetens ev'ry bow'r,
Born to the skies in clouds of soft perfume,
For ever flourish, and for ever bloom!
These grateful songs, ye maids and youths, renew,
While fresh-blown vi'lets drink the pearly dew;
O'er Azib's banks while love-lorn damsels rove,
And gales of fragrance breathe from Hager's grove.
  So sung the youth, whose sweetly-warbled strains
Fair Mena heard, and Saba's spicy plains.
Sooth'd with his lay the ravish'd air was calm,
The winds scarce whisper'd o'er the waving palm;
The camels bounded o'er the flow'ry lawn,
Like the swift ostrich, or the sportful fawn;
Their silken bands the list'ning rose-buds rent,
And twin'd their blossoms round his vocal tent:
He sung, till on the bank the moonlight slept,
And closing flow'rs beneath the night-dew wept,
Then ceas'd, and slumber'd in the lap of rest
Till the shrill lark had left his low-built nest.
Now hastes the swain to tune his rapt'rous tales
In other meadows, and in other vales.


A Persian Song of Hafiz; from the same.

SWEET maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight,
And bid these arms thy neck infold;
That rosy cheek, that lily hand,
Would give thy poet more delight
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand,
  7  Boy,

Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow,
And bid thy pensive heart be glad,
Whate'er the frowning zealots say:
Tell them, their Eden cannot show
A stream so clear as Rocnabad,
A bow'r so sweet as Mosellay.

O! when these fair perfidious maids,
Whose eyes our secret haunts infest,
Their dear destructive charms display;
Each glance my tender breast invades,
And robs my wounded soul of rest,
As Tartars seize their destin'd prey.

In vain with love our bosoms glow:
Can all our tears, can all our sighs
New Luster to those charms impart?
Can cheeks, where living roses blow,
Where nature spreads her richest dies,
Requires the borrow'd gloss of art?

Speak not of fate :---ah! change the theme,
And talk of odours, talk of wine,
Talk of the flow'rs that round us bloom:
'Tis all a cloud, 'tis all a dream;
To love and joy thy thoughts confine,
Nor hope to pierce the sacred gloom.

Beauty has such resistless pow'r,
That ev'n the chaste Egyptian dame
Sigh'd for the blooming Hebrew boy;
For her how fatal was the hour,
When to the banks of Nilus came
A youth so lovely and so coy!

But ah! sweet maid, my counsel hear:
(Youth should attend when those advise
Whome long experience renders sage)
While musick charms the ravish'd ear,
While sparkling cups delight our eyes,
Be gay; and scorn the frowns of age.

What cruel answer have I heard!
And yet, by heav'n, I love thee still:
Can aught be cruel from thy lip?
Yet say, how fell that bitter word
From lips which streams of sweetness fill,
Which nought but drops of honey sip?
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