THOMAS WARTON

(1728-90)

ON BATHING

WHEN late the trees were stript by winter pale,
Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture green,
Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen,
On airy uplands met the piercing gale;
And ere its earliest echo shook the vale,

Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen. But since, gay-thron'd in fiery chariot sheen, Summer has smote each daisy-dappled dale, She to the caves retires, high-arch'd beneath

The fount that laves proud Isis' towery brim: And now, all glad the temperate air to breathe, While cooling drops distil from arches dim,

Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath,
She sits amid the quire of Naiads trim.

WILLIAM COWPER

(1731-1800)

TO HENRY COWPER, ON HIS DEFENCE OF WARREN

HASTINGS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS

COWPER, whose silver voice, task'd sometimes hard, Legends prolix delivers in the ears

(Attentive when thou read'st) of England's, peers, Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward. Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard, Expending late on all that length of plea Thy generous pow'rs; but silence honoured thee, Mute as e'er gazed on orator or bard.

Thou art not, voice alone; but hast beside

Both heart and head; and couldst with music sweet
Of Attic phrase and senatorial tone,

Like thy renown'd forefathers, far and wide.

Thy fame diffuse, praised not for utterance meet
Of other's speech, but magic of thy own.

WILLIAM COWPER

TO MARY UNWIN

MARY! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they
drew,

An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things;
That ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due
In verse as musical as thou art true
And that immortalises whom it sings :-
But thou hast little need. There is a Book

By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

A chronicle of actions just and bright—

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

THOMAS RUSSELL

(1762-88)

JPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT LEMNOS

lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright he cautious pilot, ten revolving years Great Pœan's son, unwonted erst to tears, Wept o'er his wound: alike each rolling light heaven he watched, and blamed its lingering flight: By day the sea-mew, screaming round his cave, Drove slumber from his eyes; the chiding wave And savage howlings chased his dreams by night. Hope still was his in each low breeze, that sighed Through his rude grot, he heard a coming oar; In each white cloud a coming sail he spied ; Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar

:

Of Eta's torrents, or the hoarser tide

That parts famed Trachis from the Euboic shore.