SWEET Poesy, whose soothing pow’r can chace
The fiendlike forms which all our joys invade,
When in thy flowing numbers we can trace
Some kindred sorrow, some congenial shade,
And learn thro’ thee that all are born to bear
Stern disappointment, nurse of keenest woes!
Affliction’s arrows and the wounds of care,
Which only may be heal’d when life shall close.
Thus we but taste what each by turns has known,
And find we do not tread affliction’s paths alone.
Thy pleasing images we all admire,
Painted by thee solemnity can smile;
Thine is the light, the elegant attire,
Corinthian hangings round a Gothic pile.
When o’er the mind the clouds of fancy low’r,
She calls on thee her darkness to illume:
And thou hast strew’d her paths with many a flow’r,
And hung thy graceful garlands o’er her gloom.
Harmonic strains can sooth the sense of pain,
Enchant the soul, and sorrow’s power restrain.
When morbid melancholy fills the mind,
Thine is the rainbow ‘midst the clouded sky;
The spirit, by thy pleasing sounds confin’d,
Forgets its former source of misery.
Let virtue ever be thy theme of praise,
Let her from thee that recompence receive;
She shines resplendent in the poet’s lays,
Therefore ’tis thine that ornament to give.
O then employ thy powers in virtue’s cause,
And gain thyself and her the world’s applause!
(Elizabeth Bath)
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