When men exert their utmost pow'rs, To while away the tedious hours, With soothing Flatt'ry's art, When ev'ry art and work well skill'd, And ev'ry look with poison fill'd, Assail a woman's heart, ...
Whilst, in a dress that one might swear The whole was made of woven air, Pert Fashion spreads her senseless sway Over the giddy and the gay (Who think, by showing all their charms,...
The Moon had bespangled the murmuring wave, The dew-drop had moisten'd the moss of the cave, The summer night-breeze, like a sigh, was just heard, When thus flow'd the strains of the dark-warbling bird: ...
In Mousseau's sweet Arcadian dale Fair Delphine pours the plaintive strain; She charms the list'ning nightingale, And seems th' enchantress of the plain.
Still Summer lingers on these peaceful shores, Nor yet she quits her rose-erected bow'r; Tho' oft in many a dew-drop she explores Her beauties fading in each passing hour! ...
Tho' leafless are the woods, tho' flow'rs no more, In beauty blushing, spread their fragrant store, Yet still 'tis sweet to quit the crowded scene, And rove with Nature, tho' no longer green;...
Delicious gloom! asylum of repose! Within your verdant shades, your tranquil bound, A wretched fugitive[A], oppress'd by woes, The balm of peace, that long had left him, found. ...
Who supports herself, and an aged and infirm Mother, by selling Stockings and Gloves of her own Knitting, which she offers to Travellers as they pass by; in doing which she has been known to run close by the Side of a Carriage ...
A wreath from an immortal bough Should deck that gen'rous victor's brow, Who hears his captive's grateful praise Augment the thanks his country pays; For him the minstrel's song shall flow,...
Ah! hapless stranger! who, without a tear, Can this sad record of thy fate survey? No angry tempest laid thee breathless here, Nor hostile sword, nor Nature's mild decay. ...
[The French is by Bosquillon, which I translated as under, in a beautiful Swedish island in the Baltic, as I sat by the side of a fine clear stream of rock-water.]