Page:Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.djvu/96

To a Gentleman on his Voyage to Great-Britain for the Recovery of his Health.

WHILE others chant of gay Elysian scenes,
Of balmy zephyrs, and of flow'ry plains,
My song more happy speaks a greater name,
Feels higher motives and a nobler flame.

For thee, O R—, the muse attunes her strings,

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And mounts sublime above inferior things.

I sing not now of green embow'ring woods,
I sing not now the daughters of the floods,
I sing not of the storms o'er ocean driv'n,

And how they howl'd along the waste of heav'n,

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But I to R— would paint the British shore,
And vast Atlantic, not untry'd before:
Thy life impair'd commands thee to arise,
Leave these bleak regions, and inclement skies,

Where chilling winds return the winter past,

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And nature shudders at the furious blast.

O thou