This page has been validated.
VERSES ON MRS. ROWE.
109
With love, with health, with fame and friendship blest,And of a cheerful heart the constant feast,What more of bliss sincere could earth bestow?What purer heaven could angels taste below?But bliss from earth's vain scenes too quickly flies;The golden cord is broke; Alexis dies!Now in the leafy shade and widowed groveSad Philomela mourns her absent love;Now deep retired in Frome's enchanting vale,She pours her tuneful sorrows on the gale;Without one fond reserve the world disclaims,And gives up all her soul to heavenly flames.Yet in no useless gloom she wore her days;She loved the work, and only shunned the praise:Her pious hand the poor, the mourner blest;Her image lived in every kindred breast.Thynn, Carteret, Blackmore, Orrery approved,And Prior praised, and noble Hertford loved;Seraphic Kenn, and tuneful Watts were thine,And virtue's noblest champions filled the line.
