ith potent arm,
Arrest her flight, and alter ev'ry charm;
Like Niobe dissolve into a tear,
Or like the Delian virgin, when with fear
She fled!--See on each beauteous limb appear
Soft leaves and flow'rs, the sweetest of the year;
And, taking root, spread round her fragrant breath
O'er the fair form that now she dooms to death:
But, ah! in vain, the pray'r no goddess hears; }
She bends--she plucks--and, bath'd in purple tears,}
The much-priz'd victim in her lap she bears! }
Tears that, preserv'd in crystal, will prolong,
And paint its worth beyond this simple song.

LINES

Written _en badinage_, after visiting a Paper-Mill near
Tunbridge-Wells, in consequence of the lovely Miss W----, who excels
in Drawing, requesting the Author to describe the Process of making
Paper, in Verse.

Reader! I do not wish to brag;
But, to display Eliza's skill,
I'd proudly be the vilest rag
That ever went to paper-mill.

Content in pieces to be cut;
Tho' sultry were the summer-skies,
Pleas'd between flannel I'd be put,
And after bath'd in jellied size.

Tho' to be squeez'd and hang'd I hate,
For thee, sweet girl! upon my word,
When the stout press had forc'd me flat,
I'd be suspended on a cord.

And then, when dried and fit for use,
Eliza! I would pray to thee,
If with thy pen thou would'st amuse,
That thou would'st deign to write on me.

Gad's bud! how pleasant it would prove
Her pretty chit-chat to convey,
P'rhaps be the record of her love,
Told in some coy enchanting way.

Or, if her pencil she would try,
On me, oh! may she still imprint
Those forms that fix th' admiring eye,
Each graceful line, each glowing tint!

Then shall I reason have to brag,
For thus, to high importance grown,
The world will see a simple rag
Become a treasure rarely known.

LINES

TO A PROMISING YOUNG ARTIST.

These bays be thine; and, tho' not form'd to shine
Clear as thy colour, faultless as thy line,
Yet shall the Muse essay, in humble verse,
Thy merits, lovely Painting! to rehearse.
As when the demon of the winter storm
Robs each sweet flow'ret of its beauteous form,
The Spirit of the stream, in crystal wave,
Sleeps whilst the chilling blasts above him rave,
Till the Sun spreads his animating fires,
And sullen Darkness from the scene retires,
Then mountain-nymphs discard their robes of snow,
And in green mantles smile in roseate glow,
And rivers, loosen'd from their icy chai