TO PHILANDER, Who said, "WHEN I AM DEAD, WRITE MY ELEGY"

Yes, I would write; the sad command Lives in each melancholy throb Which lifts my heart. Thy ANNA's hand, When death that melting eye shall rob Of the blue flames which flashing there, Thy burning soul so well declare— Thy ANNA's hand that soul shall then disclose, And by indulging, charm her weary woes.

Forth would I rush, whilst Night's dim orb The blackest vapours of the sky absorb; And should a lingering Star with glittering beam, Send thro' the air its silvery stream, I'd tell it that PHILANDER WAS NO MORE— Strait would its glittering beam be sad; And the wide heavens in darkness clad Would join to mourn, WHOM I should then deplore. Quick to the cypress forest I would hie, Whose thick gloom never drank the healthful sky, And from its deepest central spot, Where misery had rais'd her flinty grot, A bough I'd tear; Whilst shrieking thro' the ebon air The Night Bird's voice would dismal echo wake, And with its lorn complaints the resting vallies shake. Then would I find where yew-trees wave, O'er some unhappy Lover's grave, Their desolated shade; And from their baleful branches brush The pois'nous dews!—or madly crush The juices from the riven rind That ne'er again the naked trunk should bind. My chosen cypress reed I'd then immerse, And calling on the Muse of melancholy verse, With the YEW'S TEARS I'd story all my woe, Nor should a mingling TEAR of MINE presume to flow.

No! I would scorn to weep. The glorious grief Should gorge upon my heart, and spurn relief. How I would write of dear PHILANDER dead! O! I would weave such verse, that round my hea! The Demons of the Night, Arrested in their wheeling slight, Should learn to pity and to mourn, And curse their bounded pow'r, Which would not let them say RETURN! RETURN! I'd paint his form, and every varying grace Impress'd by FEELING on his manly face, Then should forever live his SAPPHIRE EYE, And tho' his sensate heart in earth dissolves, As Time, obliterating, round revolves, THAT BEAM at least should never, never die!

But O! how should I paint his mind, A taste so true, and so refin'd! How should I speak of his IMMORTAL MUSE That now can such delight diffuse? A Muse which forms a NATION'S TASTE! And o'er the weedy waste Of long-neglected Poetry had thrown A vivid light, which so sublimely shone. That to its source ten thousand poets flew, And form'd their songs, and tun'd their harps anew.

But yes! e'en of HIS MUSE I'd speak; And tho' I know the swelling theme Would shake my soul, till in th' extreme Of strong sensation every nerve would break; Yet having then fulfil'd my task, Done, what last night's soft shadows heard him ask, What could I next but die? Yes, I would court HIM vainly fam'd THE KING OF TERRORS! Oh, how lightly nam'd! Would he not be my bosom's friend? Would not the sighs his agonies would rend From my torn heart, be passports bright To wing me to the fields of living light; Where, from the rapt seraphic throng My own PHILANDER's powerful song Would be the first to seize my ear, And make me feel that HEAVEN WAS NEAR? Come then, pale King! feed on my feeble breath; O! come, thou stay'st too long—too long ENCHANTING DEATH.