When gently as in June, the rivers glide,
And only miss the flowers that graced their side;
The linnet twitter'd out his parting song,
With many a chorister the woods among;
On southern banks the ruminating sheep

Lay snug and warm ;-'twas summer's farewell peep.
Propitious to his fond intent there grew,
An arbour near at hand of thickest yew,
With many a boxen bush, close clipt between,
And phillyrea of a gild❜d green.

But what old Chaucer's merry page befits,
The chaster muse of modern days omits.
Suffice it then in decent terms to say,
She saw, and turn'd her rosy cheek away.
Small need of prayer-book or of priest, I ween,
Where parties are agreed, retired the scene,
Occasion prompt, and appetite so keen.
Hypothesis (for with such magic power
Fancy endued her in her natal hour,)
From many a steaming lake and reeking bog,
Bade rise in haste a dank and drizzling fog,
That curtain'd round the scene where they reposed,
And wood and lawn in dusky folds enclosed.

Fear seiz'd the trembling sex; in every grove
They wept the wrongs of honourable love,
"In vain," they cried, are hymeneal rites,
Vain our delusive hope of constant knights;
The marriage bond has lost its powers to bind,
And flutters loose, the sport of every wind.
The bride, while yet her bride's attire is on,
Shall mourn her absent lord, for he is gone,
Satiate of her, and weary of the same,
To distant wilds in quest of other game.
Ye fair Circassians! all your lutes employ,
Seraglios sing, and harems dance for joy!
For British nymphs whose lords were lately true,
Nymphs quite as fair, and happier once than you,
Honour, esteem, and confidence forgot,

Feel all the meanness of your slavish lot.

O curst Hypothesis! your hellish arts

Seduce our husbands, and estrange their hearts.

Will none arise? no knight who still retains

The blood of ancient worthies in his veins,

To assert the charter of the chaste and fair,

Find out her treacherous heart, and plant a dagger there ?" A knight (can he that serves the fair do less ?)

Starts at the call of beauty in distress;

And he that does not, whatsoe'er occurs,
Is recreant, and unworthy of his spurs.*

Full many a champion, bent on hardy deed,
Call'd for his arms and for his princely steed.
So swarm'd the Sabine youth, and grasp'd the shield,
When Roman rapine, by no laws withheld,

Lest Rome should end with her first founders' lives,
Made half their maids, sans ceremony, wives.
But not the mitred few; the soul their charge;
They left these bodily concerns at large;
Forms or no forms, pluralities or pairs,
Right reverend sirs! was no concern of theirs.
The rest, alert and active as became

A courteous knighthood, caught the generous flame:
One was accoutred when the cry began,
Knight of the Silver Moon, Sir Marmadan.†

Oft as his patroness, who rules the night,
Hangs out her lamp in yon cerulean height,
His vow was, (and he well perform'd his vow,)
Arm'd at all points, with terror on his brow,
To judge the land, to purge atrocious crimes,
And quell the shapeless monsters of the times.
For cedars famed, fair Lebanon supplied
The well-poised lance that quiver'd at his side;
Truth arm'd it with a point so keen, so just,
No spell or charm was proof against the thrust.
He couch'd it firm upon his puissant thigh,
And darting through his helm an eagle's eye,
On all the wings of chivalry advanced
To where the fond Sir Airy lay entranced.
He dreamt not of a foe, or if his fear
Foretold one, dreamt not of a foe so near.
Far other dreams his feverish mind employ'd,
Of rights restored, variety enjoy'd:
Of virtue too well fenced to fear a flaw;
Vice passing current by the stamp of law;
Large population on a liberal plan,

And woman trembling at the foot of man;
How simple wedlock fornication works,

And Christians marrying may convert the Turks.
The trumpet now spoke Marmadan at hand,
A trumpet that was heard through all the land.
His high-bred steed expands his nostrils wide,
And shorts aloud to cast the mist aside;

* When a knight was degraded, his spurs were chopped off.-C. † Mr. Badcock in Monthly Review for October, 1780.-C.

But he, the virtues of his lance to show,
Struck thrice the point upon his saddle-bow;
Three sparks ensued that chased it all away,
And set the unseemly pair in open day.
"To horse!" he cried, or, by this good right hand
And better spear, I smite you where you

66

stand."

Sir Airy, not a whit dismay'd or scared,
Buckled his helm, and to his steed repair'd;
Whose bridle, while he cropp'd the grass below,
Hung not far off upon a myrtle hough.

He mounts at once,--such confidence infused
The insidious witch that had his wits abused;
And she, regardless of her softer kind,
Seized fast the saddle and sprang up behind.
"Oh shame to knighthood!" his assailant cried;
"Oh shame!" ten thousand echoing nymphs replied.
Placed with advantage at his listening ear,
She whisper'd still that he had nought to fear;
That he was cased in such enchanted steel,

So polish'd and compact from head to heel,

Come ten, come twenty, should an army call

66

Thee to the field, thou shouldst withstand them all."
By Dian's beams,” Sir Marmadan exclaim'd,
"The guiltless still are ever least ashamed!
But guard thee well, expect no feign'd attack;
And guard beside the sorceress at thy back!"
He spoke indignant, and his spurs applied,
Though little need, to his good palfrey's side:
The barb sprang forward, and his lord, whose force
Was equal to the swiftness of his horse,
Rush'd with a whirlwind's fury on the foe,
And, Phineas like, transfix'd them at a blow.

Then sang the married and the maiden throng,
Love graced the theme, and harmony the song;
The Fauns and Satyrs, a lascivious race,

Shriek'd at the sight, and, conscious, fled the place:
And Hymen, trimming his dim torch anew,
His snowy mantle o'er his shoulders threw;
He turn'd, and view'd it oft on every side,

And reddening with a just and generous pride,
Bless'd the glad beams of that propitious day,

The spot he loathed so much for ever cleansed away.*

* Cowper never included this poem in his works. Southey discovered it by finding 1

note (in a book he was reading) from S. Rose, a friend of Cowper's, stating that such poem had been written by the "Author of The Task."

LOVE ABUSED;

THE THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY THELYPHTHORA.

WHAT is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a Wife,

When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;
And earth a second Eden shows,
Where'er the healing water flows:
But ah! if from the dykes and drains
Of sensual nature's feverish veins,
Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending fast on every side,
Once mingles with the sacred tide,
Farewell the soul-enlivening scene!
The banks that wore a smiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flowery beauties dead.
The stream polluted, dark, and dull,
Diffused into a Stygian pool,
Through life's last melancholy years
Is fed with ever-flowing tears:
Complaints supply the zephyr's part,
And sighs that heave a breaking heart.

THE PROGRESS OF ERROR.

Si quid loquar audiendum.-HOR. lib. iv. Od. 2.

SING, Muse, (if such a theme, so dark, so long,
May find a Muse to grace it with a song)
By what unseen and unsuspected arts

The serpent Error twines round human hearts;
Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades,
That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades,
The poisonous, black, insinuating worm
Successfully conceals her loathsome form.
Take, if you can, ye careless and supine,
Counsel and caution from a voice like mine!
Truths that the theorist could never reach,
And observation taught me. I would teach.

Not all whose eloquence the fancy fills,
Musical as the chime of tinkling rills,
Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend,
Can trace her mazy windings to their end.
Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,
Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.
The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,
Falls soporific on the listless ear;

Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they display
Shines as it runs, but grasped at, slips away.
Placed for his trial on this bustling stage,
From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,
Free in his will to choose or to refuse,
Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;
Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,
Say to what bar amenable were man?

With naught in charge, he could betray no trust,
And if he fell, would fall because he must;

If Love reward him, or if Vengeance strike,

His recompense in both unjust alike.

Divine authority within his breast

Brings every thought, word, action, to the test;
Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,
As Reason, or as Passion, takes the reins.
Heaven from above, and Conscience from within,
Cry in his startled ear, "Abstain from sin ""