THE POET AND THE ROSE.

FROM GAY.

Go, Rose, my CHLOE's bosom grace!

How happy should I prove,

Might I supply that envied place

With never fading love!

There, Phoenix-like, beneath her eye

Involv'd in fragrance burn and die!

Know, hapless Flow'r, that thou shalt find

More fragrant roses there:

I see thy with'ring head reclin'd

With envy and despair!

One common fate we both must prove;

You die with envy, I with love,

IDEM

LATINÈ REDDITUM.

I, Rosa, delicia florum, properare memento
Quà niveo invitat pectore pulchra CHLOE!
O, mihi si liceat tali requiescere nido,
Quàm vellem vestro nuncius ire loco!
Sic, O sic positum, rari Phoenicis ad instar,
Fragranti extinctum morte perire juvat!

At, Flos infelix, caveas! formosius ardet,
Dulcè magìs redolet, candidus iste sinus :
Vincendi Nympham spem frustrà pascis inanem ;
En folia arescunt, ecce recline caput !

Et Flos et Dominus fato moriuntur eodem,

Te flamma invidiæ, Me meus urit amor.

WHITSUNTIDE.

WRITTEN AT WINCHESTER COLLEGE

ON THE IMMEDIATE APPROACH OF THE HOLIDAYS.

HENCE, thou fur-clad Winter, fly!

Sire of shivering Poverty!

Who, as thou creep'st with chilblains lame

To the crowded charcoal flame,

With chattering teeth and ague cold,

Scarce thy shaking sides canst hold

While Thou draw'st the deep cough out:
God of Foot-ball's noisy rout,

Tumult loud and boisť'rous play,

The dangerous slide, the snow-ball fray.

But come, thou genial Son of Spring, WHITSUNTIDE! and with thee bring Cricket, nimble boy and light,

In slippers red and drawers white,

Who o'er the nicely-measur'd land
Ranges around his comely band,

Alert to intercept each blow,
Each motion of the wary foe.

Or patient take thy quiet stand,
The angle trembling in thy hand,
And mark, with penetrative eye,
Kissing the wave the frequent fly,
Where the trout, with eager spring,
Forms the many-circled ring,
And, leaping from the silver tide,
Turns to the sun his speckled side.

Or lead where Health, a naiad fair, With rosy cheek and dripping hair, From the sultry noon-tide beam, Laves in Itchin's crystal-stream.

Thy votaries, rang'd in order due, To-morrow's wish'd-for dawn shall view Greeting the radiant star of light

With Matin Hymn and early rite:

E

E'en now, these hallow'd haunts among,

To Thee we raise the Choral Song
And swell with echoing minstrelsy
The strain of joy and liberty.

If pleasures such as these await Thy genial reign, with heart elate For THEE I throw my gown aside,

And hail thy coming, WHITSUNTIDE.

* A Latin song, called "DOMUM," sung with instrumental accompaniment, on the day before the commencement of their Whitsuntide vacation, by the scholars of Winchester College. The words "Matin Hymn, &c." in the preceding couplet refer to other ancient customs of that venerable seminary.