ELEGY,

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY ON TRANSCRIBING FOR HER
A POEM ON THE DEATH OF TWO UNFORTUNATE LOVERS.

If o’er the lover’s melancholy bier

Unbidden sorrow from thine eyes should flow,

Check not the tender sympathising tear,

Nor blush to soften at another’s woe.

Indulge the tender luxury of grief,

Melt at those pangs which nipp’d their springing bloom,

And (soon as flattering hope deny’d relief,)

Consign’d them early victims to the tomb.

The heart insensible to woe like this,

Demands no caution to secure its case,

Alike depriv’d of every social bliss,

No wit can warm it, and no beauty please.

Yet while the soft emotion is admir’d,

Thro’ which thy virtues with mild radiance shine,

Forgive the pain thy danger has inspir’d.

The sigh——lest Emma’s fate should e’er be thine!

Ah! let it teach thee—nor be too secure——

That love, tho’ virtuous, may thy praise destroy,

That death’s dire dart may fix thy ruin sure,

And blast for ever all thy hopes of joy.

While this reflection dwells upon thy mind,

The wish truth dictates, sure thou wilt approve,

Long may thy heart its bliss in freedom find,

And dread the soft delusive pow’r of love.

ELEGIOGRAPHUS.

New-York, June 24, 1796.

NEW-YORK: Printed by JOHN BULL, No. 115, Cherry-Street, where every Kind of Printing work is executed with the utmost Accuracy and Dispatch.—Subscriptions for this Magazine (at 2s. per month) are taken in at the Printing-Office, and by E. MITCHELL, Bookseller, No. 9, Maiden-Lane.

UTILE DULCI.

The New-York Weekly Magazine;

OR, MISCELLANEOUS REPOSITORY.

Vol. II.]WEDNESDAY, July27, 1796.[No. 56.

View of the STARRY HEAVENS.

The sky at night presents us a sight of wonders, which must raise the astonishment of every attentive observer of nature. But from whence comes it, that so few consider the firmament with attention? I am willing to believe, that in general it proceeds from ignorance; for it is impossible to be convinced of the greatness of the works of God, without feeling a rapture almost heavenly. O how I wish to make you share this divine pleasure! Raise your thoughts for this purpose towards the sky: It will be enough to name to you the immense bodies which are strewed in that space, to fill you with astonishment at the greatness of the artificer. It is in the center of our system that the throne of the sun is established. The body is more than a million of times larger than the earth. It is one hundred millions of miles distant from it, and notwithstanding this prodigious distance, it has a most sensible effect upon our sphere. Round the sun move twenty-one globular bodies, seven of which are called planets, the other fourteen, moons or satellites; they are opake, and receive from the sun light, heat, and perhaps also their interior motion. Georgium Sidus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Earth, Venus, and Mercury, are the names of the seven principal planets. Of these seven, Mercury is nearest the sun, and for that reason is mostly invisible to the astronomer. As he is near nineteen times smaller than our earth, he contributes but little to adorn the sky. Venus follows him, and is sometimes called the morning, and sometimes the evening star. It is one of the brightest of the heavenly bodies, whether it precedes the sun-rise, or succeeds the setting sun. It is near as large again as our earth, and is about sixty-eight millions of miles distant from the sun. After Venus comes our earth, round which the moon moves, as a secondary planet. Mars, which is the fourth planet, is seven times smaller than our globe; and its distance from the sun is one hundred and forty-four millions of miles. Jupiter, with his belt, is always distinguished by his splendor in the starry sky: it seems in size to surpass all the fixed stars; it is almost as bright as Venus in all her glory, except that the light of it is less brilliant than the morning star. How small our earth is in comparison with Jupiter! There would not be less than eight thousand globes like ours, necessary to form one equal in size to that of Jupiter. Saturn, whose distance from the sun is upwards of nine hundred millions of miles, was thought the remotest planet until the late discovery of the Georgium Sidus, whose distance is eighteen thousand millions of miles, and its magnitude eighty-nine times greater than our earth. In the mean time, the sun, with all the planets which accompany it, is a very small part of the immense fabric of the universe. Each star, which from hence appears to us no larger than a brilliant set in a ring, is in reality an immense body which equals the sun both in size and splendor.

(To be concluded in our next.)

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For the New-York Weekly Magazine.