Poems

by Samuel Rogers

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES,
IN THE STRAND, BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET, STREET.

1814.


Oh could my Mind, unfolded in my page,
Enlighten climes and mould a future age;
There as it glow’d, with noblest frenzy fraught,
Dispense the treasures of exalted thought;
To Virtue wake the pulses of the heart,
And bid the tear of emulation start!
Oh could it still, thro’ each succeeding year,
My life, my manners, and my name endear;
And, when the poet sleeps in silent dust,
Still hold communion with the wise and just!—
Yet should this Verse, my leisure’s best resource,
When thro’ the world it steals its secret course,
Revive but once a generous wish supprest,
Chase but a sigh, or charm a care to rest;
In one good deed a fleeting hour employ,
Or flush one faded cheek with honest joy;
Blest were my lines, tho’ limited their sphere,
Tho’ short their date, as his who trac’d them here.

Contents

[The Pleasures of Memory]
[Epistle to a Friend]
[Ode to Superstition]
[Written to be spoken in a Theatre]
[To——]
[The Sailor]
[To an old Oak]
[From Euripides]
[To Two Sisters]
[Written at Midnight]
[On a Tear]
[To a Voice that had been lost]
[From a Greek Epigram.]
[To the Torso]
[To——]
[Written in a Sick Chamber]
[To a Friend on his Marriage]
[The Alps at Day-break]
[Imitation of an Italian Sonnet]
[On——asleep.]
[To the youngest Daughter of Lady **]
[An Epitaph on a Robin-Redbreast]
[A Wish]
[An Italian Song]
[To the Gnat]
[An Inscription in the Crimea]
[Captivity]
[A Character]
[Written in the Highlands of Scotland]
[A Farewell]
[To the Butterfly]
[Written in Westminster Abbey]
[The Voyage of Columbus]

THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY