ON READING SOME ELEGIES.
Hither your wreaths, ye drooping muses bring,
The short-liv’d rose, that blooms but to decay;
Love’s fragrant myrtles, that in paphos spring,
And deathless poetry’s immortal bay.
And oh! thou gentlest shade, accept the verse,
Mean though it be, and artlessly sincere,
That pensive thus attends thy silent hearse,
And steals, in secret shades, the pious tear.