The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer / With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes

The Fond Lover a Ballad

1

A nymph of every charm possess'd,
That native virtue gives,
Within my bosom all confess'd,
In bright idea lives.
For her my trembling numbers play
Along the pathless deep,
While, sadly social with my lay,
The winds in concert weep.

2

If beauty's sacred influence charms
The rage of adverse fate;
Say why the pleasing soft alarms
Such cruel pangs create?
Since all her thoughts by sense refined,
Unartful truth express;
Say wherefore sense and truth are join'd
To give my soul distress?

3

If when her blooming lips I press,
Which vernal fragrance fills,
Through all my veins the sweet excess
In trembling motion thrills;
Say whence this secret anguish grows,
Congenial with my joy?
And why the touch, where pleasure glows,
Should vital peace destroy?

4

If, when my fair, in melting song,
Awakes the vocal lay,
Not all your notes, ye Phocian throng,
Such pleasing sounds convey;
Thus wrapt all o'er with fondest love,
Why heaves this broken sigh?
For then my blood forgets to move,
I gaze, adore, and die.

5

Accept, my charming maid, the strain
Which you alone inspire;
To thee the dying strings complain
That quiver on my lyre.
O give this bleeding bosom ease,
That knows no joy but thee;
Teach me thy happy art to please,
Or deign to love like me.

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On the Uncommon Scarcity of Poetry in the Gentleman's Magazine for December last, 1755, by I. W., a sailor

The springs of Helicon can winter bind,
And chill the fervour of a poet's mind?
What though the lowering skies and driving storm
The scenes of nature wide around deform,
The birds no longer sing, nor roses blow,
And all the landscape lies conceal'd in snow;
Yet rigid Winter still is known to spare
The brighter beauties of the lovely fair:
Ye lovely fair, your sacred influence bring,
And with your smiles anticipate the Spring!
Yet what avail the smiles of lovely maids,
Or vernal suns that glad the flowery glades?
The wood's green foliage, or the varying scene
Of fields and lawns, and gliding streams between?
What, to the wretch whom harder fates ordain
Through the long year to plough the stormy main?
No murmuring streams, no sound of distant sheep,
Or song of birds invite his eyes to sleep.
By toil exhausted, when he sinks to rest,
Beneath his sun-burnt head no flowers are prest:
Down on the deck his fainting limbs are laid,
No spreading trees dispense their cooling shade,
No zephyrs round his aching temples play,
No fragrant breezes noxious heats allay.
The rude, rough wind which stern AEolus sends,
Drives on in blasts, and while it cools, offends.
He wakes, but hears no music from the grove;
No varied landscape courts his eye to rove.
O'er the wide main he looks to distant skies,
Where nought but waves on rolling waves arise;
The boundless view fatigues his aching sight,
Nor yields his eye one object of delight.
No "female face divine," with cheering smiles,
The lingering hours of dangerous toil beguiles.
Yet distant beauty oft his genius fires,
And oft with love of sacred song inspires.
Even I, the least of all the tuneful train,
On the rough ocean try this artless strain:
Rouse then, ye bards, who happier fortunes prove,
And tune the lyre to Nature or to Love!

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Description of a Ninety-Gun Ship

from the Gentleman's Magazine, May 1759.

Amidst a wood of oaks with canvas leaves,
Which form'd a floating forest on the waves,
There stood a tower, whose vast stupendous size
Rear'd its huge mast, and seem'd to gore the skies,
From which a bloody pendant stretch'd afar
Its comet-tail, denouncing ample war:
Two younger giants¹, of inferior height,
Display'd their sporting streamers to the sight:
The base below, another island rose,
To pour Britannia's thunder on her foes:
With bulk immense, like Ætna, she surveys
Above the rest, the lesser Cyclades:
Profuse of gold, in lustre like the sun,
Splendid with regal luxury she shone,
Lavish in wealth, luxuriant in her pride,
Behold the gilded mass exulting ride!
Her curious prow divides the silver waves,
In the salt ooze her radiant sides she laves;
From stem to stern, her wondrous length survey,
Rising a beauteous Venus from the sea:
Her stem, with naval drapery engraved,
Show'd mimic warriors, who the tempest braved;
Whose visage fierce defied the lashing surge,
Of Gallic pride the emblematic scourge.
Tremendous figures, lo! her stern displays,
And holds a Pharos² of distinguish'd blaze:
By night it shines a star of brightest form,
To point her way, and light her through the storm:
See dread engagements pictured to the life,
See admirals maintain the glorious strife:
Here breathing images in painted ire,
Seem for their country's freedom to expire:
Victorious fleets the flying fleets pursue—
Here strikes a ship, and there exults a crew:
A frigate here blows up with hideous glare,
And adds fresh terrors to the bleeding war.
But leaving feigned ornaments, behold!
Eight hundred youths, of heart and sinew bold,
Mount up her shrouds, or to her tops ascend,
Some haul her braces, some her foresail bend;
Full ninety brazen guns her port-holes fill,
Ready with nitrous magazines to kill;
From dread embrazures formidably peep,
And seem to threaten ruin to the deep:
On pivots fix'd, the well-ranged swivels lie,
Or to point downward, or to brave the sky;
While peteraroes swell with infant rage,
Prepared, though small, with fury to engage.
Thus arm'd, may Britain long her state maintain,
And with triumphant navies rule the main!