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xviii The song is clos'd.—See Nature's darling laid An infant yet, in Avon's classic shade. Hark! his wild notes are floating down the vale, like blossoms scatter'd in the summer gale. I mark thy hand each latent thought refine, Stamp with the seal of truth the Delphic line; O'er Fletcher's song bid new-born Pity weep, And wake the Muse of Shirley from her sleep. Oh, friend! as oft I hail thy taste refin'd, Thy gentle manners, thy congenial mind; Those studious hours that leave no page unknown, Of all that Rome or Athens call'd their own; Thine the fair flowers on Tiber's banks that smile, And thine a wreath from each Ægean isle, With many a violet mix'd from Britain's gothic pile; Secure of fame, thy future path I see, And mark another Parnell rise in thee.

Farewell! e'en now I leave, where Thames's wave His lucid mirror spreads by St. John's grave, (Yon little hamlet, once a vulgar name, Lives in the lines that mark the statesman's fame, And studious he each nobler grace to blend, At once the senate's strength, the poet's friend). For my lone woods I quit the insatiate throng (The child alike of sorrow and of song); And still the same, as when I wander'd pale