! ELEGIES

LOCAL, SYMPATHETIC, AND FUNEREAL.

ELEGY I.

THE

TOMB OF SHAKSPERE.

A

VISION.

BY JOHN GILBERT COOPER, ESQ.

WHAT time the jocund rosie-bosom'd HOURS
Led forth the train of PHOEBUS and the SPRING,
And ZEPHYR mild profusely scatter'd flowers
On earth's green mantle from his musky wing,

The Morn unbarr'd th' ambrosial gates of light,
Westward the raven-pinion'd Darkness flew,
The Landscape smil'd in vernal beauty bright,
And to their graves the sullen Ghosts withdrew.

The nightingale no longer swell'd her throat
With love-lorn plainings tremulous and slow,
And on the wings of Silence ceas'd to float
The gurgling notes of her melodious woe:

The God of sleep mysterious visions led
In gay procession 'fore the mental eye;
And my free'd soul awhile her mansion fled,
To try her plumes for immortality.

Through fields of air, methought, I took my flight,
Through every clime, o'er every region pass'd,
No paradise or ruin 'scap'd my sight,
HESPERIAN garden, or CIMMERIAN waste.

On Avon's banks I lit, whose streams appear
To wind with eddies fond round SHAKSPERE'S

tomb,

The year's first feath'ry songsters warble near,
And vi'lets breathe, and earliest roses bloom.

Here FANCY sat, (her dewy fingers cold
Decking with flow'rets fresh th' unsullied sod,)
And bath'd with tears the sad sepulchral mold,
Her fav'rite offspring's long and last abode.

Ah! what avails, she cry'd, a Poet's name?
Ah! what avails th' immortalizing breath
To snatch from dumb Oblivion others fame ?
My darling child here lies a prey to Death!

Let gentle OTWAY, white-rob'd PITY's priest,
From grief domestic teach the tears to flow,
Or SOUTHERN captivate th' impassion'd breast
With heart-felt sighs and sympathy of woe.