by Pertinax Townly Bart.
Ye Muses seize your golden lyres
This hour your liveliest strains requires
Strike loud you gayest, sweetest string
Your tribute to my Lord to bring.
He comes! the morn new beauty wears
New flowers the laughing meads adorn
New grace in every scene appears
And plenty spreads her lavish horn.
With thee each hour some new delight
Impels the moment’s rapid flight,
No care disturbs the mind, for here
No care can come when thou art near.
On thee the favor’d birth of fate
The loves and sportive graces smil’d
On thee Minerva deign’d to wait,
And Phoebus own’d thee for his child.
Art at thy word her stores display’d
Thy hand her truest pencil sway’d
While from thy lips new beauties taught
Her sweetest graces Music caught
Science for thee her look serene
In smiles of winning sweetness dressed,
While thy soft hand with friendly care
To beauty smooth’d her rugged vest.
My Patron, let thy smiles impart
New rapture my duteous heart,
Tho’ rough and weak my strain, thy praise
Shall tune to verse the limping lays
Thy bounteous hand the means supplies
To gain in song a deathless name
I win; but thou confer’st the prize
Of Immortality and Fame.
Belov’d and happy, may’st thou live
Blest with each joy that life can give
And Ah! that of thy favor’s beam
Some straggling ray on me might gleam,
For oh! than mine no fonder heart
Can to thy gentle empire bow
Thy smiles my liveliest bliss impart
Thy frowns inflict my deepest woe.
P.T.