LONG-EXPECTED one and twenty Ling’ring year at last has flown, Pomp and pleasure, pride and plent… Great Sir John, are all your own. Loosen’d from the minor’s tether,

What hopes - what terrors does thi… Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate… The myrtle (ensign of supreme comm… Consign’d to Venus by Melissa’s h… Not less capricious than a reignin…

No more the morn with tepid rays Unfolds the flower of various hue; Noon spreads no more the genial bl… Nor gentle eve distills the dew. The lingering hours prolong the ni…

To Stella: Evening now from purple wings Sheds the grateful gifts she bring… Brilliant drops bedeck the mead, Cooling breezes shake the reed;

No more thus brooding o’er yon hea… With avarice painful vigils keep: Still unenjoy’d the present store, Still endless sighs are breathed f… O! quit the shadow, catch the priz…

When Scaliger, whole years of lab… Beheld his lexicon complete at las… And weary of his task, with wond’r… Saw, from words pil’d on words, a… He curs’d the industry, inertly st…

To Stella: Whether Stella’s eyes are found Fix’d on earth or glancing round, If her face with pleasure glow, If she sigh at others’ woe,

On her playing upon the harpsichor… a room hung with flower-pieces of… When Stella strikes the tuneful s… In scenes of imitated Spring, Where beauty lavishes her powers

1 When Learning’s trium… 2 First rear’d the stage, immo… 3 Each change of many-colour’d… 4 Exhausted worlds, and then i… 5 Existence saw him spurn her…

Stern Winter now, by Spring repre… Forbears the long-continued strife… And Nature, on her naked breast, Delights to catch the gales of lif… Now o’er the rural kingdom roves,

The rites derived from ancient day… With thoughtless reverence we prai… The rites that taught us to combin… The joys of music and of wine, And bid the feast, and song and bo…

When first the peasant, long incli… Forsakes his rural sports and peac… Pleas’d with the scene the smiling… He scorns the verdant meads and fl… Then dances jocund o’er the watery…

At length must Suffolk beauties s… So long renown’d in B-n’s deathle… Thy charms at least, fair Firebra… Some zealous bard to wake the slee… For such thy beauteous mind and lo…

Clouds do not always veil the skie… Nor showers immerse the verdant pl… Nor do the billows always rise, Or storms afflict the ruffled main… Nor, Valgius, on the Armenian sho…

Ye nymphs whom starry rays invest, By flattering poets given, Who shine, by lavish lovers dress’… In all the pomp of heaven. Engross not all the beams on high,