From this amusive scene I bend my feet,
To view yon pleasure-ground and ancient Seat: *
Enchanting spot! inviting, sweet recess !

Thy shades are form'd the studious mind to bless :
Here may the son of Song his raptures breathe,
Woo the coy Muse, and win th' unfading wreath.
While thus I stray, and scenes successive rise
To gratify my mind, and charm mine eyes,
Lo! in yon mead, I mark "a house of Prayer,"†
Where crowds to serve their Maker oft repair-
Serve! did I say? Alas! too many go

To gaze, to sleep, and Fashion's plumes to show!
Ye triflers! why pollute the hallow'd dome?
Be more discreet, and "play the fool" at home:
Your looks irreverent, gestures vain, declare
Ye ne'er reflect that God is present there.

Yon farm (the Chapel) on its walls displays
Some few momentos of monastic days:
There, as tradition tells, in times of yore,
Fat monks, recluse in superstitious lore,
Consum'd their vital lamp: remote from strife,
They never bustled through the storms of life.
On thy soft couch, Indulgence! long they lay,
And pass'd in mental sleep their golden day:
Wrapt in calm Indolence and bloated Ease,
Like drones, they wrong'd the more industrious bees.
Haverhill, adieu! adieu my favourite theme!
Ye sylphs, who prompt the poet's fairy dream,
Farewel! this rustic lyre, my youthful pride,
Thus, with reluctant hand, I cast aside!
Yes! I must Nature's potent call obey,
Unstring my harp, and fling my pen away!

The Manor-House.

The Meeting-House,

O, when that fatal stroke, that general doom,
Shall stop my shuttle, tear me from my
loom!
Dear, native Vale! thy flowery turf beneath,
May he, who sang thy praise, repose in death!
I ask no sculptur'd stone, no verse sublime,
To shield my memory from the blast of time;
But may that friend, whom most my heart holds dear,
Bedew my grassy hillock with a tear!

BURNT-HALL,

BY MR. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

The village of Fakenham is situated in a pleasant valley, which is watered and fertilized by a branch of the river Ouse. The meadows afford abundant pasture, and the neighbouring uplands are richly cultivated. The whole parish is the property of his Grace, the Duke of Grafton, and furnished the scenes of several of the pieces of Bloomfield. In this village, nearly opposite to the church, is a cottage in which the Poet's mother was born. A Moated Eminence in this place is supposed to have been the scite of a Mansion, formerly destroyed by fire. Near the inner margin of the Moat still exist several decayed trees, the remains of a circle of Elms, that, according to the Poet, once completely surrounded the Mansion. His ideas of the hospitality of the place are most probably derived from some tradition still extant in the neighbourhood.

ON thy calm joys with what delight I dream,
Thou dear green valley of my native stream!
Fancy o'er thee still waves th' enchanting wand,
And every
nook of thine is fairy land,

And ever will be, though the axe should smite
In Gain's rude service, and in Pity's spite,
Thy clustering alders, and at length invade
The last, last poplars, that compose thy shade:
Thy stream shall then in native freedom stray,
And undermine the willows in its way,

These, nearly worthless, may survive this storm,
This scythe of desolation call'd "Reform."

No army past that way! yet are they fled,
The boughs that, when a school-boy, screen'd my
head:

I hate the murderous axe; estranging more
The winding vale from what it was of yore,
Than e'en mortality in all its rage,

And all the change of faces in an age.

“Warmth,” will they term it, that I speak so free? They strip thy shades,-thy shades so dear to me! In Herbert's days woods cloth'd both hill and dale; But peace, Remembrance! let us tell the tale.

His home was in the valley, elms grew round His moated Mansion, and the pleasant sound Of woodland birds that loud at day-break sing, With the first cuckoos that proclaim the spring, Flock'd round his dwelling; and his kitchen smoke, That from the towering rookery upward broke, Of joyful import to the poor hard by, Stream'd a glad sign of hospitality; So fancy pictures: but its day is o'er ; The moat remains, the dwelling is no more! Its name denotes its melancholy fall,

For village children call the spot "Burnt-Hall."

TO THE RIVER ORWELL,

BY MR. BERNARD BARTON.

Opposite to Harwich, the river Orwell unites itself with the Stour, which rises on the western side of the county, and first running southward to Haverhill, takes an eastern direction, and forms, throughout its whole course, the boundary between Suffolk and Essex. It passes by Sudbury; and after being joined by the Bret and other smaller streams, receives the tide at Manningtree. The united waters of these rivers, having formed the port of Harwich, discharge themselves into the German Ocean, between that town, and Landguard Fort.

Drayton, in his Poly-Olbion, thus describes the union of these Rivers:

For it hath been divulg'd the Ocean all abroad,
That Orwell and this Stour, by meeting in one Bay,
Two, that each others good, intended euery way,
Prepar'd to sing a Song, that should precisely show,
That Medway for her life, their skill could not out-goe:
For Stour, a daintie flood, that duly doth diuide
Faire Suffolke from this Shire, vpon her other side;
By Clare first comming in, to Sudbury doth show
The euen course she keepes; when farre she doth not flow,
But Breton, a bright Nymph, fresh succour to her brings :
Yet is she not so proud of her superfluous Springs,
But Orwell comming in from Ipswitch thinkest hat shee
Should stand for it with Stour, and lastly they agree,
That since the Britans hence their first Discoueries made
And that into the East they first were taught to trade.
Besides, of all the Roads, and Hauens of the East,
This Harbor where they meet, is reckoned for the best.

Tradition affirms, that the outlet of the Stour and Orwell was anciently on the north side of Landguard Fort, through Walton marshes, and that the place called the Fleets was part of this original channel.

SWEET stream! on whose banks in my childhood residing,

Untutor❜d by life in the lessons of care;

In the heart-cheering whispers of hope still confiding, Futurity's prospects seem'd smiling and fair.

Dear river! how gaily the sun-beams are glancing On thy murmuring waves, as they roll to the main! While my tempest-tost bark, on life's oceanadvancing, Despairs of e'er finding a harbour again.

Fair Orwell! those banks which thy billows are laving,
Full oft have I thoughtlessly saunter'd along;
Or beneath those tall trees, which the fresh breeze
is waving,

Have listen'd with rapture to nature's wild song.

But say, can thy groves, though with harmony ringing,

Recal the emotions of youthful delight?

Or can thy gay banks, where the flowerets are springing,

Revive the impressions they once could excite?

Ah no! those bright visions for ever are vanish'd,
Thy fairy dominion, sweet Fancy, is o'er ;
The soft-soothing whispers of Hope too are banish'd,
The "Song of the Syren" enchants me no more.

Adieu, lovely Orwell! for ages still flowing!

On thy banks may the graces, and virtues combine: Long, long may thy beauties, fresh raptures bestow

ing,

Diffuse the sweet pleasure they've yielded to mine.

F