(_For the Mirror._)
Pure Stream! whose waters gently glide along,
In murmuring cadence to the Poet's ear,
Who, stretch'd at ease your flowery banks among,
Views with delight your glassy surface clear,
Roll pleasing on through Otways sainted wood;
Where "musing Pity" still delights to mourn,
And kiss the spot where oft her votary stood,
Or hang fresh cypress o'er his weeping urn;--
Here, too, retir'd from Folly's scenes afar,
His powerful shell first studious Collins strung;
Whilst Fancy, seated in her rainbow car,
Round him her flowers Parnassian wildly flung.
Stream of the Bards! oft Hayley linger'd here;
And Charlotte Smith[1] hath grac'd thy current with a tear.
_The Author of "A Tradesman's Lays." No. 85, Leather Lane._
[1] This charming, accomplished poetess has addressed one of her
most beautiful "Elegiac Sonnets" to this inspiring River.
Her tender image of the "infant Otway" is, however, borrowed
from a stanza in Collins's inimitable "Ode to Pity:"--
"Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains
And echo 'midst my native plains
Been sooth'd by Pity's lute;
There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's _infant head_--
To him thy cell was shown," &c.
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