To Mr. Watts, on his Poems Sacred to Devotion

I.

To murmuring streams in tender strains,

My pensive muse no more

Of love’s inchanting force complains,

Along the flow’ry shore.

II.

No more Mirtillo’s fatal face

My quiet breast alarms,

His eyes, his air, and youthful grace

Have lost their usual charms.

III.

No gay Alexis in the grove

Shall be my future theme;

I burn with an immortal love,

And sing a purer flame.

IV.

Seraphic heights I seem to gain,

And sacred transports feel;

While, Watts, to thy celestial strain

Surpriz’d I listen still.

V.

The gliding streams their course forbear,

When I thy lays repeat;

The bending forest lends an ear,

The birds their notes forget.

VI.

With such a grateful harmony

Thy numbers still prolong,

And let remotest lands reply,

And echo to thy song.

VII.

Far as the distant regions where

The beauteous morning springs,

And scatters odours thro’ the air

From her resplendent wings;

VIII.

Unto the new-found realms which see

The latter sun arise

When with an easy progress he

Rolls down the nether skies.

Text: Poems on Several Occasions (London: E. Dudley [and seven others], 1778), pp. 107-08.