Here sinking spaces with dark boughs o'ergrown,
And there the naked quarries look a town.
At length our pilgrimage's home appears,
Tintern her venerable fabric rears,
While the sun, mildly glancing in decline,
With his last gilding beautifies the shrine :
Enter with reverence her hallow'd gate,
And trace the glorious relics of her state;
The meeting arches, pillar'd walks admire,
Or musing hearken to the silenc'd choir.
Encircling groves diffuse a solemn grace,
And dimly fill th' historic window's place;
While pitying shrubs on the bare summit try
To give the roofless pile a canopy.

Here, O my friends, along the massy dome
In pleasurable sadness let us roam:
Look back upon the world, in haven safe,
Weep o'er it's ruins, at it's follies laugh.

EPISTLE V.

ΤΟ

SIR HUMPHRY MACKWORTH,

On the Mines, late of Sir Carbery Price.

FROM

THOMAS YALDEN, D. D.

WHAT Spacious veins enrich the British soil,

The various ores, and skilful miner's toil!
How ripening metals lie conceal'd in earth,
And teeming Nature forms the wondrous birth;
My useful verse, the first, transmits to fame,
In numbers tun'd, and no unhallow'd flame.

O generous Mackworth! could the Muse impart A labor worthy thy auspicious art;

Like thee succeed in paths untrod before,
And secret treasures of the land explore;
Apollo's self should on the labor smile,
And Delphi quit for Britain's fruitful isle.

Where fair Sabrina flows around the coast, And aged Dovey in the ocean's lost,

Her lofty brows unconquer'd Britain rears,
And fenc'd with rocks impregnable appears;
Which like the well-fix'd bars of nature show,
To guard the treasures she conceals below.
For Earth, distorted with her pregnant womb,
Heaves up to give the forming embryo room:
Hence vast excrescences of hills arise,
And mountains swell to a portentous size.
Louring and black the rugged coast appears,
The sullen earth a gloomy surface wears;
Yet all beneath, deep as the centre, shines
With native wealth, and more than India's mines.
Thus erring Nature her defects supplies,
Indulgent oft to what her sons despise :
Oft in a rude, unfinish'd form, we find
The noblest treasure of a generous mind.

Thrice happy land! from whose indulgent womb, Such unexhausted stores of riches come ! By heaven belov'd! form'd by auspicious fate, To be above thy neighbouring nations great! Its golden sands no more shall Tagus boast, In Dovey's flood his rivall'd empire's lost; Whose waters now a nobler fund maintain, To humble France, and check the pride of Spain. Like Egypt's Nile the bounteous current shows, Dispersing blessings wheresoe'er it flows; Whose native treasure 's able to repair The long expences of our Gallic war.

The ancient Britons are a hardy race, Averse to luxury and slothful ease;

Their necks beneath a foreign yoke ne'er bow'd,
In war unconquer'd, and of freedom proud;
With minds resolv'd they lasting toils endure,
Unmix'd their language, and their manners pure.
Wisely does nature such an offspring choose,
Brave to defend her wealth, and slow to use.
Where thirst of empire ne'er inflames their veins,
Nor avarice, nor wild ambition reigns:

But, low in mines, they constant toils renew,
And thro' the earth their branching veins pursue.

As when some navy on th' Iberian coast, Chas'd by the winds, is in the ocean lost; To Neptune's realms a new supply it brings, The strength design'd of European kings: Contending divers would the wreck regain, And make reprisals on the grasping main: Wild in pursuit they are endanger'd more, Than when they combated the storms before. The miner thus thro' perils digs his way, Equal to theirs, and deeper than the sea ; Drawing, in pestilential steams, his breath, Resolv'd to conquer, tho' he combats death. Night's gloomy realms his pointed steel invades, The courts of Pluto, and infernal shades : He cuts thro' mountains, subterraneous lakes, Plying his work, each nervous stroke he takes Loosens the earth, and the whole cavern shakes.

Thus, with his brawny arms, the Cyclops stands,
To form Jove's lightning with uplifted hands;
The ponderous hammer with a force descends,
Loud as the thunder which his art intends;
And, as he strikes, with each resistless blow
The anvil yields, and Aetna groans below.

Thy fam'd inventions, Mackworth, most adorn The miner's art, and make the best return: Thy speedy sails, and useful engines, show A genius richer than the mines below. Thousands of slaves unskill'd Peru maintains ; The hands that labor still exhaust the gains: The winds, thy slaves, their useful succour join, Convey thy ore, and labor at thy mine; Instructed by thy arts, a power they find

To vanquish realms, where once they lay confin'd

Downward, my Muse, direct thy steepy flight, Where smiling shades, and bounteous realms invite; I first of British bards invoke thee down,

And first with wealth thy graceful temples crown, Thro' dark retreats pursue the winding ore,

Search nature's depths, and view her boundless store;
The secret cause in tuneful measures sing,

How metals first are fram'd, and whence they spring.
Whether the active sun, with chymic flames,
Thro' porous earth transmits his genial beams,
With heat impregnating the womb of night,
The offspring shines with its paternal light :