ΤΟ

HER GRACE

THE

DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE,

THE FOLLOWING

TRIFLING EFFUSIONS

OF A

Very Bouthful Muse,

ARE,

BY PERMISSION, DEDICATED,

BY HER GRACE'S

MUCH OBLIGED

AND GRATEFUL SERVANT,

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

PREFACE.

THE following attempts in Verse are laid before the public with extreme diffidence. The Author is very conscious that the juvenile efforts of a youth, who has not received the polish of academical discipline, and who has been but sparingly blessed with opportunities for the prosecution of scholastic pursuits, must neces sarily be defective in the accuracy and finished elegance which mark the works of the man who has passed his life in the retirement of his study, furnishing his mind with images, and at the same time attaining the power of disposing those images to the best advantage.

The unpremeditated effusions of a Boy, from his thirteenth year, employed, not in the acquisition of literary information, but in the more active business of life, must not be expected to exhibit any considerable portion of the correctness of a Virgil, or the vigorous compression of a Horace. Men are not, I believe, requently known to bestow much labour on their amusements: and these Poems were, most of them, written merely to beguile a leisure hour, or to fill up the languid intervals of studies of a severer nature.

Πας το οικείος έργον αγαπαω, • Every one loves his own work,' says the Stagyrite; but it was no overweening affection of this kind which induced this publication. Had the author relied on his own judgment only, these Poems would not, in all probability, ever have seen the light.

Perhaps it may be asked of him, what are his motives for this publication? He answers-simply these: The facilitation, through its means, of those studies which, from his earliest infancy, have been the principal objects of his ambition; and the increase of the capacity to purs ie those inclinations which may one day place him in an honourable station in the scale of society.

B

The principal Poem in this little collection, Clifton Grove,' is, he fears, deficient in numbers and harmo nious coherency of parts. It is, however, merely to be regarded as a description of a nocturnal ramble in that charming retreat, accompanied with such reflections as the scene naturally suggested. It was written "twelve months ago, when the author was in his sixteenth year. The Miscellanies are some of them the productions of a very early age. Of the Odes, that To an early Primrose,' was written at thirteen-the others are of a later date. The Sonnets are chiefly irregular; they have, perhaps, no other claim to that specific denomination, than that they consist only of fourteen lines.

Such are the Poems towards which I entreat the lenity of the public. The critic will doubtless find in them much to condemn; he may likewise possibly discover something to commend. Let him scan my faults with an indulgent eye, and in the work of that correction which I invite, let him remember he is holding the iron mace of Criticism over the flimsy superstructure of a youth of seventeen, and, remember. ing that, may he forbear from crushing, by too much rigour, the painted butterfly whose transient colours may otherwise be capable of affording a moment's in

nocent amusement.

NOTTINGHAM

H.K WHITE

INSCRIPTION.

By William Smyth, Esq. Professor of Modern History, Cambridge; on a monumental tablet, with a medallion by Chantrey, erected in All-Saint's Church, Cambridge at the expence of Francis Boott, Esq. of Boston, United States.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE,

BORN MARCH 21st, 1785; DIED OCTOBER 10th, 1806.
WARM with fond hope, and learning's sacred flame,
To Granta's bowers the youthful Poet came;

Unconquer'd powers, th' immortal mind display'd,
But worn with anxious thought the frame decay'd:
Pale o'er his lamp and in his cell retired,
The Martyr Student faded and expired.
O Genius. Taste, and Piety sincere,
Too early lost, 'midst duties too severe !

Foremost to mourn was generous SOUTHEY seen,
He told the tale, and shew'd what WHITE had been,
Nor told in vain-far o'er th' Atlantic wave,
A Wanderer came, and sought the Poet's grave;
On yon low stone he saw his lonely name,
And raised this fond memorial to his fame.

W. S.

LINES BY LORD BYRON.

No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,
But living statues there are seen to weep:
Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb,
Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom.

POEMS.

TO MY LYRE, AN ODE.

I.

THOU Simple Lyre!-Thy music wild
Has served to charm the weary hour,
And many a lonely night has 'guiled,
When even pain has own'd, and smiled,
Its fascinating power.

II.

Yet, oh my Lyre! the busy crowd
Will little heed thy simple tones :
Them mightier minstrels harping loud
Engross, and thou and I must shroud
Where dark oblivion 'thrones.

III.

No hand, thy diapason o'er,

Well skill'd, I throw with sweep sublime;

For me, no academic lore

Has taught the solemn strain to pour,

Or build the polish'd rhyme.

IV.

Yet thou to Sylvan themes canst soar ;

Thou know st to charm the woodland train :

The rustic swains believe thy power

Can hush the wild winds when they roar,

And still the billowy main.