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ADDRESS TO TWO CANDLES.

"No subject so mean, that Poetry cannot elevate, and render interesting." ANON.
At a Cottage on an eminence, ANNA MATILDA had ordered the Candles to be removed from the Window, but the Night was dark; and recollecting the situation, she replaced, and thus addressed them:
1 BURN lucid tapers! fiercer burn!
2 Refine each ray to purer light,
3 Pervade the circumambient air
4 And pierce the closest robe of Night!
5 Why faintly glow your spiral fires,
6 Whilst Charity invokes your beams?
7 Why, inauspicious to my prayer,
8 Still faint and fainter are your gleams?
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9 Oh think, that on the distant heath,
10 Whose canopy's a sombre sky,
11 Some weary traveller may roam
12 No hut, no guide, no shelter nigh!
13 Perhaps, an aged parent tries
14 To find amidst the thick'ning shades
15 Her doubtful path; perhaps a child
16 Bemoans, forlorn, in yonder glades.
17 Your honest light they need not dread,
18 No ignis false instructs your ray
19 To guide amiss their trembling feet,
20 Or lure them from th' intended way.
21 No vapour gross your fulgence feeds;
22 From snowy wax your flame is drawn,
23 By virgin bees extracted pure
24 From ev'ry sweet that decks the lawn.
25 The rose, the violet, and the thyme
26 That scent the Morning's dewy shower,
27 Combin'd their aromatic gifts,
28 And form'd ye for the present hour.
29 Then, gentle tapers! brisker burn,
30 Dart with new vigour thro' the night;
31 Tinge ev'ry ray with brighter hues,
32 And pour them on the wand'rer's sight!

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Title (in Source Edition): ADDRESS TO TWO CANDLES.
Themes: objects
Genres: occasional poem

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Source edition

Cowley, Mrs. (Hannah), 1743-1809. The Poetry of Anna Matilda. London: printed by John Bell, British Library, Strand, Bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. M DCC LXXXVIII., 1788, pp. []-5. [8],139,[1]p.; 8⁰. (ESTC T90094; OTA K073164.000) (Page images digitized by University of Minnesota Library.)

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