<pb n=“272”/>MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

 

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an epistle to joseph hill, esq.

 

Dear Joseph,—Five-and-twenty years ago—

Alas, how time escapes!—’tis even so—

With frequent intercourse, and always sweet,

And always friendly, we were wont to cheat

A tedious hour—and now we never meet!

As some grave gentleman in Terence says

(‘Twas therefore much the same in ancient days),

Good lack, we know not what to-morrow brings—

Strange fluctuation of all human things!

True.  Changes will befall, and friends may part,

But distance only cannot change the heart:

And, were I call’d to prove the assertion true,

One proof should serve—a reference to you.

Whence comes it then, that, in the wane of life,

Though nothing have occurr’d to kindle strife,

We find the friends we fancied we had won,

Though numerous once, reduced to few or none?

Can gold grow worthless that has stood the touch?

No; gold they seem’d, but they were never such.

Horatio’s servant once, with bow and cringe,

Swinging the parlour door upon its hinge,

Dreading a negative, and overawed

Lest he should trespass, begg’d to go abroad.

Go, fellow!—whither?—turning short about—

Nay—stay at home—you’re always going out.

‘Tis but a step, sir, just at the street’s end.—

For what?—An please you, sir, to see a friend.—

A friend! Horatio cried, and seem’d to start—

Yea marry shalt thou, and with all my heart.

And fetch my cloak; for though the night be raw,

I’ll see him too—the first I ever saw.

I knew the man, and knew his nature mild,

And was his plaything often when a child;

But somewhat at that moment pinch’d him close,

Else he was seldom bitter or morose.

<pb n=“273”/>Perhaps, his confidence just then betray’d,

His grief might prompt him with the speech he made;

Perhaps ‘twas mere good humour gave it birth,

The harmless play of pleasantry and mirth.

Howe’er it was, his language, in my mind,

Bespoke at least a man that knew mankind.

But not to moralise too much, and strain

To prove an evil of which all complain

(I hate long arguments verbosely spun);

One story more, dear Hill, and I have done.

Once on a time an emperor, a wise man,

No matter where, in China or Japan,

Decreed that whosoever should offend

Against the well-known duties of a friend,

Convicted once, should ever after wear

But half a coat, and show his bosom bare.

The punishment importing this, no doubt,

That all was naught within, and all found out.

Oh, happy Britain! we have not to fear

Such hard and arbitrary measure here;

Else, could a law like that which I relate

Once have the sanction of our triple state,

Some few, that I have known in days of old,

Would run most dreadful risk of catching cold;

While you, my friend, whatever wind should blow,

Might traverse England safely to and fro,

An honest man, close-button’d to the chin,

Broad-cloth without, and a warm heart within.

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the yearly distress, or tithing time at stock in essex.

 

Verses addressed to a Country Clergyman, complaining of the disagreeableness of the

day annually appointed for receiving the Dues at the Parsonage.

 

Come, ponder well, for ‘tis no jest,

To laugh it would be wrong,

The troubles of a worthy priest,

The burden of my song.

 

This priest he merry is and blithe

Three quarters of a year:

But oh! it cuts him like a scythe,

When tithing time draws near.

 

He then is full of fright and fears,

As one at point to die,

And long before the day appears,

He heaves up many a sigh.

 

For then the farmers come jog, jog,

Along the miry road,

Each heart as heavy as a log,

To make their payments good.

 

<pb n=“274”/>In sooth the sorrow of such days

Is not to be express’d,

When he that takes and he that pays

Are both alike distress’d.

 

Now all unwelcome at his gates

The clumsy swains alight,

With rueful faces and bald pates—

He trembles at the sight.

 

And well he may, for well he knows

Each bumpkin of the clan,

Instead of paying what he owes,

Will cheat him if he can.

 

So in they come—each makes his leg,

And flings his head before,

And looks as if he came to beg,

And not to quit a score.

 

“And how does miss and madam do,

The little boy and all?”

“All tight and well.  And how do you,

Good Mr. What-d’ye-call?”

 

The dinner comes, and down they sit;

Were e’er such hungry folk?

There’s little talking, and no wit;

It is no time to joke.

 

One wipes his nose upon his sleeve,

One spits upon the floor,

Yet, not to give offence or grieve,

Holds up the cloth before.

 

The punch goes round, and they are dull

And lumpish still as ever;

Like barrels with their bellies full,

They only weigh the heavier.

 

At length the busy time begins,

“Come, neighbours, we must wag”—

The money chinks, down drop their chins,

Each lugging out his bag.

 

One talks of mildew and of frost,

And one of storms of hail,

And one of pigs that he has lost

By maggots at the tail.

 

Quoth one, “A rarer man than you

In pulpit none shall hear:

But yet, methinks, to tell you true,

You sell it plaguy dear.”

 

O why are farmers made so coarse,

Or clergy made so fine?

A kick, that scarce would move a horse,

May kill a sound divine.

 

<pb n=“275”/>Then let the boobies stay at home;

‘Twould cost him, I dare say,

Less trouble taking twice the sum

Without the clowns that pay.

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sonnet,

 

addressed to henry cowper, esq.

 

On his emphatical and interesting Delivery of the Defence of

Warren Hastings, Esq., in the House of Lords.

 

Cowper, whose silver voice, task’d sometimes hard,

Legends prolix delivers in the ears

(Attentive when thou read’st) of England’s peers,

Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward.

 

Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard,

Expending late on all that length of plea

Thy generous powers, but silence honour’d thee,

Mute as e’er gazed on orator or bard.

 

Thou art not voice alone, but hast beside

Both heart and head; and couldst with music sweet

Of Attic phrase and senatorial tone,

Like thy renown’d forefathers, far and wide

Thy fame diffuse, praised not for utterance meet

Of others’ speech, but magic of thy own.

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lines addressed to dr. darwin,

 

author of “the botanic garden.”

 

Two Poets[1] (poets, by report,

Not oft so well agree),

Sweet harmonist of Flora’s court!

Conspire to honour thee.

 

They best can judge a poet’s worth,

Who oft themselves have known

The pangs of a poetic birth

By labours of their own.

 

We therefore pleased, extol thy song,

Though various, yet complete,

Rich in embellishment as strong,

And learned as ‘tis sweet.

 

No envy mingles with our praise,

Though, could our hearts repine

At any poet’s happier lays,

They would—they must at thine.

 

But we, in mutual bondage knit

Of friendship’s closest tie,

Can gaze on even Darwin’s wit

With an unjaundiced eye;

 

<pb n=“276”/>And deem the Bard, whoe’er he be,

And howsoever known,

Who would not twine a wreath for thee,

Unworthy of his own.

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on mrs. montague’s feather-hangings.

 

The birds put off their every hue

To dress a room for Montagu.

The peacock sends his heavenly dyes,

His rainbows and his starry eyes;

The pheasant plumes, which round enfold

His mantling neck with downy gold;

The cock his arch’d tail’s azure show;

And, river-blanch’d, the swan his snow.

All tribes beside of Indian name,

That glossy shine, or vivid flame,

Where rises, and where sets the day,

Whate’er they boast of rich and gay,

Contribute to the gorgeous plan,

Proud to advance it all they can.

This plumage neither dashing shower,

Nor blasts, that shake the dripping bower,

Shall drench again or discompose,

But, screen’d from every storm that blows,

It boasts a splendour ever new,

Safe with protecting Montagu.

To the same patroness resort,

Secure of favour at her court,

Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought

Forms rise, to quick perfection wrought,

Which, though new-born, with vigour move,

Like Pallas springing arm’d from Jove—

Imagination scattering round

Wild roses over furrow’d ground,

Which Labour of his frown beguile,

And teach Philosophy a smile—

Wit flashing on Religion’s side,

Whose fires, to sacred truth applied,

The gem, though luminous before,

Obtrude on human notice more,

Like sunbeams on the golden height

Of some tall temple playing bright—

Well tutor’d Learning, from his books

Dismiss’d with grave, not haughty, looks,

Their order on his shelves exact,

Not more harmonious or compact

Than that to which he keeps confined

The various treasures of his mind—

All these to Montagu’s repair,

Ambitious of a shelter there.

There Genius, Learning, Fancy, Wit,

Their ruffled plumage calm refit

<pb n=“277”/>(For stormy troubles loudest roar

Around their flight who highest soar),

And in her eye, and by her aid,

Shine safe without a fear to fade.

She thus maintains divided sway

With yon bright regent of the day;

The Plume and Poet both we know

Their lustre to his influence owe;

And she the works of Phœbus aiding,

Both Poet saves and Plume from fading.

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verses,

 

Supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during his solitary abode

in the island of Juan Fernandez.

 

I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;

From the centre all round to the sea

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

O Solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face?

Better dwell in the midst of alarms

Than reign in this horrible place.

 

I am out of humanity’s reach,

I must finish my journey alone,

Never hear the sweet music of speech,

I start at the sound of my own.

The beasts, that roam over the plain,

My form with indifference see;

They are so unacquainted with man,

Their tameness is shocking to me.

 

Society, friendship, and love,

Divinely bestow’d upon man,

O, had I the wings of a dove,

How soon would I taste you again!

My sorrows I then might assuage

In the ways of religion and truth,

Might learn from the wisdom of age,

And be cheer’d by the sallies of youth.

 

Religion! what treasure untold

Resides in that heavenly word!

More precious than silver and gold

Or all that this earth can afford.

But the sound of the church-going bell

These valleys and rocks never heard,

Never sigh’d at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a Sabbath appear’d.

 

Ye winds, that have made me your sport,

Convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more.

<pb n=“278”/>My friends, do they now and then send

A wish or a thought after me?

O tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see.

 

How fleet is the glance of the mind!

Compared with the speed of its flight,

The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light.

When I think of my own native land,

In a moment I seem to be there;

But alas! recollection at hand

Soon hurries me back to despair.

 

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest,

The beast is laid down in his lair;

Even here is a season of rest,

And I to my cabin repair.

There’s mercy in every place,

And mercy, encouraging thought!

Gives even affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot.

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on observing some names of little note

 

recorded in the biographia britannica.

 

Oh, fond attempt to give a deathless lot

To names ignoble, born to be forgot!

In vain recorded in historic page,

They court the notice of a future age:

Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land

Drop one by one from Fame’s neglecting hand;

Lethæan gulfs receive them as they fall,

And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.

 

So when a child, as playful children use,

Has burnt to tinder a stale last year’s news,

The flame extinct, he views the roving fire—

There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,

There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!

And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!

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report of an adjudged case,

 

not to be found in any of the books.

 

Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,

The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;

The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,

To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

 

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause

With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning

While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,

So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.

 

<pb n=“279”/>In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,

And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find,

That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,

Which amounts to possession time out of mind.

 

Then holding the spectacles up to the court—

Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle,

As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,

Design’d to sit close to it just like saddle.

 

Again, would your lordship a moment suppose

(‘Tis a case that has happen’d, and may be again)

That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,

Pray, who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?

 

On the whole it appears, and my argument shows,

With a reasoning the court will never condemn,

That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,

And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.

 

Then shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how),

He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes:

But what were his arguments few people know,

For the court did not think they were equally wise.

 

So his lordship decreed with a grave solemn tone,

Decisive and clear, without one if or but—

That, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on,

By daylight or candlelight—Eyes should be shut!

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on the promotion of edward thurlow, esq.

 

to the lord high chancellorship of england.

 

Round Thurlow’s head in early youth,

And in his sportive days,

Fair Science pour’d the light of truth,

And Genius shed his rays.

 

See! with united wonder cried

The experienced and the sage,

Ambition in a boy supplied

With all the skill of age!

 

Discernment, eloquence, and grace,

Proclaim him born to sway

The balance in the highest place,

And bear the palm away.

 

The praise bestow’d was just and wise;

He sprang impetuous forth,

Secure of conquest, where the prize

Attends superior worth.

 

So the best courser on the plain

Ere yet he starts is known,

And does but at the goal obtain

What all had deem’d his own.

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<pb n=“280”/>ode to peace.

 

Come, peace of mind, delightful guest!

Return, and make thy downy nest

Once more in this sad heart:

Nor riches I nor power pursue,

Nor hold forbidden joys in view;

We therefore need not part.

 

Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,

From avarice and ambition free,

And pleasure’s fatal wiles?

For whom, alas! dost thou prepare

The sweets that I was wont to share,

The banquet of thy smiles?

 

The great, the gay, shall they partake

The heaven that thou alone canst make?

And wilt thou quit the stream

That murmurs through the dewy mead,

The grove and the sequester’d shed,

To be a guest with them?

 

For thee I panted, thee I prized,

For thee I gladly sacrificed

Whate’er I loved before;

And shall I see thee start away,

And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say—

Farewell! we meet no more?

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human frailty.

 

Weak and irresolute is man;

The purpose of to-day,

Woven with pains into his plan,

To-morrow rends away.

 

The bow well bent, and smart the spring,

Vice seems already slain;

But passion rudely snaps the string,

And it revives again.

 

Some foe to his upright intent

Finds out his weaker part;

Virtue engages his assent,

But Pleasure wins his heart.

 

‘Tis here the folly of the wise

Through all his art we view;

And, while his tongue the charge denies,

His conscience owns it true.

 

Bound on a voyage of awful length

And dangers little known,

A stranger to superior strength,

Man vainly trusts his own.

 

But oars alone can ne’er prevail

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,

Or all the toil is lost.

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<pb n=“281”/>the modern patriot.

 

Rebellion is my theme all day;

I only wish ‘twould come

(As who knows but perhaps it may?)

A little nearer home.

 

Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight

On t’other side the Atlantic,

I always held them in the right,

But most so when most frantic.

 

When lawless mobs insult the court,

That man shall be my toast,

If breaking windows be the sport,

Who bravely breaks the most.

 

But O! for him my fancy culls

The choicest flowers she bears,

Who constitutionally pulls

Your house about your ears.

 

Such civil broils are my delight,

Though some folks can’t endure them,

Who say the mob are mad outright,

And that a rope must cure them.

 

A rope!  I wish we patriots had

Such strings for all who need ‘em—

What! hang a man for going mad!

Then farewell British freedom.

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on the

 

burning of lord mansfield’s library,

 

together with his mss., by the mob, in the month of june 1780.

 

So then—the Vandals of our isle,

Sworn foes to sense and law,

Have burnt to dust a nobler pile

Than ever Roman saw!

 

And Murray sighs o’er Pope and Swift,

And many a treasure more,

The well-judged purchase and the gift

That graced his letter’d store.

 

Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,

The loss was his alone;

But ages yet to come shall mourn

The burning of his own.

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on the same.

 

When wit and genius meet their doom

In all-devouring flame,

They tell us of the fate of Rome,

And bid us fear the same.

 

<pb n=“282”/>O’er Murray’s loss the muses wept,

They felt the rude alarm,

Yet bless’d the guardian care that kept

His sacred head from harm.

 

There Memory, like the bee that’s fed

From Flora’s balmy store,

The quintessence of all he read

Had treasured up before.

 

The lawless herd, with fury blind,

Have done him cruel wrong;

The flowers are gone—but still we find

The honey on his tongue.

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the love of the world reproved:

 

or, hypocrisy detected.

 

Thus says the prophet of the Turk,

Good Mussulman, abstain from pork;

There is a part in every swine

No friend of follower of mine

May taste, whate’er his inclination,

On pain of excommunication.

Such Mahomet’s mysterious charge,

And thus he left the point at large.

Had he the sinful part express’d,

They might with safety eat the rest;

But for one piece they thought it hard

From the whole hog to be debarr’d;

And set their wit at work to find

What joint the prophet had in mind.

Much controversy straight arose,

These choose the back, the belly those;

By some ‘tis confidently said

He meant not to forbid the head;

While others at that doctrine rail,

And piously prefer the tail.

Thus, conscience freed from every clog,

Mahometans eat up the hog.

You laugh—‘tis well—the tale applied

May make you laugh on t’other side.

Renounce the world—the preacher cries.

We do—a multitude replies.

While one as innocent regards

A snug and friendly game at cards;

And one, whatever you may say,

Can see no evil in a play;

Some love a concert, or a race;

And others shooting, and the chase.

Reviled and loved, renounced and follow’d,

Thus, bit by bit, the world is swallow’d;

<pb n=“283”/>Each thinks his neighbour makes too free,

Yet likes a slice as well as he:

With sophistry their sauce they sweeten,

Till quite from tail to snout ‘tis eaten.

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on the death of mrs. (afterwards lady) throckmorton’s bullfinch.

 

Ye nymphs! if e’er your eyes were red

With tears o’er hapless favourites shed,

O share Maria’s grief!

Her favourite, even in his cage,

(What will not hunger’s cruel rage?)

Assassin’d by a thief.

 

Where Rhenus strays his vines among,

The egg was laid from which he sprung;

And, though by nature mute,

Or only with a whistle blest,

Well taught he all the sounds express’d

Of flageolet or flute.

 

The honours of his ebon poll

Were brighter than the sleekest mole,

His bosom of the hue

With which Aurora decks the skies,

When piping winds shall soon arise,

To sweep away the dew.

 

Above, below, in all the house,

Dire foe alike of bird and mouse,

No cat had leave to dwell;

And Bully’s cage supported stood

On props of smoothest shaven wood,

Large-built and latticed well.

 

Well latticed—but the grate, alas!

Not rough with wire of steel or brass,

For Bully’s plumage sake,

But smooth with wands from Ouse’s side,

With which, when neatly peel’d and dried,

The swains their baskets make,.

 

Night veil’d the pole:  all seem’d secure:

When, led by instinct sharp and sure,

Subsistence to provide,

A beast forth sallied on the scout,

Long back’d, long tail’d, with whisker’d snout,

And badger-colour’d hide.

 

He, entering at the study door,

Its ample area ‘gan explore;

And something in the wind

Conjectured, sniffling round and round,

Better than all the books he found,

Food chiefly for the mind.

 

<pb n=“284”/>Just then, by adverse fate impress’d,

A dream disturb’d poor Bully’s rest;

In sleep he seem’d to view

A rat fast clinging to the cage,

And, screaming at the sad presage,

Awoke and found it true.

 

For, aided both by ear and scent,

Right to his mark the monster went—

Ah, muse! forbear to speak

Minute the horrors that ensued;

His teeth were strong, the cage was wood—

He left poor Bully’s beak.

 

O had he made that too his prey;

That beak, whence issued many a lay

Of such mellifluous tone,

Might have repaid him well, I wot,

For silencing so sweet a throat,

Fast stuck within his own.

 

Maria weeps—the Muses mourn—

So when, by Bacchanalians torn,

On Thracian Hebrus’ side

The tree-enchanter Orpheus fell,

His head alone remain’d to tell

The cruel death he died.

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the rose.

 

The rose had been wash’d, just wash’d in a shower,

Which Mary to Anna convey’d,

The plentiful moisture encumber’d the flower,

And weigh’d down its beautiful head.

 

The cup was all fill’d, and the leaves were all wet,

And it seem’d, to a fanciful view,

To weep for the buds it had left, with regret,

On the flourishing bush where it grew.

 

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was

For a nosegay, so dripping and drown’d,

And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas!

I snapp’d it, it fell to the ground.

 

And such, I exclaim’d, is the pitiless part

Some act by the delicate mind,

Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart

Already to sorrow resign’d.

 

This elegant rose, had I shaken it less,

Might have bloom’d with its owner a while;

And the tear, that is wiped with a little address,

May be follow’d perhaps by a smile.

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<pb n=“285”/>the doves.

 

Reasoning at every step he treads,

Man yet mistakes his way;

While meaner things, whom instinct leads,

Are rarely known to stray.

 

One silent eve I wander’d late,

And heard the voice of love;

The turtle thus address’d her mate,

And soothed the listening dove:

 

Our mutual bond of faith and truth

No time shall disengage,

Those blessings of our early youth

Shall cheer our latest age:

 

While innocence without disguise,

And constancy sincere,

Shall fill the circles of those eyes,

And mine can read them there;

 

Those ills, that wait on all below,

Shall ne’er be felt by me,

Or gently felt, and only so,

As being shared with thee.

 

When lightnings flash among the trees,

Or kites are hovering near,

I fear lest thee alone they seize,

And know no other fear.

 

‘Tis then I feel myself a wife,

And press thy wedded side,

Resolved a union form’d for life

Death never shall divide.

 

But oh! if, fickle and unchaste

(Forgive a transient thought),

Thou couldst become unkind at last,

And scorn thy present lot;

 

No need of lightnings from on high,

Or kites with cruel beak;

Denied the endearments of thine eye,

This widow’d heart would break.

 

Thus sang the sweet sequester’d bird,

Soft as the passing wind;

And I recorded what I heard,

A lesson for mankind.

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a fable.

 

A raven, while with glossy breast

Her new-laid eggs she fondly press’d,

And, on her wicker-work high mounted,

Her chickens prematurely counted

<pb n=“286”/>(A fault philosophers might blame,

If quite exempted from the same),

Enjoy’d at ease the genial day;

‘Twas April, as the bumpkins say,

The legislature call’d it May.

But suddenly a wind, as high

As ever swept a winter sky,

Shook the young leaves about her ears,

And fill’d her with a thousand fears,

Lest the rude blast should snap the bough,

And spread her golden hopes below.

But just at eve the blowing weather

And all her fears were hush’d together:

And now, quoth poor unthinking Ralph.

‘Tis over, and the brood is safe;

(For ravens, though, as birds of omen,

They teach both conjurors and old women

To tell us what is to befall,

Can’t prophesy themselves at all.)

The morning came, when neighbour Hodge,

Who long had mark’d her airy lodge,

And destined all the treasure there

A gift to his expecting fair,

Climb’d like a squirrel to his dray,

And bore the worthless prize away.

moral.

‘Tis Providence alone secures

In every change both mine and yours:

Safety consists not in escape

From dangers of a frightful shape;

An earthquake may be bid to spare

The man that’s strangled by a hair.

Fate steals along with silent tread,

Found oft’nest in what least we dread,

Frowns in the storm with angry brow,

But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

ode to apollo.

 

on an inkglass almost dried in the sun.

 

Patron of all those luckless brains,

That, to the wrong side leaning,

Indite much metre with much pains,

And little or no meaning;

 

Ah why, since oceans, rivers, streams,

That water all the nations,

Pay tribute to thy glorious beams,

In constant exhalations;

 

Why, stooping from the noon of day,

Too covetous of drink,

Apollo, hast thou stolen away

A poet’s drop of ink?

 

<pb n=“287”/>Upborne into the viewless air,

It floats a vapour now,

Impell’d through regions dense and rare,

By all the winds that blow.

 

Ordain’d perhaps, ere summer flies,

Combined with millions more,

To form an iris in the skies,

Though black and foul before.

 

Illustrious drop! and happy then

Beyond the happiest lot,

Of all that ever pass’d my pen,

So soon to be forgot!

 

Phœbus, if such be thy design,

To place it in thy bow,

Give wit, that what is left may shine

With equal grace below.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

a comparison.

 

The lapse of time and rivers is the same,

Both speed their journey with a restless stream;

The silent pace, with which they steal away,

No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay;

Alike irrevocable both when past,

And a wide ocean swallows both at last.

Though each resemble each in every part,

A difference strikes at length the musing heart;

Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound,

How laughs the land with various plenty crown’d!

But time, that should enrich the nobler mind,

Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

another comparison.

 

addressed to a young lady.

 

Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,

Apt emblem of a virtuous maid—

Silent and chaste she steals along,

Far from the world’s gay busy throng;

With gentle yet prevailing force,

Intent upon her destined course;

Graceful and useful all she does,

Blessing and blest where’er she goes.

Pure-bosom’d as that watery glass,

And heaven reflected in her face.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the poet’s new year’s gift.

 

to mrs. (afterwards lady) throckmorton.

 

Maria!  I have every good

For thee wish’d many a time,

Both sad, and in a cheerful mood,

But never yet in rhyme.

 

<pb n=“288”/>To wish thee fairer is no need,

More prudent, or more sprightly,

Or more ingenious, or more freed

From temper flaws unsightly.

 

What favour then not yet possess’d

Can I for thee require,

In wedded love already blest,

To thy whole heart’s desire?

 

None here is happy but in part;

Full bliss is bliss divine;

There dwells some wish in every heart,

And doubtless one in thine.

 

That wish on some fair future day,

Which fate shall brightly gild

(‘Tis blameless, be it what it may),

I wish it all fulfill’d.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

pairing time anticipated.

 

a fable.

 

I shall not ask Jean Jaques Rousseau[2]

If birds confabulate or no;

‘Tis clear, that they were always able

To hold discourse, at least in fable;

And e’en the child who knows no better

Than to interpret, by the letter,

A story of a cock and  bull,

Must have a most uncommon skull.

It chanced then on a winter’s day,

But warm, and bright, and calm as May,

The birds, conceiving a design

To forestall sweet St. Valentine,

In many an orchard, copse, and grove,

Assembled on affairs of love,

And with much twitter and much chatter

Began to agitate the matter.

At length a Bullfinch, who could boast

More years and wisdom than the most,

Entreated, opening wide his beak,

A moment’s liberty to speak;

And, silence publicly enjoin’d,

Deliver’d briefly thus his mind:

My friends! be cautious how ye treat

The subject upon which we meet;

I fear we shall have winter yet.

A Finch, whose tongue knew no control,

With golden wing and satin poll,

A last year’s bird, who ne’er had tried

What marriage means, thus pert replied:

<pb n=“289”/>Methinks the gentleman, quoth she,

Opposite in the apple-tree,

By his good will would keep us single

Till yonder heaven and earth shall mingle,

Or (which is likelier to befall)

Till death exterminate us all.

I marry without more ado,

My dear Dick Redcap, what say you?

Dick heard, and tweedling, ogling, bridling,

Turning short round, strutting and sideling,

Attested, glad, his approbation

Of an immediate conjugation.

Their sentiments so well express’d

Influenced mightily the rest,

All pair’d, and each pair built a nest.

But, though the birds were thus in haste,

The leaves came on not quite so fast,

And destiny, that sometimes bears

An aspect stern on man’s affairs,

Not altogether smiled on theirs.

The wind, of late breathed gently forth,

Now shifted east, and east by north;

Bare trees and shrubs but ill, you know,

Could shelter them from rain or snow,

Stepping into their nests, they paddled,

Themselves were chill’d, their eggs were addled;

Soon every father bird and mother

Grew quarrelsome, and peck’d each other,

Parted without the least regret,

Except that they had ever met,

And learn’d in future to be wiser,

Than to neglect a good adviser.

moral.

Misses! the tale that I relate

This lesson seems to carry—

Choose not alone a proper mate,

But proper time to marry.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the dog and the water lily.

 

no fable.

 

The noon was shady, and soft airs

Swept Ouse’s silent tide,

When, ‘scaped from literary cares,

I wander’d on his side.

 

My spaniel, prettiest of his race,

And high in pedigree

(Two nymphs[3] adorn’d with every grace

That spaniel found for me),

 

<pb n=“290”/>Now wanton’d lost in flags and reeds,

Now starting into sight,

Pursued the swallow o’er the meads

With scarce a slower flight.

 

It was the time when Ouse display’d

His lilies newly blown;

Their beauties I intent survey’d,

And one I wish’d my own.

 

With cane extended far I sought

To steer it close to land;

But still the prize, though nearly caught,

Escaped my eager hand.

 

Beau mark’d my unsuccessful pains

With fix’d considerate face,

And puzzling set his puppy brains

To comprehend the case.

 

But with a cherup clear and strong

Dispersing all his dream,

I thence withdrew, and follow’d long

The windings of the stream.

 

My ramble ended, I return’d;

Beau, trotting far before,

The floating wreath again discern’d,

And plunging, left the shore.

 

I saw him with that lily cropp’d

Impatient swim to meet

My quick approach, and soon he dropp’d

The treasure at my feet.

 

Charm’d with the sight, the world, I cried,

Shall hear of this thy deed:

My dog shall mortify the pride

Of man’s superior breed:

 

But chief myself I will enjoin,

Awake at duty’s call,

To show a love as prompt as thine

To Him who gives me all.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the winter nosegay.

 

What Nature, alas! has denied

To the delicate growth of our isle,

Art has in a measure supplied,

And winter is deck’d with a smile.

See, Mary, what beauties I bring

From the shelter of that sunny shed,

Where the flowers have the charms of the spring,

Though abroad they are frozen and dead.

 

<pb n=“291”/>‘Tis a bower of Arcadian sweets,

Where Flora is still in her prime,

A fortress to which she retreats

From the cruel assaults of the clime.

While earth wears a mantle of snow,

These pinks are as fresh and as gay

As the fairest and sweetest that blow

On the beautiful bosom of May.

 

See how they have safely survived

The frowns of a sky so severe;

Such Mary’s true love, that has lived

Through many a turbulent year.

The charms of the late-blowing rose

Seem graced with a livelier hue;

And the winter of sorrow best shows

The truth of a friend such as you.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the poet, the oyster, and sensitive plant.

 

An Oyster, cast upon the shore,

Was heard, though never heard before,

Complaining in a speech well worded,

And worthy thus to be recorded:—

Ah, hapless wretch! condemn’d to dwell

For ever in my native shell;

Ordain’d to move when others please,

Not for my own content or ease;

But toss’d and buffeted about,

Now in the water and now out.

‘Twere better to be born a stone,

Of ruder shape, and feeling none,

Than with a tenderness like mine,

And sensibilities so fine!

I envy that unfeeling shrub,

Fast rooted against every rub.

The plant he meant grew not far off,

And felt the sneer with scorn enough:

Was hurt, disgusted, mortified,

And with asperity replied

(When, cry the botanists, and stare,

Did plants call’d sensitive grow there?

No matter when—a poet’s muse is

To make them grow just where she chooses):—

You shapeless nothing in a dish,

You that are but almost a fish,

I scorn your coarse insinuation,

And have most plentiful occasion

To wish myself the rock I view,

Or such another dolt as you:

For many a grave and learned clerk

And many a gay unletter’d spark,

With curious touch examines me,

If I can feel as well as he;

<pb n=“292”/>And when I bend, retire, and shrink,

Says—Well, ‘tis more than one would think!

Thus life is spent (oh fie upon’t!)

In being touch’d, and crying—Don’t!

A poet, in his evening walk,

O’erheard and check’d this idle talk.

And your fine sense, he said, and yours,

Whatever evil it endures,

Deserves not, if so soon offended,

Much to be pitied or commended.

Disputes, though short, are far too long,

Where both alike are in the wrong;

Your feelings in their full amount

Are all upon your own account.

You, in your grotto-work enclosed,

Complain of being thus exposed;

Yet nothing feel in that rough coat,

Save when the knife is at your throat,

Wherever driven by wind or tide,

Exempt from every ill beside.

And as for you, my Lady Squeamish,

Who reckon every touch a blemish,

If all the plants, that can be found

Embellishing the scene around,

Should droop and wither where they grow,

You would not feel at all—not you.

The noblest minds their virtue prove

By pity, sympathy, and love:

These, these are feelings truly fine,

And prove their owner half divine.

His censure reach’d them as he dealt it,

And each by shrinking show’d he felt it.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the shrubbery.

 

written in a time of affliction.

 

Oh, happy shades—to me unblest!

Friendly to peace, but not to me!

How ill the scene that offers rest,

And heart that cannot rest, agree!

 

This glassy stream, that spreading pine,

Those alders, quivering to the breeze,

Might soothe a soul less hurt than mine,

And please, if any thing could please.

 

But fix’d unalterable Care

Foregoes not what she feels within,

Shows the same sadness everywhere,

And slights the season and the scene.

 

For all that pleased in wood or lawn,

While Peace possess’d these silent bowers,

Her animating smile withdrawn,

Has lost its beauties and its powers.

 

<pb n=“293”/>The saint or moralist should tread

This moss-grown alley musing, slow;

They seek like me the secret shade,

But not like me to nourish woe!

 

Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste

Alike admonish not to roam;

These tell me of enjoyments past,

And those of sorrows yet to come.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

mutual forbearance

 

necessary to the happiness of the married state.

 

The lady thus address’d her spouse—

What a mere dungeon is this house!

By no means large enough; and was it,

Yet this dull room, and that dark closet,

Those hangings with their worn-out graces,

Long beards, long noses, and pale faces,

Are such an antiquated scene,

They overwhelm me with the spleen.

Sir Humphrey, shooting in the dark,

Makes answer quite beside the mark:

No doubt, my dear, I bade him come,

Engaged myself to be at home,

And shall expect him at the door

Precisely when the clock strikes four.

You are so deaf, the lady cried

(And raised her voice, and frown’d beside),

You are so sadly deaf, my dear,

What shall I do to make you hear?

Dismiss poor Harry! he replies;

Some people are more nice than wise:

For one slight trespass all this stir?

What if he did ride whip and spur,

‘Twas but a mile—your favourite horse

Will never look one hair the worse.

Well, I protest ‘tis past all bearing—

Child!  I am rather hard of hearing—

Yes, truly—one must scream and bawl:

I tell you, you can’t hear at all!

Then, with a voice exceeding low,

No matter if you hear or no.

Alas! and is domestic strife,

That sorest ill of human life,

A plague so little to be fear’d,

As to be wantonly incurr’d,

To gratify a fretful passion,

On every trivial provocation?

The kindest and the happiest pair

Will find occasion to forbear;

And something every day they live

To pity, and perhaps forgive.

<pb n=“294”/>But if infirmities, that fall

In common to the lot of all,

A blemish or a sense impair’d,

Are crimes so little to be spared,

Then farewell all that must create

The comfort of the wedded state;

Instead of harmony, ‘tis jar,

And tumult, and intestine war.

The love that cheers life’s latest stage,

Proof against sickness and old age,

Preserved by virtue from declension,

Becomes not weary of attention;

But lives, when that exterior grace,

Which first inspired the flame, decays.

‘Tis gentle, delicate, and kind,

To faults compassionate or blind,

And will with sympathy endure

Those evils it would gladly cure:

But angry, coarse, and harsh expression,

Shows love to be a mere profession;

Proves that the heart is none of his,

Or soon expels him if it is.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the negro’s complaint.

 

Forced from home and all its pleasures,

Afric’s coast I left forlorn;

To increase a stranger’s treasures,

O’er the raging billows borne.

Men from England bought and sold me,

Paid my price in paltry gold;

But, though slave they have enroll’d me,

Minds are never to be sold.

 

Still in thought as free as ever,

What are England’s rights, I ask,

Me from my delights to sever,

Me to torture, me to task?

Fleecy locks and black complexion

Cannot forfeit nature’s claim;

Skins may differ, but affection

Dwells in white and black the same.

 

Why did all-creating Nature

Make the plant for which we toil?

Sighs must fan it, tears must water,

Sweat of ours must dress the soil.

Think, ye masters iron-hearted,

Lolling at your jovial boards,

Think how many backs have smarted

For the sweets your cane affords.

 

Is there, as ye sometimes tells us,

Is there One who reigns on high?

Has he bid you buy and sell us,

Speaking from his throne, the sky?

<pb n=“295”/>Ask him, if your knotted scourges,

Matches, blood-extorting screws,

Are the means that duty urges

Agents of his will to use?

 

Hark! he answers—wild tornadoes,

Strewing yonder sea with wrecks;

Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,

Are the voice with which he speaks.

He, foreseeing what vexations

Afric’s sons should undergo,

Fix’d their tyrants’ habitations

Where his whirlwinds answer—no.

 

By our blood in Afric wasted,

Ere our necks received the chain;

By the miseries that we tasted,

Crossing in your barks the main;

By our sufferings, since ye brought us

To the man-degrading mart,

All sustain’d by patience, taught us

Only by a broken heart;

 

Deem our nation brutes no longer,

Till some reason ye shall find

Worthier of regard, and stronger

Than the colour of our kind.

Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings

Tarnish all your boasted powers,

Prove that you have human feelings,

Ere you proudly question ours!

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

pity for poor africans.

 

Video meliora proboque,

Deteriora sequor.

 

I own I am shock’d at the purchase of slaves,

And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves;

What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans,

Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.

 

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,

For how could we do without sugar and rum?

Especially sugar, so needful we see?

What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea!

 

Besides, if we do, the French, Dutch, and Danes

Will heartily thank us, no doubt, for our pains;

If we do not buy the poor creatures, they will,

And tortures and groans will be multiplied still.

 

If foreigners likewise would give up the trade,

Much more in behalf of your wish might be said;

But, while they get riches by purchasing blacks,

Pray tell me why we may not also go snacks?

 

<pb n=“296”/>Your scruples and arguments bring to my mind

A story so pat, you may think it is coin’d,

On purpose to answer you, out of my mint;

But I can assure you I saw it in print.

 

A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest,

Had once his integrity put to the test;

His comrades had plotted an orchard to rob,

And ask’d him to go and assist in the job.

 

He was shock’d, sir, like you, and answer’d, “Oh no!

What! rob our good neighbour!  I pray you, don’t go;

Besides, the man’s poor, his orchard’s his bread,

Then think of his children, for they must be fed.”

 

“You speak very fine, and you look very grave,

But apples we want, and apples we’ll have;

If you will go with us, you shall have a share,

If not, you shall have neither apple nor pear.”

 

They spoke, and Tom ponder’d—“I see they will go;

Poor man! what a pity to injure him so!

Poor man!  I would save him his fruit if I could,

But staying behind will do him no good.

 

“If the matter depended alone upon me,

His apples might hang till they dropp’d from the tree;

But, since they will take them, I think I’ll go too,

He will lose none by me, though I get a few.”

 

His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease,

And went with his comrades the apples to seize;

He blamed and protested, but join’d in the plan:

He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the morning dream.

 

‘Twas in the glad season of spring,

Asleep at the dawn of the day,

I dream’d what I cannot but sing,

So pleasant it seem’d as I lay.

I dream’d that, on ocean afloat,

Far hence to the westward I sail’d,

While the billows high lifted the boat,

And the fresh-blowing breeze never fail’d.

 

In the steerage a woman I saw,

Such at least was the form that she wore,

Whose beauty impress’d me with awe,

Ne’er taught me by woman before.

She sat, and a shield at her side

Shed light, like a sun on the waves,

And smiling divinely, she cried—

“I go to make freemen of slaves.”

 

Then, raising her voice to a strain

The sweetest that ear ever heard,

She sung of the slave’s broken chain,

Wherever her glory appear’d.

<pb n=“297”/>Some clouds, which had over us hung,

Fled, chased by her melody clear,

And methought while she liberty sung,

‘Twas liberty only to hear.

 

Thus swiftly dividing the flood,

To a slave-cultured island we came,

Where a demon, her enemy, stood—

Oppression his terrible name.

In his hand, as the sign of his sway,

A scourge hung with lashes he bore,

And stood looking out for his prey

From Africa’s sorrowful shore.

 

But soon as, approaching the land,

That goddess-like woman he view’d,

The scourge he let fall from his hand,

With blood of his subjects imbrued.

I saw him both sicken and die,

And, the moment the monster expired,

Heard shouts, that ascended the sky,

From thousands with rapture inspired.

 

Awaking, how could I but muse

At what such a dream should betide?

But soon my ear caught the glad news,

Which served my weak thought for a guide;

That Britannia, renown’d o’er the waves

For the hatred she ever has shown

To the black-sceptred rulers of slaves,

Resolves to have none of her own.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the diverting history of john gilpin;

 

showing how he went farther than he intended, and came safe

home again.

 

John Gilpin was a citizen

Of credit and renown,

A trainband captain eke was he

Of famous London town.

 

John Gilpin’s spouse said to her dear:

Though wedded we have been

These twice ten tedious years, yet we

No holiday have seen.

 

To-morrow is our wedding-day,

And we will then repair

Unto the Bell at Edmonton

All in a chaise and pair.

 

My sister, and my sister’s child,

Myself, and children three,

Will fill the chaise; so you must ride

On horseback after we.

 

<pb n=“298”/>He soon replied, I do admire

Of womankind but one,

And you are she, my dearest dear,

Therefore it shall be done.

 

I am a linendraper bold,

As all the world doth know,

And my good friend the calendrer

Will lend his horse to go.

 

Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, That’s well said;

And for that wine is dear,

We will be furnish’d with our own,

Which is both bright and clear.

 

John Gilpin kiss’d his loving wife;

O’erjoy’d was he to find,

That, though on pleasure she was bent,

She had a frugal mind.

 

The morning came, the chaise was brought,

But yet was not allow’d

To drive up to the door, lest all

Should say that she was proud.

 

So three doors off, the chaise was stay’d,

Where they did all get in;

Six precious souls, and all agog

To dash through thick and thin.

 

Smack went the whip, round went the wheels,

Were never folk so glad,

The stones did rattle underneath,

As if Cheapside were mad.

 

John Gilpin at his horse’s side

Seized fast the flowing mane,

And up he got, in haste to ride,

But soon came down again;

 

For saddletree scarce reach’d had he,

His journey to begin,

When, turning round his head, he saw

Three customers come in.

 

So down he came; for loss of time,

Although it grieved him sore,

Yet loss of pence, full well he knew,

Would trouble him much more.

 

‘Twas long before the customers

Were suited to their mind,

When Betty screaming came down stairs,

“The wine is left behind!”

 

Good lack! quoth he—yet bring it me,

My leathern belt likewise,

In which I bear my trusty sword

When I do exercise.

 

<pb n=“299”/>Now mistress Gilpin (careful soul!)

Had two stone bottles found,

To hold the liquor that she loved,

And keep it safe and sound.

 

Each bottle had a curling ear,

Through which the belt he drew,

And hung a bottle on each side,

To make his balance true.

 

Then over all, that he might be

Equipp’d from top to toe,

His long red cloak, well brush’d and neat,

He manfully did throw.

 

Now see him mounted once again

Upon his nimble steed,

Full slowly pacing o’er the stones,

With caution and good heed.

 

But finding soon a smoother road

Beneath his well shod feet,

The snorting beast began to trot,

Which gall’d him in his seat.

 

So, fair and softly, John he cried,

But John he cried in vain;

That trot became a gallop soon,

In spite of curb and rein.

 

So stooping down, as needs he must

Who cannot sit upright,

He grasp’d the mane with both his hands,

And eke with all his might.

 

His horse, who never in that sort

Had handled been before,

What thing upon his back had got

Did wonder more and more.

 

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought;

Away went hat and wig;

He little dreamt, when he set out,

Of running such a rig.

 

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly,

Like streamer long and gay,

Till, loop and button failing both,

At last it flew away.

 

Then might all people well discern

The bottles he had slung;

A bottle swinging at each side,

As hath been said or sung.

 

The dogs did bark, the children scream’d,

Up flew the windows all;

And every soul cried out, Well done!

As loud as he could bawl.

 

<pb n=“300”/>Away went Gilpin—who but he?

His fame soon spread around,

He carries weight! he rides a race!

Tis for a thousand pound!

 

And still, as fast as he drew near,

‘Twas wonderful to view,

How in a trice the turnpike men

Their gates wide open threw.

 

And now, as he went bowing down

His reeking head full low,

The bottles twain behind his back

Were shatter’d at a blow.

 

Down ran the wine into the road,

Most piteous to be seen,

Which made his horse’s flanks to smoke,

As they had basted been.

 

But still he seem’d to carry weight,

With leathern girdle braced;

For all might see the bottlenecks

Still dangling at his waist.

 

Thus all through merry Islington

These gambols he did play,

Until he came unto the Wash

Of Edmonton so gay;

 

And there he threw the wash about

On both sides of the way,

Just like unto a trundling mop,

Or a wild goose at play.

 

At Edmonton, his loving wife

From the balcony spied

Her tender husband, wondering much

To see how he did ride.

 

Stop, stop, John Gilpin!—Here’s the house!

They all at once did cry;

The dinner waits, and we are tired:

Said Gilpin—So am I!

 

But yet his horse was not a whit

Inclined to tarry there;

For why?—his owner had a house

Full ten miles off, at Ware.

 

So like arrow swift he flew,

Shot by an archer strong?

So did he fly—which brings me to

The middle of my song.

 

Away went Gilpin out of breath,

And sore against his will,

Till at his friend the calendrer’s

His horse at last stood still.

 

<pb n=“301”/>The calend’rer, amazed to see

His neighbour in such trim,

Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate,

And thus accosted him:

 

What news? what news? your tidings tell;

Tell me you must and shall—

Say why bareheaded you are come,

Or why you come at all?

 

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit,

And loved a timely joke!

And thus unto the calendrer

In merry guise he spoke:

 

I came because your horse would come,

And, if I well forebode,

My hat and wig will soon be here,

They are upon the road.

 

The calendrer, right glad to find

His friend in merry pin,

Return’d him not a single word,

But to the house went in;

 

Whence straight he came with hat and wig;

A wig that flow’d behind,

A hat not much the worse for wear,

Each comely in its kind.

 

He held them up, and in his turn

Thus show’d his ready wit:

My head is twice as big as yours,

They therefore needs must fit.

 

But let me scrape the dirt away

That hangs upon your face;

And stop and eat, for well you may

Be in a hungry case.

 

Said John, It is my wedding-day,

And all the world would stare,

If wife should dine at Edmonton,

And I should dine at Ware.

 

So turning to his horse, he said,

I am in haste to dine;

‘Twas for your pleasure you came here,

You shall go back for mine.

 

Ah luckless speech, and bootless boast!

For which he paid full dear;

For, while he spake, a braying ass

Did sing most loud and clear;

 

Whereat his horse did snort, as he

Had heard a lion roar,

And gallop’d off with all his might,

As he had done before.

 

<pb n=“302”/>Away went Gilpin, and away

Went Gilpin’s hat and wig:

He lost them sooner than at first,

For why?—they were too big.

 

Now mistress Gilpin, when she saw

Her husband posting down

Into the country far away,

She pull’d out half-a-crown;

 

And thus unto the youth she said,

That drove them to the Bell,

This shall be yours, when you bring back

My husband safe and well.

 

The youth did ride, and soon did meet

John coming back amain;

Whom in a trice he tried to stop,

By catching at his rein;

 

But, not performing what he meant,

And gladly would have done,

The frighted steed he frighted more,

And made him faster run.

 

Away went Gilpin, and away

Went postboy at his heels,

The postboy’s horse right glad to miss

The lumbering of the wheels.

 

Six gentlemen upon the road

Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With postboy scampering in the rear,

They raised the hue and cry:—

 

Stop thief! stop thief!—a highwayman!

Not one of them was mute;

And all and each that pass’d that way

Did join in the pursuit.

 

And now the turnpike gates again

Flew open in short space;

The toll-men thinking as before,

That Gilpin rode a race.

 

And so he did, and won it too,

For he got first to town;

Nor stopp’d till where he had got up

He did again get down.

 

Now let us sing, long live the king,

And Gilpin, long live he;

And when he next doth ride abroad,

May I be there to see!

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“303”/>the nightingale and glowworm.

 

A nightingale, that all day long

Had cheer’d the village with his song,

Nor yet at eve his note suspended,

Nor yet when eventide was ended,

Began to feel, as well he might,

The keen demands of appetite;

When, looking eagerly around,

He spied far off, upon the ground,

A something shining in the dark,

And knew the glowworm by his spark;

So stooping down from hawthorn top,

He thought to put him in his crop.

The worm, aware of his intent,

Harangued his thus, right eloquent—

Did you admire my lamp, quoth he,

As much as I your minstrelsy,

You would abhor to do me wrong

As much as I to spoil your song;

For ‘twas the self-same Power divine

Taught you to sing, and me to shine;

That you with music, I with light,

Might beautify and cheer the night.

The songster heard his short oration,

And, warbling out his approbation,

Released him, as my story tells,

And found a supper somewhere else.

Hence jarring sectaries may learn

Their real interest to discern;

That brother should not war with brother,

And worry and devour each other;

But sing and shine by sweet consent,

Till life’s poor transient night is spent,

Respecting in each other’s case

The gifts of nature and of grace.

Those Christians best deserve the name

Who studiously make peace their aim;

Peace both the duty and the prize

Of him that creeps and him that flies.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

an epistle to an afflicted protestant lady in france.

 

Madam,—A stranger’s purpose in these lays

Is to congratulate, and not to praise.

To give the creature the Creator’s due

Were sin in me, and an offence to you.

From man to man, or e’en to woman paid,

Praise is the medium of a knavish trade,

A coin by craft for folly’s use design’d,

Spurious, and only current with the blind.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown;

No traveller ever reach’d that blest abode,

<pb n=“304”/>Who found not thorns and briers in his road.

The world may dance along the flowery plain,

Cheer’d as they go by many a sprightly strain,

Where Nature has her mossy velvet spread,

With unshod feet they yet securely tread,

Admonish’d, scorn the caution and the friend,

Bent all on pleasure, heedless of its end.

But He, who knew what human hearts would prove,

How slow to learn the dictates of his love,

That, hard by nature and of stubborn will,

A life of ease would make them harder still,

In pity to the souls his grace design’d

To rescue from the ruins of mankind,

Call’d for a cloud to darken all their years,

And said, “Go, spend them in the vale of tears.”

O balmy gales of soul-reviving air!

O salutary streams, that murmur there!

These flowing from the fount of grace above,

Those breathed from lips of everlasting love.

The flinty soil indeed their feet annoys;

Chill blasts of trouble nip their springing joys;

An envious world will interpose its frown,

To mar delights superior to its own;

And many a pang experienced still within,

Reminds them of their hated inmate, Sin:

But ills of every shape and every name,

Transform’d to blessings, miss their cruel aim:

And every moment’s calm, that soothes the breast,

Is given in earnest of eternal rest.

Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast

Far from the flock, and in a boundless waste!

No shepherd’s tents within thy view appear,

But the chief Shepherd even there is near;

Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain

Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain;

Thy tears all issue from a source divine,

And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine—

So once in Gideon’s fleece the dews were found,

And drought on all the drooping herbs around.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

to the rev. w. cawthorne unwin.

 

Unwin, I should but ill repay

The kindness of a friend,

Whose worth deserves as warm a lay

As ever friendship penn’d,

Thy name omitted in a page

That would reclaim a vicious age.

 

A union form’d, as mine with thee,

Not rashly, or in sport,

May be as fervent in degree

And faithful in its sort,

And may as rich in comfort prove,

As that of true fraternal love.

 

<pb n=“305”/>The bud inserted in the rind,

The bud of peach or rose,

Adorns, though differing in its kind,

The stock whereon it grows,

With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair,

As if produced by nature there.

 

Not rich, I render what I may,

I seize thy name in haste,

And place it in this first essay,

Lest this should prove the last.

‘Tis where it should be—in a plan

That hold sin view the good of man.

 

The poet’s lyre, to fix his fame,

Should be the poet’s heart;

Affection lights a brighter flame

Than ever blazed by art.

No muses on these lines attend,

I sink the poet in the friend.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

to the reverend mr. newton.

 

an invitation into the country.

 

The swallows in their torpid state

Compose their useless wing,

And bees in hives as idly wait

The call of early Spring.

 

The keenest frost that binds the stream,

The wildest wind that blows,

Are neither felt nor fear’d by them,

Secure of their repose.

 

But man, all feeling and awake,

The gloomy scene surveys;

With present ills his heart must ache,

And pant for brighter days.

 

Old Winter, halting o’er the mead,

Bids me and Mary mourn;

But lovely Spring peeps o’er his head,

And whispers your return.

 

Then April, with her sister May,

Shall chase him from the bowers,

And weave fresh garlands every day,

To crown the smiling hours.

 

And if a tear that speaks regret

Of happier times, appear,

A glimpse of joy, that we have met,

Shall shine, and dry the tear.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“306”/>catharina.

 

addressed to miss stapleton (afterwards mrs. courtney).

 

She came—she is gone—we have met—

And meet perhaps never again;

The sun of that moment is set,

And seems to have risen in vain.

Catharina has fled like a dream

(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)—

But has left a regret and esteem

That will not so suddenly pass.

 

The last evening ramble we made,

Catharina, Maria, and I,

Our progress was often delay’d

By the nightingale warbling nigh.

We paused under many a tree,

And much she was charm’d with a tone,

Less sweet to Maria and me,

Who so lately had witness’d her own.

 

My numbers that day she had sung,

And gave them a grace so divine,

As only her musical tongue

Could infuse into numbers of mine.

The longer I heard, I esteem’d

The work of my fancy the more,

And e’en to myself never seem’d

So tuneful a poet before.

 

Though the pleasures of London exceed

In number the days of the year,

Catharina, did nothing impede,

Would feel herself happier here;

For the close-woven arches of limes

On the banks of our river, I know,

Are sweeter to her many times

Than aught that the city can show.

 

So it is when the mind is endued

With a well-judging taste from above,

Then, whether embellish’d or rude,

‘Tis nature alone that we love.

The achievements of art may amuse,

May even our wonder excite;

But groves, hills, and valleys diffuse

A lasting, a sacred delight.

 

Since then in the rural recess

Catharina alone can rejoice,

May it still be her lot to possess

The scene of her sensible choice!

To inhabit a mansion remote

From the clatter of street-pacing steeds,

And by Philomel’s annual note

To measure the life that she leads.

 

<pb n=“307”/>With her book, and her voice, and her lyre,

To wing all her moments at home;

And with scenes that new rapture inspire,

As oft as it suits her to roam;

She will have just the life she prefers,

With little to hope or to fear,

And ours would be pleasant as hers,

Might we view her enjoying it here.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the moralizer corrected.

 

a tale.

 

A hermit (or if ‘chance you hold

That title now too trite and old),

A man, once young, who lived retired

As hermit could have well desired,

His hours of study closed at last,

And finish’d his concise repast,

Stoppled his cruise, replaced his book

Within its customary nook,

And, staff in hand, set forth to share

The sober cordial of sweet air,

Like Isaac, with a mind applied

To serious thought at evening-tide.

Autumnal rains had made it chill,

And from the trees, that fringed his hill,

Shades slanting at the close of day,

Chill’d more his else delightful way.

Distant a little mile he spied

A western bank’s still sunny side,

And right toward the favour’d place

Proceeding with his nimblest pace,

In hope to bask a little yet,

Just reach’d it when the sun was set.

Your hermit, young and jovial sirs!

Learns something from whate’er occurs—

And hence, he said, my mind computes

The real worth of man’s pursuits.

His object chosen, wealth or fame,

Or other sublunary game,

Imagination to his view

Presents it deck’d with every hue,

That can seduce him not to spare

His powers of best exertion there,

But youth, health, vigour to expend

On so desirable an end.

Ere long approach life’s evening shades,

The glow that fancy gave it fades;

And, earn’d too late, it wants the grace

That first engaged him in the chase.

True, answer’d an angelic guide,

Attendant at the senior’s side—

<pb n=“308”/>But whether all the time it cost

To urge the fruitless chase be lost,

Must be decided by the worth

Of that which call’d his ardour forth.

Trifles pursued, whate’er the event,

Must cause him shame or discontent;

A vicious object still is worse,

Successful there, he wins a curse;

But he, whom e’en in life’s last stage

Endeavours laudable engage,

Is paid at least in peace of mind,

And sense of having well design’d;

And if, ere he attain his end,

His sun precipitate descend,

A brighter prize than that he meant

Shall recompense his mere intent.

No virtuous wish can bear a date

Either too early or too late.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the faithful bird.

 

The greenhouse is my summer seat;

My shrubs displaced from that retreat

Enjoy’d the open air;

Two goldfinches, whose sprightly song

Had been their mutual solace long,

Lived happy prisoners there.

 

They sang as blithe as finches sing,

That flutter loose on golden wing,

And frolic where they list;

Strangers to liberty, ‘tis true,

But that delight they never knew,

And therefore never miss’d.

 

But nature works in every breast,

With force not easily suppress’d;

And Dick felt some desires,

That, after many an effort vain,

Instructed him at length to gain

A pass between his wires.

 

The open windows seem’d to invite

The freeman to a farewell flight;

But Tom was still confined;

And Dick, although his way was clear,

Was much too generous and sincere

To leave his friend behind.

 

So settling on his cage, by play,

And chirp, and kiss, he seem’d to say,

You must not live alone—

Nor would he quit that chosen stand

Till I, with slow and cautious hand,

Return’d him to his own.

 

<pb n=“309”/>O ye, who never taste the joys

Of Friendship, satisfied with noise

Fandango, ball, and rout!

Blush when I tell you how a bird

A prison with a friend preferr’d

To liberty without.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the needless alarm.

 

a tale.

 

There is a field, through which I often pass,

Thick overspread with moss and silky grass,

Adjoining close to Kilwick’s echoing wood,

Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood,

Reserved to solace many a neighbouring squire,

That he may follow them through brake and brier,

Contusion hazarding of neck, or spine,

Which rural gentlemen call sport divine.

A narrow brook, by rushy banks conceal’d,

Runs in a bottom, and divides the field;

Oaks intersperse it, that had once a head,

But now wear crests of oven-wood instead;

And where the land slopes to its watery bourn

Wide yawns a gulf beside a ragged thorn;

Bricks line the sides, but shiver’d long ago,

And horrid brambles intertwine below;

A hollow scoop’d, I judge, in ancient time,

For baking earth, or burning rock to lime.

Not yet the hawthorn bore her berries red,

With which the fieldfare, wintry guest, if fed;

Nor Autumn yet had brush’d from every spray,

With her chill hand, the mellow leaves away;

But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack,

Now therefore issued forth the spotted pack,

With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats

With a whole gamut fill’d of heavenly notes,

For which, alas! my destiny severe,

Though ears she gave me two, gave me no ear.

The sun, accomplishing his early march,

His lamp now planted on heaven’s topmost arch,

When exercise and air my only aim,

And heedless whither, to that field I came,

Ere yet with ruthless joy the happy hound

Told hill and dale that Reynard’s track was found,

Or with the high-raised horn’s melodious clang

All Kilwick and all Dinglederry[4] rang.

Sheep grazed the field; some with soft bosom press’d

The herb as soft, while nibbling stray’d  the rest;

Nor noise was heard but of the hasty brook,

Struggling, detain’d in many a petty nook.

All seem’d so peaceful, that, from them convey’d,

To me their peace by kind contagion spread.

<pb n=“310”/>But when the huntsman, with distended cheek,

‘Gan make his instrument of music speak,

And from within the wood that crash was heard,

Though not a hound from whom it burst appear’d,

The sheep recumbent and the sheep that grazed,

All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed,

Admiring, terrified, the novel strain,

Then coursed the field around, and coursed it round again;

But recollecting, with a sudden thought,

That flight in circles urged advanced them nought,

They gather’d close around the old pit’s brink,

And thought again—but knew not what to think.

The man to solitude accustom’d long,

Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue;

Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees

Have speech for him, and understood with ease;

After long drought, when rains abundant fall,

He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all;

Knows what the freshness of their hue implies,

How glad they catch the largess of the skies;

But, with precision nicer still, the mind

He scans of every locomotive kind;

Birds of all feather, beasts of every name;

That serve mankind, or shun them, wild or tame;

The looks and gestures of their griefs and fears

Have all articulation in his ears;

He spells them true by intuition’s light,

And needs no glossary to set him right.

This truth premised was needful as a text,

To win due credence to what follows next.

Awhile they mused; surveying every face,

Thou hadst supposed them of superior race;

Their periwigs of wool and fears combined,

Stamp’d on each countenance such marks of mind,

That sage they seem’d, as lawyers o’er a doubt,

Which, puzzling long, at last they puzzle out;

Or academic tutors, teaching youths,

Sure ne’er to want them, mathematic truths;

When thus a mutton statelier than the rest,

A ram, the ewes and wethers sad address’d.

Friends! we have lived too long.  I never heard

Sounds such as these, so worthy to be fear’d.

Could I believe, that winds for ages pent

In earth’s dark womb have found at last a vent,

And from their prison-house below arise,

With all these hideous howlings to the skies,

I could be much composed, nor should appear,

For such a cause to feel the slightest fear.

Yourselves have seen, what time the thunders roll’d

All night, me resting quiet in the fold.

Or heard we that tremendous bray alone,

I could expound the melancholy tone;

Should deem it by our old companion made,

The ass; for he, we know, has lately stray’d,

<pb n=“311”/>And, being lost, perhaps, and wandering wide,

Might be supposed to clamour for a guide.

But ah! those dreadful yells what soul can hear,

That owns a carcass, and not quake for fear?

Demons produce them doubtless, brazen-claw’d

And fang’d with brass the demons are abroad;

I hold it therefore wisest and most fit

That, life to save, we leap into the pit.

Him answer’d then his loving mate and true,

But more discreet than he, a Cambrian ewe.

How! leap into the pit our life to save?

To save our life leap all into the grave?

For can we find it less?  Contemplate first

The depth how awful! falling there, we burst:

Or should the brambles, interposed, our fall

In part abate, that happiness were small;

For with a race like theirs no chance I see

Of peace or ease to creatures clad as we.

Meantime, noise kills not.  Be it Dapple’s bray,

Or be it not, or be it whose it may,

And rush those other sounds, that seem by tongues

Of demons utter’d, from whatever lungs,

Sounds are but sounds, and, till the cause appear,

We have at least commodious standing here.

Come fiend, come fury, giant, monster, blast

From earth or hell, we can but plunge at last.

While thus she spake, I fainter heard the peals,

For Reynard, close attended at his heels

By panting dog, tired man, and spatter’d horse,

Through mere good fortune, took a different course.

The flock grew calm again, and I, the road

Following, that led me to my own abode,

Much wonder’d that the silly sheep had found

Such cause of terror in an empty sound,

So sweet to huntsman, gentleman, and hound.

moral.

Beware of desperate steps.  The darkest day,

Live till to-morrow, will have pass’d away.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

boadicea.

 

an ode.

 

When the British warrior queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods,

Sought, with an indignant mien,

Counsel of her country’s gods,

 

Sage beneath the spreading oak

Sat the Druid, hoary chief;

Every burning word he spoke

Full of rage, and full of grief.

 

<pb n=“312”/>Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

‘Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

 

Rome shall perish—write that word

In the blood that she has spilt;

Perish, hopeless and abhorr’d,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.

 

Rome, for empire far renown’d,

Tramples on a thousand states;

Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—

Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

 

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier’s name;

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,

Harmony the path to fame.

 

Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our land,

Arm’d with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

 

Regions Cæsar never knew

Thy posterity shall sway;

Where his eagles never flew,

None invincible as they.

 

Such the bard’s prophetic words,

Pregnant with celestial fire,

Bending as he swept the chords

Of his sweet but awful lyre.

 

She, with all a monarch’s pride,

Felt them in her bosom glow:

Rush’d to battle, fought, and died:

Dying, hurl’d them at the foe.

 

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due;

Empire is on us bestow’d,

Shame and ruin wait for you.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

heroism.

 

There was a time when Ætna’s silent fire

Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire;

When, conscious of no danger from below,

She tower’d a cloud-capt pyramid of snow.

No thunders shook with deep intestine sound

The blooming groves that girdled her around.

Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines

(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines)

The peasant’s hopes, and not in vain, assured,

In peace upon her sloping sides matured.

<pb n=“313”/>When on a day, like that of the last doom,

A conflagration labouring in her womb,

She teem’d and heaved with an infernal birth,

That shook the circling seas and solid earth.

Dark and voluminous the vapours rise,

And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies,

While through the Stygian veil, that blots the day,

In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.

But oh! what muse, and in what powers of song,

Can trace the torrent as it burns along?

Havoc and devastation in the van,

It marches o’er the prostrate works of man;

Vines, olives, herbage, forests disappear,

And all the charms of a Sicilian year.

Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,

See it an uninform’d and idle mass;

Without a soil to invite the tiller’s care,

Or blade that might redeem it from despair.

Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)

Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.

Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,

And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.

O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats,

O charming Paradise of shortlived sweets!

The self-same gale that wafts the fragrance round

Brings to the distant ear a sullen sound:

Again the mountain feels the imprison’d foe,

Again pours ruin on the vale below.

Ten thousand swains the wasted scene deplore,

That only future ages can restore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws,

Who write in blood the merits of your cause,

Who strike the blow, then plead your own defence,

Glory your aim, but justice your pretence;

Behold in Ætna’s emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires!

Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain,

And tells you where you have a right to reign,

A nation dwells, not envious of your throne,

Studious of peace, their neighbour’s and their own.

Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue

Their only crime, vicinity to you!

The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad,

Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road;

At every step beneath their feet they tread

The life of multitudes, a nation’s bread!

Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress

Before them, and behind a wilderness.

Famine, and Pestilence, her firstborn son,

Attend to finish what the sword begun;

And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn,

And folly pays, resound at your return.

A calm succeeds—but Plenty, with her train

Of heartfelt joys, succeeds not soon again:

<pb n=“314”/>And years of pining indigence must show

What scourges are the gods that rule below.

Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees

(Such is his thirst of opulence and ease),

Plies all the sinews of industrious toil,

Gleans up the refuse of the general spoil,

Rebuilds the towers that smoked upon the plain,

And the sun gilds the shining spires again.

Increasing commerce and reviving art

Renew the quarrel on the conqueror’s part;

And the sad lesson must be learn’d once more,

That wealth within is ruin at the door.

What are ye, monarchs, laurell’d heroes, say,

But Ætnas of the suffering world ye sway?

Sweet Nature, stripp’d of her embroider’d robe,

Deplores the wasted regions of her globe;

And stands a witness at Truth’s awful bar,

To prove you there destroyers as ye are.

O place me in some heaven-protected isle,

Where Peace, and Equity, and Freedom smile;

Where no volcano pours his fiery flood,

No crested warrior dips his plume in blood;

Where Power secures what Industry has won:

Where to succeed is not to be undone;

A land that distant tyrants hate in vain,

In Britain’s isle, beneath a George’s reign.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on the receipt of my mother’s picture

 

out of norfolk,

 

the gift of my cousin, ann bodham.

 

O that those lips had language!  Life has pass’d

With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smile I see,

The same that oft in childhood solaced me;

Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,

“Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!”

The meek intelligence of those dear eyes

(Blest be the art that can immortalize,

The art that baffles Time’s tyrannic claim

To quench it) here shines on me still the same.

Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,

O welcome guest, though unexpected here:

Who bidst me honour with an artless song,

Affectionate, a mother lost so long.

I will obey, not willingly alone,

But gladly, as the precept were her own:

And, while that face renews my filial grief,

Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,

Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,

A momentary dream, that thou art she.

My mother! when I learn’d that thou wast dead,

Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?

Hover’d thy spirit o’er thy sorrowing son,

<pb n=“315”/>Wretch even then, life’s journey just begun?

Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss;

Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss—

Ah, that maternal smile! it answers—Yes.

I heard the bell toll’d on thy burial day,

I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,

And turning from my nursery window, drew

A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!

But was it such?—It was.—Where thou art gone,

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.

May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,

The parting word shall pass my lips no more!

Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,

Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.

What ardently I wish’d, I long believed,

And, disappointed still, was still deceived.

By expectation every day beguiled,

Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,

Till, all my stock of infant sorrows spent,

I learn’d at last submission to my lot,

But, though I less deplored thee, ne’er forgot.

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,

Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;

And where the gardener Robin, day by day,

Drew me to school along the public way,

Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp’d

In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capp’d,

‘Tis now become a history little known,

That once we call’d the pastoral house our own.

Short-lived possession! but the record fair,

That memory keeps of all thy kindness there,

Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced

A thousand other themes less deeply traced.

Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,

That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid;

Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,

The biscuit or confectionary plum;

The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow’d

By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow’d:

All this, and more endearing still than all,

Thy constant flow of love that knew no fall,

Ne’er roughen’d by those cataracts and breaks

That humour interposed too often makes;

All this still legible in memory’s page,

And still to be so to my latest age,

Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay

Such honours to thee as my numbers may;

Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,

Not scorn’d in heaven, though little noticed here.

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours,

When, playing with thy vesture’s tissued flowers,

The violet, the pink, and jessamine,

I prick’d them into paper with a pin

<pb n=“316”/>(And thou wast happier than myself the while,

Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile),

Could those few pleasant days again appear,

Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?

I would not trust my heart—the dear delight

Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might.—

But no—what here we call our life is such,

So little to be loved, and thou so much,

That I should ill requite thee to constrain

Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion’s coast

(The storms all weather’d and the ocean cross’d),

Shoots into port at some well-haven’d isle

Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile,

There sits quiescent on the floods, that show

Her beauteous form reflected clear below,

While airs impregnated with incense play

Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;

So thou, with sails how swift! hast reach’d the shore,

“Where tempests never beat nor billows roar;”[5]

And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide

Of life long since has anchor’d by thy side.

But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,

Always from port withheld, always distress’d—

Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-toss’d,

Sails ripp’d, seams opening wide, and compass lost,

And day by day some current’s thwarting force

Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.

But oh, the thought, that thou art safe, and he!

That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.

My boast is not that I deduce my birth

From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;

But higher far my proud pretensions rise—

The son of parents pass’d into the skies.

And now, farewell—Time unrevoked has run

His wonted course, yet what I wish’d is done.

By contemplation’s help, not sought in vain,

I seem to have lived my childhood o’er again;

To have renew’d the joys that once were mine,

Without the sin of violating thine;

And, while the wings of fancy still are free,

And I can view this mimic show of thee,

Time has but half succeeded in his theft—

Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

friendship.

 

What virtue, or what mental grace

But men unqualified and base

Will boast it their possession?

Profusion apes the noble part

Of liberality of heart,

And dulness of discretion.

 

<pb n=“317”/>If every polish’d gem we find,

Illuminating heart or mind,

Provoke to imitation;

No wonder friendship does the same,

That jewel of the purest flame,

Or rather constellation.

 

No knave but boldly will pretend

The requisites that form a friend,

A real and a sound one;

Nor any fool, he would deceive,

But prove as ready to believe,

And dream that he had found one.

 

Candid, and generous, and just,

Boys care but little whom they trust,

An error soon corrected—

For who but learns in riper years

That man, when smoothest he appears,

Is most to be suspected?

 

But here again a danger lies,

Lest, having misapplied our eyes,

And taken trash for treasure,

We should unwarily conclude

Friendship a false ideal good,

A mere Utopian pleasure.

 

An acquisition rather rare

Is yet no subject of despair;

Nor is it wise complaining,

If, either on forbidden ground,

Or where it was not to be found,

We sought without attaining.

 

No friendship will abide the test,

That stands on sordid interest,

Or mean self-love erected;

Nor such as may awhile subsist

Between the sot and sensualist,

For vicious ends connected.

 

Who seek a friend should come dispos’d

To exhibit, in full bloom disclos’d,

The graces and the beauties

That form the character he seeks,

For ‘tis a union that bespeaks

Reciprocated duties.

 

Mutual attention is implied,

And equal truth on either side,

And constantly supported;

‘Tis senseless arrogance to accuse

Another of sinister views,

Our own as much distorted.

 

<pb n=“318”/>But will sincerity suffice?

It is indeed above all price,

And must be made the basis;

But every virtue of the soul

Must constitute the charming whole,

All shining in their places.

 

A fretful temper will divide

The closest knot that may be tied,

By ceaseless sharp corrosion;

A temper passionate and fierce

May suddenly your joys disperse

At one immense explosion.

 

In vain the talkative unite

In hopes of permanent delight—

The secret just committed,

Forgetting its important weight,

They drop through mere desire to prate,

And by themselves outwitted.

 

How bright soe’er the prospect seems,

All thoughts of friendship are but dreams,

If envy chance to creep in;

An envious man, if you succeed,

May prove a dangerous foe indeed,

But not a friend worth keeping.

 

As envy pines at good possess’d,

So jealously looks forth distress’d

On good that seems approaching;

And, if success his steps attend,

Discerns a rival in a friend,

And hates him for encroaching.

 

Hence authors of illustrious name,

Unless belied by common fame,

Are sadly prone to quarrel,

To deem the wit a friend displays

A tax upon their own just praise,

And pluck each other’s laurel.

 

A man renown’d for repartee

Will seldom scruple to make free

With friendship’s finest feeling,

Will thrust a dagger at your breast,

And say he wounded you in jest,

By way of balm for healing.

 

Whoever keeps an open ear

For tattlers will be sure to hear

The trumpet of contention;

Aspersion is the babbler’s trade,

To listen is to lend him aid,

And rush into dissension.

 

<pb n=“319”/>A friendship that in frequent fits

Of controversial rage emits

The sparks of disputation,

Like hand-in-hand insurance-plates,

Most unavoidably creates

The thought of conflagration.

 

Some fickle creatures boast a soul

True as a needle to the pole,

Their humour yet so various—

They manifest their whole life through

The needle’s deviations too,

Their love is so precarious.

 

The great and small but rarely meet

On terms of amity complete;

Plebeians must surrender,

And yield so much to noble folk,

It is combining fire with smoke,

Obscurity with splendour.

 

Some are so placid and serene

(As Irish bogs are always green),

They sleep secure from waking;

And are indeed a bog, that bears

Your unparticipated cares

Unmoved and without quaking.

 

Courtier and patriot cannot mix

Their heterogeneous politics

Without an effervescence,

Like that of salts with lemon juice,

Which does not yet like that produce

A friendly coalescence.

 

Religion should extinguish strife,

And make a calm of human life;

But friends that chance to differ

On points which God has left at large,

How freely will they meet and charge!

No combatants are stiffer.

 

To prove at last my main intent

Needs no expense of argument,

No cutting and contriving—

Seeking a real friend, we seem

To adopt the chemist’s golden dream,

With still less hope of thriving.

 

Sometimes the fault is all our own,

Some blemish in due time made known

By trespass or omission;

Sometimes occasion brings to light

Our friend’s defect, long hid from sight,

And even from suspicion.

 

<pb n=“320”/>Then judge yourself, and prove your man

As circumspectly as you can,

And, having made election,

Beware no negligence of yours,

Such as a friend but ill endures,

Enfeeble his affection.

 

That secrets are a sacred trust,

That friends should be sincere and just,

That constancy befits them,

Are observations on the case,

That savour much of commonplace,

And all the world admits them.

 

But ‘tis not timber, lead, and stone,

An architect requires alone

To finish a fine building—

The palace were but half complete,

If he could possibly forget

The carving and the gilding.

 

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,

And proves by thumps upon your back

How he esteems your merit,

Is such a friend, that one had need

Be very much his friend indeed

To pardon or to bear it.

 

As similarity of mind,

Or something not to be defined,

First fixes our attention;

So manners decent and polite,

The same we practised at first sight,

Must save it from declension.

 

Some act upon this prudent plan,

“Say little, and hear all you can.”

Safe policy, but hateful—

So barren sands imbibe the shower,

But render neither fruit nor flower,

Unpleasant and ungrateful.

 

The man I trust, if shy to me,

Shall find me as reserved as he,

No subterfuge or pleading

Shall win my confidence again;

I will by no means entertain

A spy on my proceeding.

 

These samples—for, alas! at last

These are but samples, and a taste

Of evils yet unmention’d—

May prove the task a task indeed,

In which ‘tis much if we succeed,

However well intention’d.

 

<pb n=“321”/>Pursue the search, and you will find

Good sense and knowledge of mankind

To be at least expedient,

And, after summing all the rest,

Religion ruling in the breast

A principal ingredient.

 

The noblest Friendship ever shown

The Saviour’s history makes known,

Though some have turn’d and turn’d it;

And, whether being crazed or blind,

Or seeking with a biass’d mind,

Have not, it seems, discern’d it.

 

O Friendship! if my soul forego

Thy dear delights while here below,

To mortify and grieve me,

May I myself at last appear

Unworthy, base, and insincere,

Or may my friend deceive me!

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on a mischievous bull,

 

which the owner of him sold at the author’s instance.

 

Go—thou art all unfit to share

The pleasures of this place

With such as its old tenants are,

Creatures of gentler race.

 

The squirrel here his hoard provides,

Aware of wintry storms,

And woodpeckers explore the sides

Of rugged oaks for worms.

 

The sheep here smooths the knotted thorn

With frictions of her fleece;

And here I wander eve and morn,

Like her, a friend to peace.

 

Ah!—I could pity thee exiled

From this secure retreat—

I would not lose it to be styled

The happiest of the great.

 

But thou canst taste no calm delight;

Thy pleasure is to show

Thy magnanimity in fight,

Thy prowess—therefore, go—

 

I care not whether east or north,

So I no more may find thee;

The angry muse thus sings thee forth,

And claps the gate behind thee.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“322”/>annus memorabilis, 1789.

 

written in commemoration of his majesty’s happy recovery.

 

I ransack’d for a theme of song,

Much ancient chronicle, and long;

I read of bright embattled fields,

Of trophied helmets, spears, and shields,

Of chiefs, whose single arm could boast

Prowess to dissipate a host;

Through tomes of fable and of dream

I sought an eligible theme,

But none I found, or found them shared

Already by some happier bard.

To modern times, with truth to guide

My busy search, I next applied;

Here cities won, and fleets dispersed,

Urged loud a claim to be rehearsed,

Deeds of unperishing renown,

Our fathers’ triumphs and our own.

Thus as the bee, from bank to bower,

Assiduous sips at every flower,

But rests on none till that be found

Where most nectareous sweets abound,

So I, from theme to theme display’d

In many a page historic, stray’d,

Siege after siege, fight after fight,

Contemplating with small delight

(For feats of sanguinary hue

Not always glitter in my view),

Till, settling on the current year,

I found the far-sought treasure near,

A theme for poetry divine,

A theme to ennoble even mine,

In memorable eighty-nine.

The spring of eighty-nine shall be

An æra cherish’d long by me,

Which joyful I will oft record,

And thankful at my frugal board;

For then the clouds of eighty-eight,

That threaten’d England’s trembling state

With loss of what she least could spare,

Her sovereign’s tutelary care,

One breath of heaven, that cried—Restore!

Chased, never to assemble more:

And for the richest crown on earth,

If valued by its wearer’s worth,

The symbol of a righteous reign

Sat fast on George’s brows again.

Then peace and joy again possess’d

Our Queen’s long-agitated breast;

Such joy and peace as can be known

By sufferers like herself alone,

Who losing, or supposing lost,

The good on earth they valued most,

<pb n=“323”/>For that dear sorrow’s sake forego

All hope of happiness below,

Then suddenly regain the prize,

And flash thanksgivings to the skies!

O Queen of Albion, queen of isles!

Since all thy tears were changed to smiles,

The eyes, that never saw thee, shine

With joy not unallied to thine;

Transports not chargeable with art

Illume the land’s remotest part,

And strangers to the air of courts,

Both in their toils and at their sports,

The happiness of answer’d prayers,

That gilds thy features, show in theirs.

If they who on thy state attend,

Awe-struck, before thy presence bend,

‘Tis but the natural effect

Of grandeur that ensures respect;

But she is something more than queen

Who is beloved where never seen.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

a hymn,

 

for the use of the sunday school at olney.

 

Hear, Lord, the song of praise and prayer

In heaven thy dwelling-place,

From infants made the public care,

And taught to seek thy face.

 

Thanks for thy word and for thy day,

And grant us, we implore,

Never to waste in sinful play

Thy holy Sabbaths more.

 

Thanks that we hear—but O! impart

To each desires sincere,

That we may listen with our heart,

And learn as well as hear.

 

For if vain thoughts the mind engage

Of older far than we,

What hope, that, at our heedless age,

Our minds should e’er be free?

 

Much hope, if thou our spirits take

Under thy gracious sway,

Who canst the wisest wiser make,

And babes as wise as they.

 

Wisdom and bliss thy word bestows,

A sun that ne’er declines,

And be thy mercies shower’d on those

Who placed us where it shines.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“324”/>stanzas.

 

subjoined to the yearly bill of mortality of the  parish of all

saints, northampton, anno domini 1787.

 

 (Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.)

 

Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.—Horace.

 

Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door

Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

 

While thirteen moons saw smoothly run

The Nen’s barge-laden wave,

All these, life’s rambling journey done,

Have found their home, the grave.

 

Was man (frail always) made more frail

Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears?

 

No; these were vigorous as their sires,

Nor plague nor famine came;

This annual tribute Death requires,

And never waves his claim.

 

Like crowded forest trees we stand,

And some are mark’d to fall;

The axe will smite at God’s command,

And soon shall smite us all.

 

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,

With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen,

I pass’d—and they were gone.

 

Read, ye that run, the awful truth

With which I charge my page;

A worm is in the bud of youth,

And at the root of age.

 

No present health can health ensure

For yet an hour to come;

No medicine, though it oft can cure,

Can always balk the tomb.

 

And O! that, humble as my lot,

And scorn’d as is my strain,

These truths, though known, too much forgot,

I may not teach in vain.

 

So prays your clerk with all his heart,

And, ere he quits the pen,

Begs you for once to take his part,

And answer all—Amen!

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“325”/>on a similar occasion.

 

for the year 1788.

 

Quod adest, memento

Componere æquus.  Cætera fluminis

Ritu feruntur.—Horace.

 

Improve the present hour, for all beside

Is a mere feather on a torrent’s tide.

 

Could I, from heaven inspired, as sure presage

To whom the rising year shall prove his last,

As I can number in my punctual page,

And item down the victims of the past;

 

How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet,

On which the press might stamp him next to die;

And, reading here his sentence, how replete

With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye!

 

Time then would seem more precious than the joys

In which he sports away the treasure now;

And prayer more seasonable than the noise

Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.

 

Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink

Of this world’s hazardous and headlong shore,

Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think,

Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

 

Ah self-deceived!  Could I prophetic say

Who next is fated, and who next to fall,

The rest might then seem privileged to play;

But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all.

 

Observe the dappled foresters, how light

They bound and airy o’er the sunny glade—

One falls—the rest, wide scatter’d with affright,

Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

 

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn’d,

Still need repeated warnings, and at last,

A thousand awful admonitions scorn’d,

Die self-accused of life run all to waste!

 

Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones.

The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;

Dewdrops may deck the turf that hides the bones,

But tears of godly grief ne’er flow within.

 

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught

Of all these sepulchres, instructors true,

That, soon  or late, death also is your lot,

And the next opening grave may yawn for you.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“326”/>on a similar occasion.

 

for the year 1789.

 

—Placidâque ibi demum morte quievit.—Virg.

 

There calm at length he breathed his soul away.

 

“O most delightful hour by man

Experienced here below,

The hour that terminates his span,

His folly and his woe!

 

“Worlds should not bribe me back to tread

Again life’s dreary waste,

To see again my day o’erspread

With all the gloomy past.

 

“My home henceforth is in the skies,

Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!

All heaven unfolded to my eyes,

I have no sight for you.”

 

So spake Aspasio, firm possess’d

Of faith’s supporting rod,

Then breathed his soul into its rest,

The bosom of his God.

 

He was a man among the few

Sincere on virtue’s side;

And all his strength from Scripture drew,

To hourly use applied.

 

That rule he prized, by that he fear’d,

He hated, hoped, and loved;

Nor ever frown’d, or sad appear’d,

But when his heart had roved.

 

For he was frail as thou or I,

And evil felt within;

But when he felt it, heaved a sigh,

And loathed the thought of sin.

 

Such lived Aspasio; and at last

Call’d up from earth to heaven,

The gulf of death triumphant pass’d,

By gales of blessing driven.

 

His joys be mine, each reader cries,

When my last hour arrives:

They shall be yours, my verse replies,

Such only be your lives.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on a similar occasion.

 

for the year 1790.

 

Ne commonentem recta sperne.—Buchanan.

 

Despise not my good counsel.

 

He who sits from day to day

Where the prison’d lark is hung,

Heedless of his loudest lay,

Hardly knows that he has sung.

 

<pb n=“327”/>Where the watchman in his round

Nightly lifts his voice on high,

None, accustom’d to the sound,

Wakes the sooner for his cry.

 

So your verse-man I, and clerk,

Yearly in my song proclaim

Death at hand—yourselves his mark—

And the foe’s unerring aim.

 

Duly at my time I come,

Publishing to all aloud—

Soon the grave must be your home,

And your only suit, a shroud.

 

But the monitory strain,

Oft repeated in your ears,

Seems to sound too much in vain,

Wins no notice, wakes no fears.

 

Can a truth, by all confess’d

Of such magnitude and weight,

Grow, by being oft impress’d,

Trivial as a parrot’s prate?

 

Pleasure’s call attention wins,

Hear it often as we may;

New as ever seem our sins,

Though committed every day.

 

Death and judgment, heaven and hell—

These alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell

When some stranger is interr’d.

 

O then, ere the turf or tomb

Cover us from every eye,

Spirit of instruction, come,

Make us learn that we must die.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on a similar occasion.

 

for the year 1792.

 

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!—Virg.

 

Happy the mortal who has traced effects

To their first cause, cast fear beneath his feet

And death and roaring hell’s voracious fires!

 

Thankless for favours from on high,

Man thinks he fades too soon;

Though ‘tis his privilege to die,

Would he improve the boon.

 

But he, not wise enough to scan

His blest concerns aright,

Would gladly stretch life’s little span

To ages, if he might.

 

<pb n=“328”/>To ages in a world of pain,

To ages, where he goes

Gall’d by affliction’s heavy chain,

And hopeless of repose.

 

Strange fondness of the human heart,

Enamour’d of its harm!

Strange world, that costs it so much smart,

And still has power to charm!

 

Whence has the world her magic power?

Why deem we death a foe?

Recoil from weary life’s best hour,

And covet longer woe?

 

The cause is Conscience—Conscience oft

Her tale of guilt renews:

Her voice is terrible though soft,

And dread of death ensues.

 

Then anxious to be longer spared,

Man mourns his fleeting breath:

All evils then seem light, compared

With the approach of death.

 

‘Tis judgment shakes him:  there’s the fear

That prompts the wish to stay:

He has incurr’d a long arrear,

And must despair to pay.

 

Pay!—follow Christ, and all is paid;

His death your peace ensures;

Think on the grave where He was laid,

And calm descend to yours.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on a similar occasion.

 

for the year 1793.

 

De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur.—Cic. de Leg.

 

But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sacred be inviolate.

 

He lives who lives to God alone,

And all are dead beside;

For other source than God is none

Whence life can be supplied.

 

To live to God is to requite

His love as best we may:

To make his precepts our delight,

His promises our stay.

 

But life, within a narrow ring

Of giddy joys comprised,

Is falsely named, and no such thing,

But rather death disguised.

 

Can life in them deserve the name,

Who only live to prove

For what poor toys they can disclaim

An endless life above?

 

<pb n=“329”/>Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel;

Much menaced, nothing dread;

Have wounds, which only God can heal,

Yet never ask his aid?

 

Who deem his house a useless place,

Faith, want of common sense;

And ardour in the Christian race,

A hypocrite’s pretence?

 

Who trample order; and the day

Which God asserts his own

Dishonour with unhallow’d play,

And worship chance alone?

 

If scorn of God’s commands, impress’d

On word and deed, imply

The better part of man unbless’d

With life that cannot die;

 

Such want it, and that want uncured

Till man resigns his breath,

Speaks him a criminal, assured

Of everlasting death.

 

Sad period to a pleasant course!

Yet so will God repay

Sabbaths profaned without remorse,

And mercy cast away.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on a goldfinch,

 

starved to death in his cage.

 

Time was when I was free as air,

The thistle’s downy seed my fare,

My drink the morning dew;

I perch’d at will on every spray,

My form genteel, my plumage gay,

My strains for ever new.

 

But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain,

And form genteel were all in vain,

And of a transient date;

For, caught and caged, and starved to death,

In dying sighs my little breath

Soon pass’d the wiry grate.

 

Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes,

And thanks for this effectual close

And cure of every ill!

More cruelty could none express;

And I, if you had shown me less,

Had been your prisoner still.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“330”/>the pine-apple and the bee.

 

The pine-apples, in triple row,

Were basking hot, and all in blow;

A bee of most discerning taste

Perceived  the fragrance as he pass’d,

On eager wing the spoiler came,

And search’d for crannies in the frame,

Urged his attempt on every side,

To every pane his trunk applied;

But still in vain, the frame was tight,

And only pervious to the light;

Thus having wasted half the day,

He trimm’d his flight another way.

Methinks, I said, in thee I find

The sin and madness of mankind.

To joys forbidden man aspires,

Consumes his soul with vain desires;

Folly the spring of his pursuit,

And disappointment all the fruit.

While Cynthio ogles as he passes,

The nymph between two chariot glasses,

She is the pine-apple, and he

The silly unsuccessful bee.

The maid who views with pensive air

The show-glass fraught with glittering ware,

Sees watches, bracelets, rings, and lockets,

But sighs at thought of empty pockets;

Like thine, her appetite is keen,

But ah, the cruel glass between!

Our dear delights are often such,

Exposed to view but not to touch;

The sight our foolish heart inflames,

We long for pine-apples in frames;

With hopeless wish one looks and lingers;

One breaks the glass, and cuts his fingers;

But they whom truth and wisdom lead

Can gather honey from a weed.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

verses written at bath, on finding the heel of a shoe.

 

Fortune!  I thank thee:  gentle goddess! thanks!

Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny

She would have thank’d thee rather hadst thou cast

A treasure in her way; for neither meed

Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes,

And bowel-racking pains of emptiness,

Nor noontide feast, nor evening’s cool repast,

Hopes she from this—presumptuous, though, perhaps,

The cobbler, leather-carving artist! might.

Nathless she thanks thee and accepts thy boon,

Whatever; not as erst the fabled cock,

Vain-glorious fool! unknowing what he found,

<pb n=“331”/>Spurn’d the rich gem thou gavest him.  Wherefore, ah!

Why not on me that favour (worthier sure!)

Conferr’dst thou, goddess!  Thou art blind thou say’st:

Enough!—thy blindness shall excuse the deed.

Nor does my muse no benefit exhale

From this thy scant indulgence!—even here

Hints worthy sage philosophy are found;

Illustrious hints, to moralize my song!

This ponderous heel of perforated hide

Compact, with pegs indented, many a row,

Haply (for such its massy form bespeaks)

The weighty tread of some rude peasant clown

Upbore:  on this, supported oft, he stretch’d,

With uncouth strides, along the furrow’d glebe,

Flattening the stubborn clod, till cruel time

(What will not cruel time?) on a wry step

Sever’d the strict cohesion; when, alas!

He, who could erst, with even, equal pace,

Pursue his destined way with symmetry,

And some proportion form’d, now on one side

Curtail’d and maim’d, the sport of vagrant boys,

Cursing his frail supporter, treacherous prop!

With toilsome steps, and difficult, moves on.

Thus fares it oft with other than the feet

Of humble villager—the statesman thus,

Up the steep road where proud ambition leads,

Aspiring, first uninterrupted winds

His prosperous way; nor fears miscarriage foul,

While policy prevails, and friends prove true;

But, that support soon failing, by him left

On whom he most depended, basely left,

Betray’d, deserted; from his airy height

Headlong he falls; and through the rest of life

Drags the dull load of disappointment on.

1748.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

an ode,

 

on reading richardson’s history of sir charles grandison.

 

Say, ye apostate and profane,

Wretches, who blush not to disdain

Allegiance to your God,—

Did e’er your idly wasted love

Of virtue for her sake remove

And lift you from the crowd?

 

Would you the race of glory run ,

Know, the devout, and they alone,

Are equal to the task:

The labours of the illustrious course

Far other than the unaided force

Of human vigour ask.

 

<pb n=“332”/>To arm against reputed ill

The patient heart too brave to feel

The tortures of despair:

Nor safer yet high-crested pride,

When wealth flows in with every tide

To gain admittance there.

 

To rescue from the tyrant’s sword

The oppress’d; unseen and unimplored,

To cheer the face of woe;

From lawless insult to defend

An orphan’s right—a fallen friend,

And a forgiven foe;

 

These, these distinguish from the crowd,

And these alone, the great and good,

The guardians of mankind;

Whose bosoms with these virtues heave,

O with what matchless speed they leave

The multitude behind!

 

Then ask ye, from what cause on earth

Virtues like these derive their birth?

Derived from Heaven alone,

Full on that favour’d breast they shine,

Where faith and resignation join

To call the blessing down.

 

Such is that heart:—but while the muse

Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues,

Her feeble spirits faint;

She cannot reach, and would not wrong,

The subject for an angel’s song,

The hero, and the saint!

1753.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

an epistle to robert lloyd, esq.

 

‘Tis not that I design to rob

Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,

For thou art born sole heir, and single,

Of dear Mat Prior’s easy jingle;

Not that I mean, while thus I knit

My threadbare sentiments together,

To show my genius or my wit,

When God and you know I have neither;

Or such as might be better shown

By letting poetry alone.

‘Tis not with either of these views

That I presumed to address the muse:

But to divert a fierce banditti

(Sworn foes to every thing that’s witty!)

That, with a black, infernal train,

Make cruel inroads in my brain,

And daily threaten to drive thence

My little garrison of sense;

<pb n=“333”/>The fierce banditti which I mean

Are gloomy thoughts led on by spleen.

Then there’s another reason yet,

Which is, that I may fairly quit

The debt, which justly became due

The moment when I heard from you;

And you might grumble, crony mine,

If paid in any other coin;

Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows

(I would say twenty sheets of prose),

Can ne’er be deem’d worth half so much

As one of gold, and yours was such.

Thus, the preliminaries settled,

I fairly find myself pitchkettled,[6]

And cannot see, though few see better,

How I shall hammer out a letter.

First, for a thought—since all agree—

A thought—I have it—let me see—

‘Tis gone again—plague on’t!  I thought

I had it—but I have it not.

Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,

That useful thing, her needle, gone!

Rake well the cinders—sweep the floor,

And sift the dust behind the door;

While eager Hodge beholds the prize

In old grimalkin’s glaring eyes;

And Gammer finds it, on her knees,

In every shining straw she sees.

This simile were apt enough;

But I’ve another, critic-proof!

The virtuoso thus, at noon,

Broiling beneath a July sun,

The gilded butterfly pursues,

O’er hedge and ditch, through gaps and mews;

And, after many a vain essay,

To captivate the tempting prey,

Gives him at length the lucky pat,

And has him safe beneath his hat:

Then lifts it gently from the ground;

But, ah! ‘tis lost as soon as found;

Culprit his liberty regains,

Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.

The sense was dark; ‘twas therefore fit

With simile to illustrate it;

But as too much obscures the sight,

As often as too little light,

We have our similes cut short,

For matters of more grave import.

That Matthew’s numbers run with ease,

Each man of common sense agrees!

All men of common sense allow

<pb n=“334”/>That Robert’s lines are easy too:

Where then the preference shall we place,

Or how do justice in this case?

Matthew (says Fame), with endless pains

Smooth’d and refined the meanest strains;

Nor suffer’d one ill-chosen rhyme

To escape him at the idlest time;

And thus o’er all a lustre cast,

That, while the language lives shall last.

An’t please your ladyship (quoth I),

For ‘tis my business to reply;

Sure so much labour, so much toil,

Bespeak at least a stubborn soil:

Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,

Who both write well, and write full speed!

Who throw their Helicon about

As freely as a conduit spout!

Friend Robert, thus like chien savant

Lets fall a poem en passant,

Nor needs his genuine ore refine—

“Tis ready polish’d from the mine.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

a tale, founded on a fact,

 

which happened in january 1779.

 

Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream

There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme;

In subterraneous caves his life he led,

Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread.

When on a day, emerging from the deep,

A Sabbath-day (such Sabbaths thousands keep!),

The wages of his weekly toil he bore

To buy a cock—whose blood might win him more;

As if the noblest of the feather’d kind

Were but for battle and for death design’d;

As if the consecrated hours were meant

For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;

It chanced (such chances Providence obey)

He met a fellow-labourer on the way,

Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed;

But now the savage temper was reclaim’d,

Persuasion on his lips had taken place;

For all plead well who plead the cause of grace.

His iron heart with Scripture he assail’d,

Woo’d him to hear a sermon, and prevail’d.

His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,

Swift as the lightning-glimpse the arrow flew.

He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,

To find a worse than he; but none he found.

He felt his sins, and wonder’d he should feel.

Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.

Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!

He quits the sinner’s for the martyr’s prize.

<pb n=“335”/>That holy day was wash’d with many a tear,

Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.

The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine

Learn’d, by his alter’d speech, the change divine!

Laugh’d, when they should have wept, and swore the day

Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.

“No,” said the penitent, “such words shall share

This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.

Oh! if Thou seest (thine eye the future sees)

That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these;

Now strike me to the ground on which I kneel,

Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;

Now take me to that heaven I once defied,

Thy presence, thy embrace!”—He spoke, and died!

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

to the rev. mr. newton, on his return from ramsgate.

 

That ocean you have late survey’d,

Those rocks I too have seen;

But I, afflicted and dismay’d,

You, tranquil and serene.

 

You from the flood-controlling steep

Saw stretch’d before your view,

With conscious joy, the threatening deep,

No longer such to you.

 

To me the waves, that ceaseless broke

Upon the dangerous coast,

Hoarsely and ominously spoke

Of all my treasure lost.

 

Your sea of troubles you have past,

And found the peaceful shore;

I, tempest-toss’d, and wreck’d at last,

Come home to port no more.

Oct. 1780.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

love abused.

 

What is there in the vale of life

Half so delightful as a wife,

When friendship, love, and peace combine

To stamp the marriage-bond divine?

The stream of pure and genuine love

Derives its current from above;

And earth a second Eden shows,

Where’er the healing water flows:

But ah, if from the dykes and drains

Of sensual nature’s feverish veins,

Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood,

Impregnated with ooze and mud,

Descending fast on every side,

Once mingles with the sacred tide,

<pb n=“336”/>Farewell the soul-enlivening scene!

The banks that wore a smiling green,

With rank defilement overspread,

Bewail their flowery beauties dead.

The stream polluted, dark, and dull,

Diffused into a Stygian pool,

Through life’s last melancholy years

Is fed with overflowing tears:

Complaints supply the zephyr’s part,

And sighs that heave a breaking heart.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

a poetical epistle to lady austen.

 

Dear Anna,—Between friend and friend

Prose answers every common end;

Serves, in a plain and homely way,

To express the occurrence of the day;

Our health, the weather, and the news;

What walks we take, what books we choose;

And all the floating thoughts we find

Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen,

Far more alive than other men,

He feels a gentle tingling come

Down to his finger and his thumb,

Derived from nature’s noblest part,

The centre of a glowing heart:

And this is what the world, who knows

No flights above the pitch of prose,

His more sublime vagaries slighting,

Denominates an itch for writing.

No wonder I, who scribble rhyme

To catch the triflers of the time,

And tell them truths divine and clear,

Which, couch’d in prose, they will not hear;

Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching and that tingling,

With all my purpose intermingling,

To your intrinsic merit true,

When call’d to address myself to you.

Mysterious are His ways whose power

Brings forth that unexpected hour,

When minds, that never met before,

Shall meet, unite, and part no more:

It is the allotment of the skies,

The hand of the Supremely Wise,

That guides and governs our affections,

And plans and orders our connexions:

Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.

Thus we were settled when you found us,

Peasants and children all around us,

<pb n=“337”/>Not dreaming of so dear a friend,

Deep in the abyss of Silver-End.[7]

Thus Martha, e’en against her will,

Perch’d on the top of yonder hill;

And you, though you must needs prefer

The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre,[8]

Are come from distant Loire, to choose

A cottage on the banks of Ouse.

This page of Providence quite new,

And now just opening to our view,

Employs our present thoughts and pains

To guess and spell what it contains:

But day by day, and year by year,

Will make the dark enigma clear;

And furnish us, perhaps, at last,

Like other scenes already past,

With proof, that we, and our affairs,

Are part of a Jehovah’s cares;

For God unfolds by slow degrees

The purport of his deep decrees;

Sheds every hour a clearer light

In aid of our defective sight;

And spreads, at length, before the soul,

A beautiful and perfect whole,

Which busy man’s inventive brain

Toils to anticipate in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known

The beauties of a rose full blown,

Could you, though luminous your eye,

By looking on the bud descry,

Or guess with a prophetic power,

The future splendour of the flower?

Just so the Omnipotent, who turns

The system of a world’s concerns,

From mere minutiæ can educe

Events of most important use;

And bid a dawning sky display

The blaze of a meridian day.

The works of man tend, one and all,

As needs they must, from great to small;

And vanity absorbs at length

The monuments of human strength.

But who can tell how vast the plan

Which this day’s incident began?

Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion

For our dim-sighted observation;

It pass’d unnoticed, as the bird

That cleaves the yielding air unheard,

And yet may prove, when understood,

A harbinger of endless good.

<pb n=“338”/>Not that I deem, or mean to call

Friendship a blessing cheap or small:

But merely to remark, that ours,

Like some of nature’s sweetest flowers,

Rose from a seed of tiny size

That seem’d to promise no such prize;

A transient visit intervening,

And made almost without a meaning

(Hardly the effect of inclination,

Much less of pleasing expectation),

Produced a friendship, then begun,

That has cemented us in one;

And placed it in our power to prove,

By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken;

“A threefold cord is not soon broken.”

Dec. 1781.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

the colubriad.

 

Close by the threshold of a door nail’d fast

Three kittens sat; each kitten look’d aghast.

I, passing swift and inattentive by,

At the three kittens cast a careless eye;

Not much concern’d to know what they did there;

Not deeming kittens worth a poet’s care.

But presently a loud and furious hiss

Caused me to stop and to exclaim, “What’s this?”

When lo! upon the threshold met my view

With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue,

A viper long as Count de Grasse’s queue.

Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws,

Darting it full against a kitten’s nose;

Who, having never seen, in field or house,

The like, sat still and silent as a mouse;

Only projecting with attention due,

Her whisker’d face, she asked him, “Who are you?”

On to the hall went I, with pace not slow,

But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe:

With which well arm’d I hasten’d to the spot,

To find the viper, but I found him not.

And, turning up the leaves and shrubs around,

Found only that he was not to be found.

But still the kittens, sitting as before,

Sat watching close the bottom of the door.

“I hope, “ said I, “the villain I would kill

Has slipp’d between the door and the door-sill;

And if I make despatch, and follow hard,

No doubt but I shall find him in the yard:”

For long ere now it should have been rehearsed,

‘Twas in the garden that I found him first.

E’en there I found him, there the full-grown cat,

His head, with velvet paw, did gently pat;

<pb n=“339”/>As curious as the kittens erst had been

To learn what this phenomenon might mean.

Fill’d with heroic ardour at the sight,

And fearing every moment he would bite,

And rob our household of our only cat

That was of age to combat with a rat;

With outstretch’d hoe I slew him at the door,

And taught him never to come there no more.

1782.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

song.  on peace.

 

Written in the summer of 1783, at the request of Lady Austen, who gave

the sentiment.

 

Air—“My fond Shepherds of late.”

 

No longer I follow a sound;

No longer a dream I pursue;

O happiness! not to be found,

Unattainable treasure, adieu!

 

I have sought thee in splendour and dress,

In the regions of pleasure and taste;

I have sought thee, and seem’d to possess,

But have proved thee a vision at last.

 

An humble ambition and hope

The voice of true wisdom inspires;

‘Tis sufficient, if peace be the scope,

And the summit of all our desires.

 

Peace may be the lot of the mind

That seeks it in meekness and love;

But rapture and bliss are confined

To the glorified spirits above.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

song.

 

Also written at the request of Lady Austen.

 

Air—“The Lass of Peatie’s Mill.”

 

When all within is peace,

How Nature seems to smile!

Delights that never cease

The livelong day beguile.

From morn to dewy eve

With open hand she showers

Fresh blessings, to deceive

And soothe the silent hours.

 

It is content of heart

Gives Nature power to please;

The mind that feels no smart

Enlivens all it sees;

Can make a wintry sky

Seem bright as smiling May,

And evening’s closing eye

As peep of early day.

 

<pb n=“340”/>The vast majestic globe,

So beauteously array’d

In Nature’s various robe,

With wondrous skill display’d,

Is to a mourner’s heart

A dreary wild at best;

It flutters to depart,

And longs to be at rest.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

verses selected from an occasional poem entitled “valediction.”

 

O Friendship! cordial of the human breast!

So little felt, so fervently profess’d!

Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting years;

The promise of delicious fruit appears:

We hug the hopes of constancy and truth,

Such is the folly of our dreaming youth;

But soon, alas! detect the rash mistake

That sanguine inexperience loves to make;

And view with tears the expected harvest lost,

Decay’d by time, or wither’d by a frost.

Whoever undertakes a friend’s great part

Should be renew’d in nature, pure in heart,

Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove

A thousand ways the force of genuine love.

He may be call’d to give up health and gain,

To exchange content for trouble, ease for pain,

To echo sigh for sigh, and groan for groan,

And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his own.

The heart of man, for such a task too frail,

When most relied on is most sure to fail;

And, summon’d to partake its fellow’s woe,

Starts from its office like a broken bow.

Votaries of business and of pleasure prove

Faithless alike in friendship and in love.

Retired from all the circles of the gay,

And all the crowds that bustle life away,

To scenes where competition, envy, strife,

Beget no thunder-clouds to trouble life,

Let me, the charge of some good angel, find

One who has known, and has escaped mankind;

Polite, yet virtuous, who has brought away

The manners, not the morals, of the day:

With him, perhaps with her (for men have known

No firmer friendships than the fair have shown),

Let me enjoy, in some unthought-of spot,

All former friends forgiven and forgot,

Down to the close of life’s fast fading scene,

Union of hearts without a flaw between.

‘Tis grace, ‘tis bounty, and it calls for praise,

If God give health, that sunshine of our days!

And if he add, a blessing shared by few,

Content of heart, more praises still are due—

<pb n=“341”/>But if he grant a friend, that boon possess’d

Indeed is treasure, and crowns all the rest;

And giving one, whose heart is in the skies,

Born from above and made divinely wise,

He gives, what bankrupt nature never can,

Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man,

Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew,

A soul, an image of himself, and therefore true.

Nov. 1783.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

epitaph on dr. johnson.

 

Here Johnson lies—a sage by all allow’d,

Whom to have bred may well make England proud,

Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught,

The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;

Whose verse may claim—grave, masculine, and strong—

Superior praise to the mere poet’s song;

Who many a noble gift from heaven possess’d,

And faith at last, alone worth all the rest.

O man, immortal by a double prize,

By fame on earth—by glory in the skies!

Jan. 1785.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

to miss c-----, on her birthday.

 

How many between east and west

Disgrace their parent earth,

Whose deeds constrain us to detest

The day that gave them birth!

Not so when Stella’s natal morn

Revolving months restore,

We can rejoice that she was born,

And wish her born once more!

1786.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

gratitude.

 

addressed to lady hesketh.

 

This cap, that so stately appears,

With ribbon-bound tassel on high,

Which seems by the crest that it rears

Ambitious of brushing the sky:

This cap to my cousin I owe,

She gave it, and gave me beside,

Wreath’d into an elegant bow,

The ribbon with which it is tied.

 

This wheel-footed studying chair,

Contrived both for toil and repose,

Wide-elbow’d, and wadded with hair,

In which I both scribble and dose,

Bright-studded to dazzle the eyes,

And rival in lustre of that

In which, or astronomy lies,

Fair Cassiopeia sat:

 

<pb n=“342”/>These carpets so soft to the foot,

Caledonia’s traffic and pride!

Oh spare them, ye knights of the boot,

Escaped from a cross-country ride!

This table, and mirror within,

Secure from collision and dust,

At which I oft shave cheek and chin

And periwig nicely adjust:

 

This moveable structure of shelves,

For its beauty admired and its use,

And charged with octavos and twelves,

The gayest I had to produce;

Where, flaming in scarlet and gold,

My poems enchanted I view,

And hope in due time, to behold

My Iliad and Odyssey too:

 

This china, that decks the alcove,

Which here people call a buffet,

But what the gods call it above

Has ne’er been reveal’d to us yet:

These curtains that keep the room warm

Or cool, as the season demands,

Those stoves that for pattern and form

Seem the labour of Mulciber’s hands:

 

All these are not half that I owe

To one, from our earliest youth,

To me ever ready to show

Benignity, friendship, and truth;

For Time, the destroyer declared

And foe of our perishing kind,

If even her face he has spared,

Much less could he alter her mind.

 

Thus compass’d about with the goods

And chattels of leisure and ease,

I indulge my poetical moods

In many such fancies as these;

And fancies I fear they will seem—

Poets’ goods are not often so fine;

The poets will swear that I dream

When I sing of the splendour of mine.

1786.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

lines composed for a memorial of

ashley cowper, esq.

 

immediately after his death, by his nephew william of weston.

 

Farewell! endued with all that could engage

All hearts to love thee, both in youth and age!

In prime of life, for sprightliness enroll’d

Among the gay, yet virtuous as the old;

 

<pb n=“343”/>In life’s last stage (O blessings rarely found!),

Pleasant as youth with all its blossoms crown’d;

Through every period of this changeful state

Unchanged thyself—wise, good, affectionate!

 

Marble may flatter, and lest this should seem

O’ercharged with praises on so dear a theme,

Although thy worth be more than half supprest,

Love shall be satisfied, and veil the rest.

June 1788.

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

on the queen’s visit to london.

 

the night of the seventeenth of march 1789.

 

When, long sequester’d from his throne,

George took his seat again,

By right of worth, not blood alone,

Entitled here to reign,

 

Then loyalty, with all his lamps

New trimm’d, a gallant show!

Chasing the darkness and the damps,

Set London in a glow.

 

‘Twas hard to tell, of streets or squares

Which form’d the chief display,

These most resembling cluster’d stars,

Those the long milky way.

 

Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,

And rockets flew, self-driven,

To hang their momentary fires

Amid the vault of heaven.

 

So, fire with water to compare,

The ocean serves, on high

Up-spouted by a whale in air,

To express unwieldy joy.

 

Had all the pageants of the world

In one procession join’d,

And all the banners been unfurl’d

That heralds e’er design’d,

 

For no such sight had England’s queen

Forsaken her retreat,

Where George, recover’d, made a scene

Sweet always, doubly sweet.

 

Yet glad she came that night to prove,

A witness undescried,

How much the object of her love

Was loved by all beside.

 

Darkness the skies had mantled o’er

In aid of her design—

Darkness, O Queen! ne’er called before

To veil a deed of thine!

 

<pb n=“344”/>On borrow’d wheels away she flies,

Resolved to be unknown,

And gratify no curious eyes

That night except her own.

 

Arrived, a night like noon she sees,

And hears the million hum;

As all by instinct, like the bees,

Had known their sovereign come.

 

Pleased she beheld, aloft portray’d

On many a splendid wall,

Emblems of health and heavenly aid,

And George the theme of all.

 

Unlike the enigmatic line,

So difficult to spell,

Which shook Belshazzar at his wine

The night his city fell.

 

Soon watery grew her eyes and dim,

But with a joyful tear,

None else, except in prayer for him,

George ever drew from her.

 

It was a scene in every part

Like those in fable feign’d,

And seem’d by some magician’s art

Created and sustain’d.

 

But other magic there, she knew,

Had been exerted none,

To raise such wonders in her view,

Save love of George alone.

 

That cordial thought her spirit cheer’d,

And, through the cumbrous throng,

Not else unworthy to be fear’d,

Convey’d her calm along.

 

So, ancient poets say, serene

The sea-maid rides the waves,

And fearless of the billowy scene,

Her peaceful bosom laves.

 

With more than astronomic eyes

She view’d the sparkling show;

One Georgian star adorns the skies,

She myriads found below.

 

Yet let the glories of a night

Like that, once seen, suffice,

Heaven grant us no such future sight,

Such previous woe the price!

­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

 

<pb n=“345”/>the cock-fighter’s garland.[9]

 

Muse—hide his name of whom I sing,

Lest his surviving house thou bring

For his sake into scorn,

Nor speak the school from which he drew

The much or little that he knew,

Nor place where he was born.

 

That such a man once was, may seem

Worthy of record (if the theme

Perchance may credit win)

For proof to man, what man may prove,

If grace depart, and demons move

The source of guilt within.

 

This man (for since the howling wild

Disclaims him, man he must be styled)

Wanted no good below,

Gentle he was, if gentle birth

Could make him such, and he had worth,

If wealth can worth bestow.

 

In social talk and ready jest,

He shone superior at the feast,

And qualities of mind,

Illustrious in the eyes of those

Whose gay society he chose,

Possess’d of every kind.

 

Methinks I see him powder’d red,