AN ATTEMPT AT THE MANNER OF WALLER.
DID not thy reason and thy sense,
With most persuasive eloquence,
Convince me that obedience due
None may so justly claim as you,
By right of beauty you would be
Mistress o'er my heart and me.
Then fear not I should e'er rebel,
My gentle love! I might as well
A forward peevishness put on,
And quarrel with the mid-day sun;
Or question who gave him a right
To be so fiery and so bright.
Nay, this were less absurd and vain
Than disobedience to thy reign;
His beams are often too severe ;
But thou art mild, as thou art fair;
First from necessity we own your sway,
Then scorn our freedom, and by choice obey.
THE sparkling eye, the mantling cheek,
The polish'd front, the snowy neck,
How seldom we behold in one!
Glossy locks, and brow serene,
Venus' smiles, Diana's mien,
All meet in you, and you alone.
Beauty, like other powers, maintains
Her empire, and by union reigns;
Each single feature faintly warms :
But where at once we view display'd
Unblemish'd grace, the perfect maid
Our eyes, our ears, our heart alarms.
So when on earth the god of day
Obliquely sheds his temper'd ray,
Through convex orbs the beams transmit,
The beams that gently warm'd before,
Collected, gently warm no more,
But glow with more prevailing heat.
On the green margin of the brook
Despairing Phyllida reclined,
Whilst every sigh, and every look,
Declared the anguish of her mind.
Am I less lovely then? (she cries,
And in the waves her form survey'd ;)
Oh yes, I see my languid eyes,
My faded cheek, my colour fled:
These eyes no more like lightning pierced,
These cheeks grew pale, when Damon first
His Phillida betray'd.
The rose he in his bosom wore,
How oft upon my breast was seen!
And when I kiss'd the drooping flower,
Behold, he cried, it blooms again!
The wreaths that bound my braided hair,
Himself next day was proud to wear
At church, or on the green.
While thus sad Phyllida lamented,
Chance brought unlucky Thyrsis on;
Unwillingly the nymph consented,
But Damon first the cheat begun.
She wiped the fallen tears away,
Then sigh'd and blush'd, as who should say Ah! Thyrsis, I am won.
UPON A VENERABLE RIVAL.
FULL thirty frosts since thou wert young
Have chill'd the withered grove,
Thou wretch! and hast thou lived so long,
Nor yet forgot to love?
Ye Sages! spite of your pretences
To wisdom, you must own
Your folly frequently commences
When you acknowledge none.
Not that I deem it weak to love,
Or folly to admire ;
But ah! the pangs we lovers prove
Far other years require.
Unheeded on the youthful brow
The beams of Phoebus play;
But unsupported Age stoops low
Beneath the sultry ray.
For once, then, if untutor'd youth,
Youth unapproved by years,
May chance to deviate into truth,
When your experience errs;
For once attempt not to despise
What I esteem a rule:
Who early loves, though young, is wise,-
Who old, though grey, a fool.
ON THE PICTURE OF A SLEEPING CHILD.
FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE.
SWEET babe, whose image here express'd
Does thy peaceful slumbers show;
Guilt or fear, to break thy rest,
Never did thy spirit know.
Soothing slumbers, soft repose,
Such as mock the painter's skill,
Such as innocence bestows,
Harmless infant, lull thee still!
MORTALS! around your destined heads
Thick fly the shafts of Death,
And lo! the savage spoiler spreads
A thousand toils beneath.
In vain we trifle with our fate,
Try every art in vain ;
At best we but prolong the date,
And lengthen out our pain.
Fondly we think all danger fled,
For Death is ever nigh;
Outstrips our unavailing speed,
Or meets us as we fly.
Thus the wreck'd mariner may strive
Some desert shore to gain,
Secure of life, if he survive
The fury of the main.
But there, to famine doom'd a prey,
Finds the mistaken wretch
He but escaped the troubled sea,
To perish on the beach.
Since then in vain we strive to guard
Our frailty from the foe,
Lord, let me live not unprepared
To meet the fatal blow!
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;
Nor 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 presume 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:
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 pitch-kettled;1
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;
1 Pitch-kettled, a favourite phrase at the time when this Epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what in the Spectator's time would have been called bamboozled.
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