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EPIGRAM.

FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIERES.

IF, for silver or for gold,

You could melt ten thousand pimples
Into half a dozen dimples,
Then your face we might behold,

Looking, doubtless, much more snugly;
Yet even then 'twould be d-d ugly.

STANZAS.

COULD Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain-

No other pleasure

With this could measure ;
And like a treasure

We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, form'd for flying,

Love plumes his wing;

Then for this reason

Let's love a season;

But let that season be only Spring.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;

A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When link'd together,
In every weather,
They pluck Love's feather

From out his wing

He'll stay for ever,

But sadly shiver

Without his plumage, when past the Spring.

Like chiefs of Faction,

His life is action

A formal paction

That curbs his reign,

Obscures his glory,
Despot no more, he
Such territory

Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,

He must move on-
Repose but cloys him,
Retreat destroys him,

Love brooks not a degraded throne.

Wait not, fond lover!

Till years are over,
And then recover

As from a dream.

While each bewailing
The other's failing,
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem-
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing

All passion blight:
If once diminish'd,
Love's reign is finish'd-

Then part in friendship-and bid good-night.

So shall Affection.
To recollection
The dear connexion

Bring back with joy :
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces-
The same fond faces

As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors

Of your sweet errors,

Reflect but rapture-not least though last.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;
What desperations

From such have risen!

But yet remaining,

What is't but chaining

Hearts which, once waning,

Beat 'gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys-
You'll find it torture,
Though sharper, shorter,

To wean, and not wear out your joys.

ON MY WEDDING-DAY.

HERE'S a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say-
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day.
January 2, 1820.

EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM PITT.

WITH death doom'd to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he

Who lied in the Chapel

Now lies in the Abbey.

EPIGRAM.

IN digging up your bones, Tom Paine, Will. Cobbett has done well:

8

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THE CHARITY BALL.

WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father,

If his sorrows in exile be great or be small, So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather, And the saint patronizes her 'charity ball!'

What matters-a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY.
JANUARY 22, 1821.

THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing-except thirty-three.

MARTIAL, LIB. I., EPIG. I. Hic est, quem legis, ille, quem requiris, Tota notus in orbe Martialis,' &c. HE unto whom thou art so partial, Oh, reader! is the well-known Martial, The Epigrammatist while living, Give him the fame thou wouldst be giving; So shall he hear, and feel, and know it-Post-obits rarely reach a poet.

BOWLES AND CAMPBELL. To the tune of 'Why, how now, saucy jade?' WHY, how now, saucy Tom? If you thus must ramble,

I will publish some

Remarks on Mister Campbell.

ANSWER.

WHY, how now, Billy Bowles?
Sure the priest is maudlin! [souls!
(To the public) How can you, d--n your
Listen to his twaddling?

EPIGRAMS.

On Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now; Cato died for his country, so didst thou: He perish'd rather than see Rome enslaved, Be driven to excesses which once could appal-Thou cutt'st thy throat that Britain may be

That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,

As the saint keeps her charity back for the ball!'

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saved!

So Castlereagh has cut his throat !-The worst Of this is, that his own was not the first.

So He has cut his throat at last!-He! Who? The man who cut his country's long ago.

EPITAPH.

POSTERITY will ne'er survey

A nobler grave than this: Here lie the bones of Castlereagh : Stop, traveller

JOHN KEATS. WHO kill'd John Keats? 'I,' says the Quarterly, So savage and Tartarly; ''Twas one of my feats.' Who shot the arrow?

'The poet-priest Milman (So ready to kill man), 'Or Southey, or Barrow.'

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[partTo perform in the pageant the sovereign's But long live the shamrock, which shadows him o'er ! heart! Could the green in his hat be transferr'd to his Could that long-wither'd spot but be verdant again,

thy chain,

And a new spring of noble affections arise-Then might freedom forgive thee this dance in [the skies. And this shout of thy slavery which saddens Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now? [clay, Were he God-as he is but the commonest With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow

Such servile devotion might shame him away. Ay, roar in his train! let thine orators lash

Their fanciful spirits to pamper his prideNot thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash

His soul o'er the freedom implored and

denied.

Ever glorious Grattan ! the best of the good! So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest! With all which Demosthenes wanted endued, And his rival or victor in all he possess'd.

Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome, [gunThough unequall'd, preceded, the task was be But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the one! With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute; With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind;

Even Tyranny listening sate melted or mute, And Corruption shrunk scorch'd from the glance of his mind.

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mite!

Ay! Build him a dwelling!' let each give his [arisen! Till, like Babel, the new royal dome hath Let thy beggars and helots their pittance uniteAnd a palace bestow for a poor-house and prison !

Spread-spread, for Vitellius, the royal repast, Till the gluttonous despot be stuffd to the gorge!

[last And the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at The fourth of the fools and oppressors call'd 'George !'

Let the tables be loaded with feasts till they groan!

If she did-let her long-boasted proverb be hush'd,

low

Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can
spring-
[flush'd,
See the cold-blooded serpent, with venom full
Still warming its folds in the breast of a king!
Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how
[till
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny,
Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below
The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still!
My voice, though but humble, was raised for
thy right,

This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy
My vote, as a freeman's, still voted thee free,
fight,
[still for thee!

And this heart, though outworn, had a throb

Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not
my land,
[thy sons,

I have known noble hearts and great souls in
And I wept with the world, o'er the patriot band
Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as

once.

For happy are they now reposing afar,

Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent [fall.

war,

And redeem'd, if they have not retarded, thy Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves! Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of today

[slaves Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing Be stamp'd in the turf o'er their fetterless clay. Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore, Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled; [core There was something so warm and sublime in the Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy-thy dead. if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour My contempt for a nation so servile, though [upon power, Which though trod like the worm will not turn 'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore! September, 1821.

Till they groan like thy people, through ages of woe! [throne, Let the wine flow around the old Bacchanal's Like their blood which has flow'd and which Or, yet has to flow.

But let not his name be thine idol alone

On his right hand behold a Sejanus appears! Thine own Castlereagh! let him still be thine [jeers!

own!

A wretch never named but with curses and Till now, when the isle which should blush for his birth, [soil, Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her Seeins proud of the reptile which crawl'd from her earth, [smile. And for murder repays him with shouts and a

sore,

STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD
BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.
OH, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.
What are garlands and crowns to the brow that
is wrinkled?
[sprinkled.

Without one single ray of her genius, without
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her race-Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew be-
The miscreant who well might plunge Erin in Then away with all such from the head that is

doubt

If she ever gave birth to a being so base.

hoary!

[glory!

What care I for the wreaths that can only give

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STANZAS TO A HINDOO AIR.
OH! my lonely--lonely-lonely-Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far-far away! and alone along the billow?
Oh! my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow
lay?

How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!
Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from
breaking,

In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;| Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.

Then if thou wilt-no more my lonely Pillow, In one embrace let these arms again enfold him, And then expire of the joy-but to behold him! Oh! my lone bosom !-oh! my lonely Pillow!

IMPROMPTU.

BENEATH Blessington's eyes
The reclaim'd Paradise

Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve

For an apple should grieve, What mortal would not play the Devil?

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.
You have ask'd for a verse :-the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny ;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.
Were I now as I was, I had sung

What Laurence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.

I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead ;
What I loved I now merely admire,

And my heart is as grey as my head.

My life is not dated by years

There are moments which act as a plough;|

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STANZAS FOR MUSIC.
BRIGHT be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,

In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,

As thy soul shall immortally be; And our sorrow may cease to repine When we know that thy God is with thee. Light be the turf of thy tomb!

May its verdure like emeralds be! There should not be the shadow of gloom In aught that reminds us of thee. Young flowers and an evergreen tree May spring from the spot of thy rest; But nor cypress nor yew let us see; For why should we mourn for the blest?

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY
THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR.

MISSOLONGHI, Jan. 22, 1824.
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move :
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle ;.
No torch is kindled at its blaze-
A funeral pile.

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