Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe

That symbol of thy power, the pipe;
So may no blight infest thy plains,
And no unseasonable rains;

And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore;

And thou, secure from all alarms,

Of thundering drums and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,
And fumigation never cease.

May Newton with renew'd delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,

While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.

EPITAPH ON MRS. M. HIGGINS,

OF WESTON.

LAURELS may flourish round the conqueror's tomb,

But happiest they who win the world to come: Believers have a silent field to fight,

And their exploits are veil'd from human sight. They in some nook, where little known they

dwell,

Kneel, pray in faith, and rout the hosts of hell;
Eternal triumphs crown their toils divine,
And all those triumphs, Mary, now are thine.

1791.

SONNET TO A YOUNG LADY ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

DEEM not, sweet rose, that bloom'st 'midst many a thorn,

Thy friend, tho' to a cloister's shade consign'd,
Can e'er forget the charms he left behind,
Or pass unheeded this auspicious morn!
In happier days to brighter prospects born,
O tell thy thoughtless sex, the virtuous mind,
Like thee, content in every state may find,
And look on Folly's pageantry with scorn.
To steer with nicest art betwixt th' extreme
Of idle mirth, and affectation coy;
To blend good sense with elegance and ease;
To bid Affliction's eye no longer stream;
Is thine; best gift, the unfailing source of joy,
The guide to pleasures which can never cease!

ON A MISTAKE IN HIS TRANSLATION OF HOMER.

COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse,

If, bound in rhyming tethers,

He had committed this abuse

Of changing ewes for wethers;*

* I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas, which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.-Letter to Joseph Hill, Esq., dated April 15, 1792.

But, male for female is a trope,
Or rather bold misnomer,

That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.

ON THE BENEFIT RECEIVED BY HIS MAJESTY, FROM SEA-BATHING IN THE YEAR 1789.

O SOVEREIGN of an isle renown'd

For undisputed sway,

Wherever o'er yon gulf profound
Her navies wing their way.

With juster claims she builds at length
Her empire on the sea,

And well may boast the waves her strength,
Which strength restored to thee.

ADDRESSED TO MISS

ON READING

THE PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE.*

AND dwells there in a female heart,

By bounteous Heaven design'd,

The choicest raptures to impart,

To feel the most refined

Dwells there a wish in such a breast

Its nature to forego,

To smother in ignoble rest

At once both bliss and woe!

Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,

*For Mrs. Greville's Ode, see Annual Register, vol. v. p. 202.

How sweet so'er the verse complain,
Though Phoebus string the lyre.

Come, then, fair maid, (in nature wise,)
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell:

In justice to the various powers
Of pleasing, which you share,
Join me, amid your silent hours,
To form the better prayer.

With lenient balm my Oberon hence
To fairy land be driven,

With every herb that blunts the sense
Mankind received from heaven.

Oh! if my sovereign Author please,
Far be it from my fate

To live unbless'd in torpid ease,
And slumber on in state;

"Each tender tie of life defied,

Whence social pleasures spring,
Unmoved with all the world beside,
A solitary thing”

Some Alpine mountain, wrapt in snow,
Thus braves the whirling blast,
Eternal winter doom'd to know,
No genial spring to taste.

In vain warm suns their influence shed,
The zephyrs sport in vain,

He rears unchanged his barren head,
Whilst beauty decks the plain.

What though in scaly armor dress'd,
Indifference may repel

The shafts of wo-in such a breast
No joy can ever dwell.

'Tis woven in the world's great plan,
And fix'd by heaven's decree,
That all the true delights of man
Should spring from sympathy.

'Tis nature bids, and whilst the laws
Of nature we retain,
Our self-approving bosom draws
A pleasure from its pain.

Thus grief itself has comforts dear

The sordid never know;

And ecstacy attends the tear

When virtue bids it flow.

For, when it streams from that pure source,
No bribes the heart can win

To check, or alter from its course,
The luxury within.

Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves,
Who, if from labor eased,
Extend no care beyond themselves,
Unpleasing and unpleased.

Let no low thought suggest the prayer,
Oh! grant, kind Heaven, to me,
Long as I draw ethereal air,

Sweet Sensibility!

Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen,

With lustre-beaming eye,