3 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?
4 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 sayFarewell! we meet no more?
1 WEAK and irresolute is man ;
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.
2 The bow well bent, and smart the spring,
Vice seems already slain;
But Passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.
3 Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part;
Virtue engages his assent,
But Pleasure wins his heart.
4 '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.
5 Bound on a voyage of awful length
And dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.
6 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.
1 REBELLION is my theme all day;
I only wish 'twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may ?)
A little nearer home.
2 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.
3 When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
4 But oh! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flowers she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about your ears.
5 Such civil broils are my delight,
Though some folks can't endure 'em,
Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure 'em.
6 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.
REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE
NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.
1 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.
2 So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learni
While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
3 In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,
And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly fir That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind.
4 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 a saddle.
5 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?
6 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.
7 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.
8 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!
BURNING OF LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY,
TOGETHER WITH HIS MSS. BY THE MOB, IN THE MONTH
OF JUNE 1780.
1 So then the Vandals of our isle,
Sworn foes to sense and law,
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman saw!
2 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.
3 Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn, The loss was his alone;
But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own.
1 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.
2 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.
3 There Memory, like the bee that's fed
From Flora's balmy store,
The quintessence of all he read
Had treasured up before.
4 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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