Sing'st thou, sweet Philomel, to me, For that I also long
Have practised in the groves like thee, Though not like thee in song?
Or sing'st thou rather under force Of some divine command, Commission'd to presage a course Of happier days at hand?
Thrice welcome then! for many a long And joyless year have I, As thou to-day, put forth my song Beneath a wintry sky.
But Thee no wintry skies can harm,
Who only need'st to sing,
To make even January charm,
And every season Spring.
WRITTEN FOR INSERTION IN A COLLECTION OF HANDWRITINGS AND SIGNATURES MADE BY MISS PATTY, SISTER OF HANnah more.
IN vain to live from age to age
While modern bards endeavour, I write my name in Patty's page, And gain my point for ever.
ON A FREE BUT TAME REDBREAST, A FAVOURITE OF MISS SALLY HURDIS.
THESE are not dew-drops, these are tears,
And tears by Sally shed
For absent Robin, who she fears
With too much cause, is dead.
One morn he came not to her hand As he was wont to come,
And, on her finger perch'd, to stand Picking his breakfast-crumb. Alarm'd she call'd him, and perplext She sought him, but in vain; That day he came not, nor the next, Nor ever came again.
She therefore raised him here a tomb, Though where he fell, or how, None knows, so secret was his doom, Nor where he moulders now.
Had half a score of coxcombs died, In social Robin's stead,
Poor Sally's tears had soon been dried, Or haply never shed.
But Bob was neither rudely bold
Nor spiritlessly tame,
Nor was, like theirs, his bosom cold,
But always in a flame.
SONNET TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. APRIL 16, 1792.
THY Country, Wilberforce, with just disdain, Hears thee by cruel men and impious call'd Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the enthrall'd From exile, public sale, and slavery's chain. Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd, Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain.
Thou hast achieved a part; hast gain'd the ear Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause;
Hope smiles, joy springs, and though cold caution pause And weave delay, the better hour is near That shall remunerate thy toils severe By peace for Afric, fenced with British laws. Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love From all the just on earth, and all the blest above.
(PRINTED IN THE NORTHAMPTON MERCURY.)
To purify their wine some people bleed A lamb into the barrel, and succeed; No nostrum, planters say, is half so good To make fine sugar, as a negro's blood. Now lambs and negroes both are harmless things, And thence perhaps this wondrous virtue springs. 'Tis in the blood of innocence alone- Good cause why planters never try their own.
TO DR AUSTIN,
OF CECIL STREET, LONDON.
AUSTIN! accept a grateful verse from me, The poet's treasure, no inglorious fee. Loved by the Muses, thy ingenuous mind Pleasing requital in my verse may find; Verse oft has dash'd the scythe of Time aside, Immortalizing names which else had died. And oh! could I command the glittering wealth With which sick kings are glad to purchase health; Yet, if extensive fame, and sure to live,
Were in the power of verse like mine to give, I would not recompense his art with less,
Who, giving Mary health, heals my distress.
Friend of my friend'! I love thee, though unknown, And boldly call thee, being his, my own.
HAYLEY, thy tenderness fraternal shown In our first interview, delightful guest! To Mary and me for her dear sake distress'd, Such as it is has made my heart thy own,
Though heedless now of new engagements grown; For threescore winters make a wintry breast, And I had purposed ne'er to go in quest Of Friendship more, except with God alone. But Thou hast won me; nor is God my foe, Who, ere this last afflictive scene began,
Sent Thee to mitigate the dreadful blow, My brother, by whose sympathy I know Thy true deserts infallibly to scan,
Not more to admire the Bard than love the Man,
MARY AND JOHN.
IF John marries Mary, and Mary alone,
'Tis a very good match between Mary and John. Should John wed a score, Oh, the claws and the scratches! It can't be a match :-'tis a bundle of matches.
TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
DEAE President, whose art sublime Gives perpetuity to time,
And bids transactions of a day, That fleeting hours would waft away To dark futurity, survive, And in unfading beauty live,- You cannot with a grace decline A special mandate of the Nine, Yourself, whatever task you choose, So much indebted to the Muse.
Thus say the sisterhood:-We come ; Fix well your pallet on your thumb, Prepare the pencil and the tints, We come to furnish you with hints. French disappointment, British glory, Must be the subject of the story.
First strike a curve, a graceful bow, Then slope it to a point below; Your outline easy, airy, light, Fill'd up becomes a paper kite.
Let independence, sanguine, horrid, Blaze like a meteor in the forehead: Beneath (but lay aside your graces) Draw six-and-twenty rueful faces, Each with a staring, steadfast eye, Fix'd on his great and good ally. France flies the kite-'tis on the wing- Britannia's lightning cuts the string. The wind that raised it, ere it ceases, Just rends it into thirteen pieces, Takes charge of every fluttering sheet, And lays them all at George's feet. Iberia, trembling from afar, Renounces the confederate war; Her efforts and her arts o'ercome, France calls her shatter'd navies home; Repenting Holland learns to mourn The sacred treaties she has torn ; Astonishment and awe profound Are stamp'd upon the nations round; Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.
AUTHOR OF LETTERS ON LITERATURE1.
THE genius of the Augustan age
His head among Rome's ruins rear'd,
And bursting with heroic rage,
When literary Heron appear'd,
Thou hast, he cried, like him of old Who set the Ephesian dome on fire,
By being scandalously bold,
Attain'd the mark of thy desire. And for traducing Virgil's name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame,
That rots, and stinks, and is abhorr'd.
1 Nominally by Robert Heron, but written by John Pinkerton. 8vo. 1785.
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