(Sworn foes to everything that's witty,) That, with a black infernal train, Then there's another reason yet, (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. 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. That useful thing, her needle, gone, O'er hedge and ditch, through gaps and mews, And after many a vain essay Flits out of sight and mocks his pains, The sense was dark, 'twas therefore fit ease Each man of common sense agrees; All men of common sense allow, That Robert's lines are easy too; Where then the preference shall we place, Or how do justice in this case? An't please your ladyship (quoth I,— Who throw their Helicon about * A slang word for puzzled. THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. MORTALS! around your destined heads In vain we trifle with our fate; At best we but prolong the date, Fondly we think all danger fled, Thus the wreck'd mariner may strive The fury of the main. But there, to famine doom'd a prey Since then in vain we strive to guard Lord, let me live not unprepared A COMPARISON. THE lapse of time and rivers is the same, No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay; And a wide ocean swallows both at last. Though each resemble each in every part, A difference strikes at length the musing heart; Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound How laughs the land with various plenty crowned! But time, that should enrich the nobler mind, Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind. THE STREAM. ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. SWEET stream, that winds through yonder glade, A SONG. THE sparkling eye, the mantling cheek, All meet in you, and you alone. Beauty, like other powers, maintains Each single feature faintly warms: Our eyes, our ears, our heart alarms. So when on earth the god of day Through convex orbs the beams transmit, But glow with more prevailing heat. SONG. No more shall hapless Celia's ears No serenade to break her rest, Nor songs her slumbers to molest, With my fa, la, la. The fragrant flowers that once would bloom Since she no longer breathes perfume Their odours to repair, Must fade, alas! and wither now, As placed on any common brow, With my fa, la, la. Her lip, so winning and so meek, As well she might by whistling seek As her forsaken gums may show, With my fa, la, la. The down that on her chin so smooth That, too, has left her with her youth, As fields, so green when newly sown, With my fa, la, la. Then, Celia, leave your apish tricks, Those joys that suit your years; No patches can lost youth recall, Nor whitewash prop a tumbling wall, A SONG. On the green margin of the brook "Am I less lovely then? (she cries, Oh My faded cheek, my colour fled: These eyes no more like lightning pierced, 23 "The rose he in his bosom wore, How oft upon my breast was seen! While thus sad Phyllida lamented, Then sighed and blushed, as who should say, ADDRESS TO MISS MACARTNEY, 66 AFTERWARDS MRS. GREVILLE, ON READING HER PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE." 1762. AND dwells there in a female heart, | With lenient balm may Oberon hence By bounteous Heaven design'd The choicest raptures to impart, To feel the most refined; To fairy-land be driven, With every herb that blunts the sense Dwells there a wish in such a breast "Oh, if my Sovereign Author please, 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, How sweet soe'er the verse complain, Though Phoebus string the lyre. Come then, fair maid, (in nature wise,) Who, knowing them, can tell In justice to the various powers Far be it from my fate, "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 doomed to know, No genial spring to taste; In vain warm suns their influence The zephyrs sport in vain, * The prayer was addressed to Oberon, King of the Fairies. |