A NEW SONG TO A TUNE NEVER SUNG BEFORE.

I SING of a journey to Clifton,*

We would have perform'd if we could,

* Clifton Reynes, of which church Lady Austen's brother-in-law was incumbent.

Without cart or barrow to lift on

Poor Mary* and me through the mud.
Slee sla slud,

Stuck in the mud.

Oh it is pretty to wade through a flood!

2.

So away we went, slipping and sliding,
Hop, hop, à la mode de deux frogs,
'Tis near as good walking as riding,
When ladies are dress'd in their clogs.
Wheels, no doubt,

Go briskly about,

But they clatter and rattle, and make such a rout!

3. SHE.

"Well! now I protest it is charming;
How finely the weather improves !
That cloud, though 'tis rather alarming,
How slowly and stately it moves!"

HE.

"Pshaw! never mind,

"Tis not in the wind,

We are travelling south, and shall leave it behind."

4. SHE.

"I am glad we are come for an airing,
For folks may be pounded and penn'd,

Until they grow rusty, not caring

To stir half-a-mile to an end."

HE.

"The longer we stay,

The longer we may;

It's a folly to think about weather or way."

5.

SHE.

"But now I begin to be frighted;
If I fall, what a way I should roll !
I am glad that the bridge was indicted,-
Stay! stop! I am sunk in a hole!”

* Mrs. Unwin.

HE.

"Nay, never care!

'Tis a common affair;

You'll not be the last that will set a foot there."

6.

SHE.

"Let me breathe now a little, and ponder

On what it were better to do;

That terrible lane I see yonder,

I think we shall never get through."

HE.

"So think I:

But, by the by,

We never shall know, if we never should try."

7.

SHE.

"But should we get there, how shall we get home?
What a terrible deal of bad road we have past!
Slipping and sliding; and if we should come
To a difficult stile, I am ruin'd at last!

O this lane:

Now it is plain

That struggling and striving is labour in vain."

"I have examined it every nook,

And what you see here is a sample of all.
Come, wheel round,

The dirt we have found

Would be an estate at a farthing a pound."

9.

Now, sister Anne,* the guitar you must take,
Set it, and sing it, and make it a song;

*Lady Austen.

I have varied the verse for variety's sake,
And cut it off short-because it was long.
"Tis hobbling and lame,

Which critics wont blame,

For the sense and the sound, they say, should be the same.

THE ROSE.
1783.

THE rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower,
Which Mary to Anna conveyed ;*

The plentiful moisture encumber'd the flower,

And weigh'd down its beautiful head.

The cup was all fill'd, and the leaves were all wet,

And it seem'd, to a fanciful view,

To weep for the buds it had left with regret
On the flourishing bush where it grew.

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was

For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd,
And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas!
I snapp'd it, it fell to the ground.

"And such," I exclaim'd, " is the pitiless part
Some act by the delicate mind,

Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart
Already to sorrow resign'd.

“This elegant rose, had I shaken it less,

Might have bloom'd with its owner awhile;
And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile."

THE VALEDICTION.+

FAREWELL, false hearts; whose best affections fail
Like shallow brooks which summer suns exhale!
Forgetful of the man whom once ye chose,
Cold in his cause, and careless of his woes;

I bid you both a long and last adieu!

Cold in my turn, and unconcern'd like you.

* "Mary" was Mrs. Unwin; "Anna," Lady Austen.

These lines were written in a fit of indignation, because neither Lord Thurlow nor Colman had acknowledged the receipt of his first volume of poems.

"Black

First farewell Niger!* whom, now duly proved,
I disregard as much as I have loved.

Your brain well furnish'd, and your tongue well taught
To press with energy your ardent thought,
Your senatorial dignity of face,

Sound sense, intrepid spirit, manly grace,
Have raised you high as talents can ascend,
Made you a peer, but spoilt you for a friend!
Pretend to all that parts have e'er acquired;
Be great, be fear'd, be envied, be admired;
To fame as lasting as the earth pretend,
But not hereafter to the name of friend!
I sent you verse, and, as your lordship knows,
Back'd with a modest sheet of humble prose;
Not to recall a promise to your mind,
Fulfill'd with ease had you been so inclined,
But to comply with feelings, and to give
Proof of an old affection still alive.

Your sullen silence serves at least to tell
Your alter'd heart: and so, my lord, farewell!
Next, busy actor on a meaner stage,†
Amusement-monger of a trifling age,
Illustrious histrionic patentee,

Terentius, once my friend, farewell to thee!
In thee some virtuous qualities combine,
To fit thee for a nobler part than thine,
Who, born a gentleman, hast stoop'd too low,
To live by buskin, sock, and raree-show.
Thy schoolfellow, and partner of thy plays,

When Nichols§ swung the birch and twined the bays,
And having known thee bearded and full grown,
The weekly censor of a laughing town,||

I thought the volume I presumed to send,
Graced with the name of a long-absent friend,
Might prove a welcome gift, and touch thine heart,
Not hard by nature, in a feeling part.
But thou, it seems (what cannot grandeur do,
Though but a dream !) art grown disdainful too;
And strutting in thy school of queens and kings,
Who fret their hour and are forgotten things,
Hast caught the cold distemper of the day,
And, like his lordship, cast thy friend away.
O Friendship! cordial of the human breast!
So little felt, so fervently profess'd!

"Lord Thurlow. + Colman, proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre.
Alluding to Colman s translation of Terence.

§ The master of Westminster school when Cowper was there.

In the Connoisseur.