TO MISS CREUZÉ, ON HER BIRTHDAY.

How many between east and west
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!

Not so when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more!

GRATITUDE.

ADDRESSED TO LADY HESKETH.

THIS cap that so stately appears,
With ribbon-bound tassel on high,
Which seems by the crest that it

rears

Ambitious of brushing the sky: This сар to my cousin I owe,

She gave it, and gave me beside, Wreathed into an elegant bow,

The ribbon with which it is tied.

This wheel-footed studying chair,
Contrived both for toil and repose
Wide-elbow'd, and wadded with hair,

In which I both scribble and dose,
Bright-studded to dazzle the eyes,
And rival in lustre of that
In which, or astronomy lies,
Fair Cassiopeia sat!

These carpets, so soft to the foot,

Caledonia's traffic and pride,
Oh spare them, ye knights of the boot,
Escaped from the cross-country
ride!

This table and mirror within,

Secure from collision and dust,
At which I oft shave cheek and chin,
And periwig nicely adjust:

This moveable structure of shelves,
For its beauty admired and its use,
And charged with cctavos and
twelves,

The gayest I had to produce;

Where, flaming in scarlet and gold,
My poems enchanted I view,
And hope, in due time, to behold
My Iliad and Odyssey too:

This china, that decks the alcove,
Which here people call a buffet,
But what the gods call it above,

Has ne'er been revealed to us yet:
These curtains that keep the room

warm

Or cool, as the season demands, Those stoves that for pattern and form Seem the labour of Mulciber's hands:

All these are not half that I owe

To One, from our earliest youth To me ever ready to shew

Benignity, friendship, and truth; For time, the destroyer declared

And foe of our perishing kind, If even her face he has spared,

Much less could he alter her mind.

Thus compass'd about with the goods
And chattels of leisure and ease,
I indulge my poetical moods
In many
such fancies as these;
And fancies I fear they will seem-

Poet's goods are not often so fine;
The poets will swear that I dream,
When I sing of the splendour of
minę,

STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF
ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON, ANNO DOMINI 1787.*

Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.

Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

HORACE.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly | The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, I pass'd,--and they were gone.

run

The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more
frail

Than in foregoing years?
Did famine or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears ?
No; these were vigorous as their sires,

Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waives his claim.
Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are mark'd to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.
Green as the bay tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

Read, ye
that run, the awful truth
A worm is in the bud of youth,
With which I charge my page!
And at the root of age.

No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh! that humble as my lot,
And scorn'd as is my strain,
These truths, though known, too
much forgot,

I may not teach in vain.
Soprays your Clerk with all his heart,
And ere he quits the pen,
Begs you for once to take his part,
And answer all-Amen!

* In the following extract, from a letter of the poet's to Lady Hesketh, Cowper explains how he came to write on such a subject. "On Monday morning last, Sam brought me word that there was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. I ordered him in. A plain, decent, elderly figure made its appearance, and, being desired to sit, spoke as follows: Sir, I am clerk of the parish of All Saints, in Northampton; brother of Mr. C. [Cox,] the upholsterer. It is customary for the person in my office to annex to a bill of mortality, which he publishes at Christmas, a copy of verses. You will do me a great favour, sir, if you will furnish me with one.' To this I replied, Mr. C., you have several men of genius in your town, why have you not applied to some of them? There is a namesake of yours in particular, C―, the statuary, who, everybody knows, is a first-rate maker of verses. He surely is the man of all the world for your purpose.' 'Alas! sir, I have heretofore borrowed help of him, but he is a gentleman of so much reading that the people of our town cannot understand him.' I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the force of the compliment implied in this speech, and was almost ready to answer, 'Perhaps, my good friend, they may find me unintelligible too for the same reason.' But, on asking him whether he had walked over to Weston on purpose to implore the assistance of my muse, and on his replying in the affirmative, I felt my mortified vanity a little consoled, and, pitying the poor man's distress, which appeared to be considerable, promised to supply him. The waggon has accordingly gone this day to Northampton loaded in part with my effusions in the martuary style. A fig for poets who write epitaphs on individuals! I have written one that serves two hundred persons."

D D

COULD I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,
As I can number in my punctual page,
And item down the victims of the past;

How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet On which the press might stamp him next to die; And, reading here his sentence, how replete

With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye!
Time then would seem more precious than the joys
In which he sports away the treasure now;
And prayer more seasonable than the noise
Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.

Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink
Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore,
Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say
Who next is fated, and who next to fall,
The rest might then seem privileged to play;
But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all.

Observe the dappled foresters, how light

They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade:
One falls-the rest, wide scatter'd with affright,
Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warn'd,
Still need repeated warnings, and at last,

A thousand awful admonitions scorn'd,
Die self-accused of life run all to waste?

Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones!
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;
Dewdrops may deck the turf that hides the bones,
But tears of godly grief ne'er flow within.

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught
Of all those sepulchres, instructors true,
That, soon or late, death also is your lot,
And the next opening grave may yawn for you.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1789.

-Placidâque ibi demum morte quievit.

There calm at length he breathed his soul away.

"O MOST delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,
The hour that terminates his span,
His folly and his woe!

"Worlds should not bribe me back
to tread

Again life's dreary waste,
To see again my day o'erspread
With all the gloomy past.
"My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!
All heaven unfolded to my eyes,
I have no sight for you."
So spake Aspasio, firm possess'd
Of faith's supporting rod,
Then breathed his soul into its rest,

The bosom of his God.

He was a man among the few
Sincere on Virtue's side;

VIRG.

And all his strength from Scripture drew,

To hourly use applied.

That rule he prized, by that he fear'd,
He hated, hoped, and loved;
Nor ever frown'd, or sad appear'd,

But when his heart had roved.
For he was frail as thou or I,

And evil felt within;
But when he felt it, heaved a sigh,

And loathed the thought of sin.
Such lived Aspasio; and at last

Call'd up from earth to heaven, The gulf of death triumphant pass'd, By gales of blessing driven. "His joys be mine," each reader cries, "When my last hour arrives;" They shall be yours," my verse replies, "Such only be

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.-BUCHANAN.
Despise not my good counsel.

HE who sits from day to day
Where the prison'd lark is hung,
Heedless of his loudest lay,

Hardly knows that he has sung.

your lives."

Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None accustom'd to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1792.

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!—VIRG.

Happy the mortal who has traced effects

To their first cause, cast fear beneath his feet,
And Death and roaring Hell's voracious fires!

THANKLESS for favours from on high, | Whence has the world her magic