Poetry

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat’ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry’s holy Shade;1
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor’s heights the expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.

Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,
Ah fields beloved in vain,
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,2
To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply
’Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty;
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry;
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast;
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever-new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th’ approach of morn.

Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day;
Yet see how all around ’em wait
The Ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murtherous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow’s piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness’ altered eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defiled,
And moody Madness laughing wild3
Amid severest woe.

Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen.
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage;
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings; all are men,
Condemned alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers, that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat’s averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every wat’ry god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A fav’rite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all, that glisters, gold.

Ode on the Spring

Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring;
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,4
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose;
Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon;5
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.6

To Contemplation’s sober eye7
Such is the race of Man;
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter through life’s little day,
In fortune’s varying colours drest;
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display;
On hasty wings thy youth is flown
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone⁠—
We frolic, while ’tis May.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,8
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand’ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt’ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro’ the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation’s eyes,

Their lot forbad; nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide.
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev’n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.9

For thee, who mindful of th’ unhonoured Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
“Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

One morn I missed him on the customed hill,
Along the heath and near his fav’rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro’ the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou can’st read) the lay,
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

A Long Story

In Britain’s Isle, no matter where,
An ancient pile of building stands;
The Huntingdons and Hattons there
Employed the power of Fairy hands

To raise the ceiling’s fretted height,
Each panel in achievements clothing,
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages, that lead to nothing.

Full oft within the spacious walls,
When he had fifty winters o’er him,
My grave Lord-keeper led the brawls;11
The seal, and maces, danced before him.

His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green,
His high-crowned hat, and satin-doublet,
Moved the stout heart of England’s Queen,
Tho’ Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.

What, in the very first beginning!
Shame of the versifying tribe!
Your Hist’ry whither are you spinning?
Can you do nothing but describe?

A house there is, (and that’s enough)
From whence one fatal morning issues
A brace of warriors, not in buff,
But rustling in their silks and tissues.

The first came cap-a-pie from France,
Her conqu’ring destiny fulfilling,
Whom meaner beauties eye askance,
And vainly ape her art of killing.

The other Amazon kind Heaven
Had armed with spirit, wit, and satire;
But Cobham had the polish given
And tipped her arrows with good-nature.

To celebrate her eyes, her air⁠—
Coarse panegyrics would but tease her.
Melissa is her nom de guerre.
Alas, who would not wish to please her!

With bonnet blue and capucine,
And aprons long they hid their armour,
And veiled their weapons bright and keen
In pity to the country farmer.

Fame, in the shape of Mr. Purt,
(By this time all the parish know it)
Had told that thereabouts there lurked
A wicked imp they call a Poet,

Who prowled the country far and near,
Bewitched the children of the peasants,
Dried up the cows, and lamed the deer,
And sucked the eggs, and killed the pheasants.

My Lady heard their joint petition,
Swore by her coronet and ermine,
She’d issue out her high commission
To rid the manor of such vermin.

The Heroines undertook the task,
Thro’ lanes unknown, o’er stiles they ventured,
Rapped at the door, nor stayed to ask,
But bounce into the parlour entered.

The trembling family they daunt,
They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle,
Rummage his Mother, pinch his Aunt,
And up stairs in a whirlwind rattle.

Each hole and cupboard they explore,
Each creek and cranny of his chamber,
Run hurry-skurry round the floor,
And o’er the bed and tester clamber;

Into the drawers and china pry,
Papers and books, a huge imbroglio!
Under a tea-cup he might lie,
Or creased, like dogs-ears, in a folio.

On the first marching of the troops,
The Muses, hopeless of his pardon,
Conveyed him underneath their hoops
To a small closet in the garden.

So Rumor says. (Who will, believe.)
But that they left the door a-jar,
Where, safe and laughing in his sleeve,
He heard the distant din of war.

Short was his joy. He little knew
The power of Magic was no fable;
Out of the window, whisk, they flew,
But left a spell upon the table.

The words too eager to unriddle,
The Poet felt a strange disorder;
Transparent birdlime formed the middle,
And chains invisible the border.

So cunning was the apparatus,
The powerful pot-hooks did so move him,
That, will he, nill he, to the great-house
He went, as if the Devil drove him.

Yet on his way (no sign of grace,
For folks in fear are apt to pray)
To Phoebus he preferred his case,
And begged his aid that dreadful day.

The godhead would have backed his quarrel,
But, with a blush on recollection,
Owned that his quiver and his laurel
’Gainst four such eyes were no protection.

The Court was sate, the Culprit there,
Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping
The lady Janes and Joans repair,
And from the gallery stand peeping.

Such as in silence of the night
Come (sweep) along some winding entry,
(Styack has often seen the sight)12
Or at the chapel-door stand sentry;

In peaked hoods and mantles tarnished,
Sour visages, enough to scare ye,
High Dames of honour once, that garnished
The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary!

The Peeress comes. The audience stare,
And doff their hats with due submission;
She curtsies, as she takes her chair,
To all the people of condition.

The Bard, with many an artful fib,
Had in imagination fenced him,
Disproved the arguments of Squib,13
And all that Groom could urge against him.14

But soon his rhetoric forsook him,
When he the solemn hall had seen;
A sudden fit of ague shook him,
He stood as mute as poor Macleane.15

Yet something he was heard to mutter,
“How in the park beneath an old tree,
(Without design to hurt the butter,
Or any malice to the poultry,)

He once or twice had penned a sonnet;
Yet hoped, that he might save his bacon;
Numbers would give their oaths upon it,
He ne’er was for a conjuror taken.”

The ghostly Prudes with hagged face
Already had condemned the sinner.
My Lady rose, and with a grace⁠—
She smiled, and bid him come to dinner.

“Jesu-Maria! Madame Bridget,
Why, what can the Viscountess mean?”
(Cried the square hoods in woeful fidget)
“The times are altered quite and clean!

Decorum’s turned to mere civility;
Her air and all her manners show it.
Commend me to her affability!
Speak to a Commoner and Poet!”

[Here 500 Stanzas are lost.]

And so God save our noble King,
And guard us from long-winded lubbers,
That to eternity would sing,
And keep my Lady from her rubbers.

Daughter of Jove, relentless Power,
Thou Tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.

When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bad to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore;
What sorrow was, thou bad’st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others’ woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly’s idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity received,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom in sable garb arrayed,
Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid
With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend;
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice to herself severe,
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.

Oh, gently on thy suppliant’s head,
Dread Goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Nor circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen)
With thundering voice, and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror’s funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.

Thy form benign, oh Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there
To soften, not to wound my heart,
The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are, to feel, and know myself a Man.

Uprose the King of Men with speed,
And saddled strait his coal-black steed;
Down the yawning steep he rode,
That leads to Hela’s drear abode.72
Him the Dog of Darkness spied,
His shaggy throat he opened wide,
While from his jaws, with carnage filled,
Foam and human gore distilled;
Hoarse he bays with hideous din,
Eyes that glow, and fangs that grin;
And long pursues, with fruitless yell,
The father of the powerful spell.
Onward still his way he takes,
(The groaning earth beneath him shakes,)
Till full before his fearless eyes
The portals nine of hell arise.

Right against the eastern gate,
By the moss-grown pile he sate;
Where long of yore to sleep was laid
The dust of the prophetic Maid.
Facing to the northern clime,
Thrice he traced the runic rhyme;
Thrice pronounced, in accents dread,
The thrilling verse that wakes the dead;
Till from out the hollow ground
Slowly breathed a sullen sound.

Now the storm begins to lower74
(Haste, the loom of Hell prepare,)
Iron-sleet of arrowy shower75
Hurtles in the darkened air.76

Glitt’ring lances are the loom,
Where the dusky warp we strain,
Weaving many a soldier’s doom,
Orkney’s woe, and Randver’s bane.

See the grisly texture grow,
(’Tis of human entrails made)
And the weights, that play below,
Each a gasping warrior’s head.

Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore,
Shoot the trembling cords along.
Sword, that once a monarch bore,
Keep the tissue close and strong.

Mista black, terrific maid,
Sangrida, and Hilda, see,
Join the wayward work to aid;
’Tis the woof of victory.

Ere the ruddy sun be set,
Pikes must shiver, javelins sing,
Blade with clattering buckler meet,
Hauberk crash, and helmet ring.

(Weave the crimson web of war)
Let us go, and let us fly,
Where our friends the conflict share,
Where they triumph, where they die.

As the paths of fate we tread,
Wading through th’ ensanguined field;
Gondula, and Geira, spread
O’er the youthful King your shield.

We the reins to slaughter give,
Ours to kill, and ours to spare;
Spite of danger he shall live.
(Weave the crimson web of war.)

They, whom once the desert beach
Pent within its bleak domain,
Soon their ample sway shall stretch
O’er the plenty of the plain.

Low the dauntless Earl is laid,
Gored with many a gaping wound;
Fate demands a nobler head;
Soon a King shall bite the ground.

Long his loss shall Eirin weep,
Ne’er again his likeness see;
Long her strains in sorrow steep,
Strains of immortality!

Horror covers all the heath,
Clouds of carnage blot the sun.
Sisters, weave the web of death;
Sisters, cease, the work is done.

Hail the task, and hail the hands!
Songs of joy and triumph sing
Joy to the victorious bands;
Triumph to the younger King.

Mortal, thou that hear’st the tale,
Learn the tenor of our song.
Scotland, thro’ each winding vale
Far and wide the notes prolong.

Sisters, hence with spurs of speed;
Each her thundering faulchion wield;
Each bestride her sable steed.
Hurry, hurry to the field.

Epitaph on Mrs. Clarke

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,
A Friend, a Wife, a Mother sleeps;
A heart, within whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues loved to dwell.
Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death, resigned,
She felt the wound she left behind,
Her infant image here below
Sits smiling on a father’s woe;
Whom what awaits, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days?
A pang, to secret sorrow dear,
A sigh, an unavailing tear;
Till time shall every grief remove,
With life, with memory, and with love.

Epitaph on Sir William Williams

Here, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame,
Young Williams fought for England’s fair renown;
His mind each Muse, each Grace adorned his frame,
Nor envy dared to view him with a frown.

At Aix, his voluntary sword he drew,
There first in blood his infant honour sealed;
From fortune, pleasure, science, love, he flew,
And scorned repose when Britain took the field.

With eyes of flame, and cool undaunted breast
Victor he stood on Belleisle’s rocky steeps⁠—
Ah, gallant youth; this marble tells the rest,
Where melancholy friendship bends, and weeps.

Hail, horrors, hail! ye ever gloomy bowers,
Ye gothic fanes, and antiquated towers,
Where rushy Camus’ slowly-winding flood
Perpetual draws his humid train of mud;
Glad I revisit thy neglected reign,
Oh take me to thy peaceful shade again.
But chiefly thee, whose influence breathed from high
Augments the native darkness of the sky;
Ah, Ignorance! soft salutary power!
Prostrate with filial reverence I adore.
Thrice hath Hyperion rolled his annual race,
Since weeping I forsook thy fond embrace.
Oh say, successful dost thou still oppose
Thy leaden aegis ’gainst our ancient foes?
Still stretch, tenacious of thy right divine,
The massy sceptre o’er thy slumbering line?
And dews Lethean through the land dispense
To steep in slumbers each benighted sense?
If any spark of wit’s delusive ray
Break out and flash a momentary day,
With damp, cold touch forbid it to aspire,
And huddle up in fogs the dang’rous fire.
Oh say⁠—she hears me not, but, careless grown,
Lethargic nods upon her ebon throne.
Goddess! awake, arise! alas, my fears!
Can powers immortal feel the force of years?
Not thus of old, with ensigns wide unfurled,
She rode triumphant o’er the vanquished world;
Fierce nations owned her unresisted might,
And all was Ignorance, and all was Night.
Oh! sacred Age! Oh! Times for ever lost!
(The Schoolman’s glory, and the Churchman’s boast.)
For ever gone⁠—yet still to Fancy new,
Her rapid wings the transient scene pursue,
And bring the buried ages back to view.
High on her car, behold the grandam ride
Like old Sesostris with barbaric pride;
… a team of harnessed monarchs bend

Lines Written at Burnham

And, as they bow their hoary Tops, relate
In murm’ring Sounds the dark Decrees of Fate;
While Visions, as Poetic eyes avow,
Cling to each Leaf and swarm on ev’ry Bough:

Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She woos the tardy spring;
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground;
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.

New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance,
The birds his presence greet;
But chief, the sky-lark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy
And, lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.

Rise, my soul! on wings of fire,
Rise the rapturous choir among;
Hark! ’tis Nature strikes the lyre,
And leads the general song.
Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The Herd stood drooping by;
Their raptures now that wildly flow,
No yesterday, nor morrow know;
’Tis man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.

Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow
Soft Reflection’s hand can trace;
And o’er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.

Still, where rosy Pleasure leads,
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads,
Approaching Comfort view;
The hues of Bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of Life.

See the Wretch, that long has tost
On the thorny bed of Pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again;
The meanest flowret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common Sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.

Humble Quiet builds her cell,
Near the source whence Pleasure flows;
She eyes the clear crystalline well,
And tastes it as it goes.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune;
Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;
No very great wit, he believed in a God.
A place or a pension he did not desire,
But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.

Sonnet on the Death of Richard West

In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire;
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their little loves the birds complain;
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.

Stanzas to Mr. Bentley

In silent gaze the tuneful choir among,
Half pleased, half blushing, let the Muse admire,
While Bentley leads her sister-art along,
And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.

See, in their course, each transitory thought
Fixed by his touch a lasting essence take;
Each dream, in fancy’s airy colouring wrought,
To local symmetry and life awake!

The tardy rhymes that used to linger on,
To censure cold, and negligent of fame,
In swifter measures animated run,
And catch a lustre from his genuine flame.

Ah! could they catch his strength, his easy grace,
His quick creation, his unerring line;
The energy of Pope they might efface,
And Dryden’s harmony submit to mine.

But not to one in this benighted age
Is that diviner inspiration given,
That burns in Shakespeare’s or in Milton’s page,
The pomp and prodigality of heaven.

As, when conspiring in the diamond’s blaze,
The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight,
Together dart their intermingled rays,
And dazzle with a luxury of light.

Enough for me, if to some feeling breast
My lines a secret sympathy⁠ ⁠…
And as their pleasing influence⁠ ⁠…
A sigh of soft reflection.⁠ ⁠…

When sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugged up his face,
With a lick of court white-wash, and pious grimace,
A wooing he went, where three sisters of old
In harmless society guttle and scold.
“Lord! sister,” says Physic to Law, “I declare,
Such a sheep-biting look, such a pick-pocket air!
Not I for the Indies!⁠—You know I’m no prude⁠—
But his nose is a shame⁠—and his eyes are so lewd!
Then he shambles and straddles so oddly⁠—I fear⁠—
No⁠—at our time of life ’twould be silly, my dear.”
“I don’t know,” says Law, “but methinks for his look,
’Tis just like the picture in Rochester’s book;
Then his character, Phyzzy⁠—his morals⁠—his life⁠—
When she died, I can’t tell⁠—but he once had a wife.
They say he’s no Christian, loves drinking and whoring,
And all the town rings of his swearing and roaring!
And filching and lying, and Newgate-bird tricks;⁠—
Not I⁠—for a coronet, chariot and six.”
Divinity heard, between waking and dozing,
Her sisters denying, and Jemmy proposing;
From table she rose, and with bumper in hand,
She stroked up her belly, and stroked down her band⁠—
“What a pother is here about wenching and roaring!
Why, David loved catches, and Solomon whoring;
Did not Israel filch from the Egyptians of old
Their jewels of silver and jewels of gold?
The prophet of Bethel, we read, told a lie;
He drinks⁠—so did Noah;⁠—he swears⁠—so do I;
To reject him for such peccadillos, were odd;
Besides, he repents⁠—for he talks about God⁠—
To Jemmy:⁠—
Never hang down your head, your poor penitent elf,
Come buss me⁠—I’ll be Mrs. Twitcher myself.
Damn ye both for a couple of Puritan bitches!
He’s Christian enough that repents and that stitches.”

Old, and abandoned by each venal friend,
Here Holland formed the pious resolution
To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.

On this congenial spot he fixed his choice;
Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring sand;
Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice,
And mariners, though shipwrecked, dread to land.

Here reign the blustering North and blighting East,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing;
Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.

Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled monast’ries delude our eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.

“Ah!” said the sighing peer, “had Bute been true,
Nor Mungo’s, Rigby’s, Bradshaw’s friendship vain,
Far better scenes than these had blest our view,
And realised the beauties which we feign;

Purged by the sword, and purified by fire,
Then had we seen proud London’s hated walls;
Owls would have hooted in St. Peter’s choir,
And foxes stunk and littered in St. Paul’s.”

Tophet

Thus Etough looked; so grinned the brawling fiend,
While frighted prelates bowed and called him friend;
I saw them bow, and while they wished him dead,
With servile simper nod the mitred head.
Our mother-church, with half-averted sight,
Blushed as she blessed her grisly proselyte;
Hosannas rung through hell’s tremendous borders,
And Satan’s self had thoughts of taking orders.

Song

Thyrsis, when we parted, swore
Ere the spring he would return⁠—
Ah! what means yon violet flower!
And the buds that deck the thorn!
’Twas the lark that upward sprung!
’Twas the nightingale that sung!

Idle notes! untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste?
Western gales and skies serene
Speak not always winter past.
Cease, my doubts, my fears to move,
Spare the honour of my love.

Epitaph on Mrs. Mason

Tell them, though ’tis an awful thing to die,
’Twas e’en to thee, yet, the dread path once trod,
Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids the pure in heart behold their God.

Amatory Lines

With beauty, with pleasure surrounded, to languish⁠—
To weep without knowing the cause of my anguish;
To start from short slumbers, and wish for the morning⁠—
To close my dull eyes when I see it returning;
Sighs sudden and frequent, looks ever dejected⁠—
Words that steal from my tongue, by no meaning connected!
Ah! say, fellow-swains, how these symptoms befell me?
They smile, but reply not⁠—Sure Delia will tell me!

Comic Lines

Weddell attends your call, and Palgrave proud,
Stonehewer the lewd, and Delaval the loud.
For thee does Powell squeeze, and Marriot sputter,
And Glynn cut phizzes, and Tom Neville stutter.
Brown sees thee sitting on his nose’s tip,
The Widow feels thee in her aching hip;
For thee fat Nanny sighs, and handy Nelly,
And Balguy with a bishop in his belly.

A moment’s patience, gentle Mistress Anne;
(But stint your clack for sweet St. Charitie)
’Tis Willy begs, once a right proper man,
Though now a book, and interleaved you see.

Much have I borne from cankered critic’s spite,
From fumbling baronets and poets small,
Pert barristers, and parsons nothing bright,
But what awaits me now is worst of all.

’Tis true, our master’s temper natural
Was fashioned fair in meek and dove-like guise;
But may not honey’s self be turned to gall
By residence, by marriage, and sore eyes?

If then he wreak on me his wicked will;
Steal to his closet at the hour of prayer;
And (when thou hear’st the organ piping shrill)
Grease his best pen, and all he scribbles, tear.

Better to bottom tarts and cheesecakes nice,
Better the roast meat from the fire to save,
Better be twisted into caps for spice,
Than thus be patched and cobbled in one’s grave.

So York shall taste what Clouet never knew,
So from our works sublimer fumes shall rise;
While Nancy earns the praise to Shakespeare due,
For glorious puddings and immortal pies.

Epitaph on a Child

Here freed from pain, secure from misery, lies
A Child, the darling of his parents’ eyes;
A gentler lamb ne’er sported on the plain,
A fairer flower will never bloom again!
Few were the days allotted to his breath;
Here let him sleep in peace his night of death.

O Cambridge, attend
To the Satire I’ve penned
On the Heads of thy Houses,
Thou Seat of the Muses!

Know the Master of Jesus
Does hugely displease us;
The Master of Maudlin
In the same dirt is dawdling;
The Master of Sidney
Is of the same kidney;
The Master of Trinity
To him bears affinity;
As the Master of Keys
Is as like as two peas,
So the Master of Queen’s
Is as like as two beans;
The Master of King’s
Copies them in all things;
The Master of Catherine
Takes them all for his pattern;
The Master of Clare
Hits them all to a hair;
The Master of Christ
By the rest is enticed;
But the Master of Emmanuel
Follows them like a spaniel;
The Master of Benet
Is of the like tenet;
The Master of Pembroke
Has from them his system took;
The Master of Peter’s
Has all the same features;
The Master of St. John’s
Like the rest of the Dons.

As to Trinity Hall
We say nothing at all.

Impromptus

Do you ask why old Focus Silvanus defies,
And leaves not a chestnut in being?
’Tis not that old Focus himself has got eyes,
But because he has writ about seeing.

Lines Spoken by the Ghost of John Dennis at the Devil Tavern

From purling Streams & the Elysian Scene,
From Groves, that smile with never-fading Green
I reascend; in Atropos’ despight
Restored to Celadon, & upper light:
Ye gods, that sway the Regions under ground,
Reveal to mortal View your realms profound;
At his command admit the eye of Day;
When Celadon commands, what God can disobey?
Nor seeks he your Tartarean fires to know,
The house of Torture, & th’ Abyss of Woe;
But happy fields & Mansions free from Pain,
Gay Meads, & springing flowers best please the gentle Swain:
That little, naked, melancholy thing
My Soul, when first she tryed her flight to wing;
Began with speed new Regions to explore,
And blunder’d thro’ a narrow Postern door;
First most devoutly having said its Prayers,
It tumbled down a thousand pair of Stairs,
Thro’ Entries long, thro’ Cellars vast & deep,
Where ghostly Rats their habitations keep,
Where Spiders spread their Webs, & owlish Goblins sleep.
After so many Chances had befell,
It came into a mead of Asphodel:
Betwixt the Confines of the light & dark
It lies, of ’Lyzium the St. James’s Park:
Here Spirit-Beaux flutter along the Mall,
And Shadows in disguise scate o’er the Iced Canal:
Here groves embower’d, & more sequester’d Shades,
Frequented by the Ghosts of Ancient Maids,
Are seen to rise: the melancholy Scene
With gloomy haunts, & twilight walks between
Conceals the wayward band: here spend their time
Greensickness Girls, that died in youthful prime,
Virgins forlorn, all drest in Willow-green-i
With Queen Elizabeth and Nicolini.
More to reveal, or many words to use
Would tire alike your patience & my muse.
Believe, that never was so faithful found
Queen Proserpine to Pluto under ground,
Or Cleopatra to her Mark-Antony
As Orozmades to his Celadony.
P.S.
Lucrece for half a crown will show you fun,
But Mrs. Oldfield is become a Nun.
Nobles & Cits, Prince Pluto & his Spouse
Flock to the Ghost of Covent-Garden house:
Plays, which were hiss’d above, below revive;
When dead applauded, that were damn’d alive:
The People, as in life, still keep their Passions,
But differ something from the world in Fashions.
Queen Artemisia breakfasts on Bohea,
And Alexander wears a Ramilie.