Poems on Sincerity

Love, like cordial wine,
Pouring his soul in mine,
Bids me to sing;
Youth's bright glory snatch,
And Time's paces match
With fearless wing.

Now, while breath is bliss,
And dawn wakes me with a kiss,
Ere this rapture flee,
Ere my heart thou claim,
Sorrow, I will aim
A shaft at thee.

by Robert Laurence Binyon.

Frank carves very ill, yet will palm all the meats;
He eats more than six, and drinks more than he eats.
Four pipes after dinner he constantly smokes,
And seasons his whiffs with impertinent jokes:
Yet sighing, he says we must certainly break,
And my cruel unkindness compels him to speak,
For of late I invite him - but four times a week.

by Matthew Prior.

Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the wind --
When he looked about him he was in a far strange country.

Forth went the candid man
And spoke freely to the stars --
Yellow light tore sight from his eyes.

"My good fool," said a learned bystander,
"Your operations are mad."

"You are too candid," cried the candid man,
And when his stick left the head of the learned bystander
It was two sticks.

by Stephen Crane.

Ah tyrant Love, Megaera's serpents bearing,
Why thus requite my sighs with venom'd smart?
Ah ruthless dove, the vulture's talons wearing,
Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart?
Is this my meed? Must dragons' teeth alone
In Venus' lawns by lovers' hands be sown?

Nay, gentlest Cupid; 'twas my pride undid me;
Nay, guiltless dove; by mine own wound I fell.
To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me:
I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell;
For ever doom'd, Ixion-like, to reel
On mine own passions' ever-burning wheel.


Devonshire, 1854.
From Westward Ho!

by Charles Kingsley.

Sincerity and hypocrisy; or, formality in worship.

John 4:24; Ps. 139:23,24.

God is a Spirit, just and wise,
He sees our inmost mind;
In vain to heav'n we raise our cries,
And leave our souls behind.

Nothing but truth before his throne
With honor can appear;
The painted hypocrites are known
Through the disguise they wear.

Their lifted eyes salute the skies,
Their bending knees the ground;
But God abhors the sacrifice,
Where not the heart is found.

Lord, search my thoughts, and try my ways,
And make my soul sincere
Then shall I stand before thy face,
And find acceptance there.

by Isaac Watts.

Down thro' the ages these same sticks
Have played on man their knavish tricks.
Down thro' the ages these false lips
Have been as blessings or as whips
To scourge poor man to actions rash
In waging wars or wasting cash.
Down thro' the years, when Adam grieves,
Look to those painted lips of Eve's.


Once, modesty suggested stealth
In simulating glowing health;
But now, alas, no shame restrains
Toilets performed in trams, in trains,
At table; for these candid days
Make nothing of the frank displays
Of carmine, lard and lanoline
To make plain Jane a beauteous queen.


Down thro' the ages pig and sheep
Have tribute paid that men might weep
Or laugh or love or go quite mad
Because of lips in grease-paint clad.
Down thro' the years, when heroes fall
Look not for mortal wound at all
Seek on his brow the thin red line
Of carmined lips - Eve's fatal sign.

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

v.20-26
L. M.
Sincerity proved and rewarded.

Lord, thou hast seen my soul sincere,
Hast made thy truth and love appear;
Before mine eyes I set thy laws,
And thou hast owned my righteous cause.

Since I have learned thy holy ways,
I've walked upright before thy face;
Or if my feet did e'er depart,
'Twas never with a wicked heart.

What sore temptations broke my rest!
What wars and strugglings in my breast!
But through thy grace, that reigns within,
I guard against my darling sin:

That sin which close besets me still,
That works and strives against my will:
When shall thy Spirit's sovereign power
Destroy it, that it rise no more?

[With an impartial hand, the Lord
Deals out to mortals their reward;
The kind and faithful souls shall find
A God as faithful and as kind.

The just and pure shall ever say,
Thou art more pure, more just than they;
And men that love revenge shall know
God hath an arm of vengeance too.]

by Isaac Watts.

There's joy in legislative halls
When Frank's in opposition;
But gloom upon the Chamber falls
When Frank holds high position.
His merry japes no longer flit
About the House to mellow it,
For cares of office dull his wit
And mar his life's great mission.

Frank's mission - and a high one, too,
Amongst the chiefest rating
Is to infuse come joy anew
Into the dull debating.
When speakers drone and lose their grip,
And every member has the pip,
Up rises Frank with merry quip
And humor scintillating.

But as a Minister, alack,
His ready wit grows clouded.
For higher roles he takes the sack;
For in a House enshrouded
By weariness, when members sup
Of dreariness the prosy cup,
And word goes round that Frank is up,
The benches soon are crowded.

I feel I earn a nation's thanks
If I, with due humility,
Suggest for such a wit as Frank's
A new and fit nobility.
If I'd my way, I'd have him sent
Our happier moods to represent
As 'Minister for Merriment
Without Responsibiiity.'

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
The Christian’s native air,
His watchword at the gates of death;
He enters heaven with prayer.

O Thou, by Whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way;
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!

Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice,
Returning from his ways,
While angels in their songs rejoice
And cry, “Behold, he prays!”

The saints in prayer appear as one
In word, in deed, and mind,
While with the Father and the Son
Sweet fellowship they find.

No prayer is made by man alone
The Holy Spirit pleads,
And Jesus, on th’eternal throne,
For sinners intercedes.

O Thou by Whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way,
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray.

by James Montgomery.

I had a mother once, and her dear name
Has power even now to thrill my very frame,
And call forth feelings which can only rise
When Love doth view its object in the skies.
So would I view thee, Mother, and rejoice
That I have power to raise my feeble voice
And tell what thoughts arise within my breast,
As thus I view thee entered into rest.

O, say, my Mother, canst thou see thy son?
Dost thou behold the poor, erratic one
Who has been tossed on Life's tempestuous wave
Till he has fairly longed to find his grave?
I fain would know if, when I heave a sigh,
Tears e'er bedim thy sympathetic eye?
When I have drunk so deep of heartfelt woe,
And: roved the vanity of all below,
Oh, say, my Mother, hast thou felt a share
Know'st thou what 'tis to be weighed down with care?

Why write I thus? for souls in heavenly bliss
Feel not our woes-know not what sorrow is-
Unless their past experiences they feel,
To aid, by contrast, in producing weal.
For it is written, 'God shall wipe away
Tears from all faces,' in Eternal Day!
Then let me rest content, and strive to show
True patience, while I suffer here below,
And follow Christ wherever he may lead:
Thus proving faith sincere by every deed.
O, then, whenever he may call me hence,
I shall be willing to leave time and sense
And mount aloft to dwell with God forever,
To taste that bliss from which naught can me sever.

by Thomas Cowherd.

Wouldst thou be very upright and sincere?
Wouldst thou be that within thou dost appear,

Or seem to be in outward exercise
Before the most devout, and godly wise?

Yea, art thou thus when no eye doth thee see
But that which is invisible? and be

The words of God in truth thy prop and stay?
And do they in thy conscience bear more sway

To govern thee in faith and holiness,
Than thou canst with thy heart and mouth express?

And do the things that truly are divine,
Before thee more than gold or rubies shine?

And if, as unto Solomon, God should
Propound to thee, What wouldst thou have? how would

Thy heart and pulse beat after heav'nly things,
After the upper and the nether springs?

Couldst, with unfeigned heart and upright lip,
Cry, Hold me fast, Lord, never let me slip,

Nor step aside from faith and holiness,
Nor from the blessed hope of future bliss?

Lord, rather cross me anywhere than here;
Lord, fill me always with thy holy fear,

And godly jealousy of mine own heart,
Lest I, Lord, should at any time depart

From thy most blessed covenant of grace,
Where Jesus rules as King, and where thy face

Is only to be seen with comfort, and
Where sinners justified before thee stand.

If these thy groanings be sincere and true,
If God doth count thee one that dost pursue

The things thou cryest after with thy heart,
No doubt but in them thou shalt have a part.

by John Bunyan.

When he was quite a small boy, Frank
Was fond of useful playthings;
So he was given a toy bank
That he might learn the way things
Were done in the financial world;
So, on the playroom floor he curled,
Tho' short of pence, and had great dreams
Of wonderful financial schemes.


No lack of pennies grieved small Frank,
He simply took some paper
And posted slips into his bank
A cunning childish caper.
And soon he found that, with due care,
He could become a millionaire.
A happy child. And all day
He sang himself this little song:


'If papers I have not enough
Each standing for a penny
I take it out and tear the stuff,
And then I've twice as many.
And if my bank's not full, why then
I tear them all tn two again.
So all day long I tear and sing
And grow as rich as anything.'


In course of time Frank learned to walk
And his perambulations
Led to strange fields; he learned to talk
And made some fine orations.
He left his school, and went to work;
He sought the vote, and stood for Bourke
And, being voluble, was sent
For years and years to Parliament.


But, tho' he grew in many ways
And wondrously developed
His childish money complex stayed
Until it had enveloped
His whole attention. So that, when
Acute depression comes to men,
And things financial all go wrong,
He sings again his little song:


'When lack of money troubles brew
For any stricken nation
You simply tear your notes in two
By process of inflation.
And of this does not serve, why then
You just divide them up again
Until, with new financial health,
The whole land overflows with wealth.'

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

My dearest Frank, I wish you joy
Of Mary's safety with a Boy,
Whose birth has given little pain
Compared with that of Mary Jane.--
May he a growing Blessing prove,
And well deserve his Parents' Love!--
Endow'd with Art's and Nature's Good,
Thy Name possessing with thy Blood,
In him, in all his ways, may we
Another Francis WIlliam see!--
Thy infant days may he inherit,
THey warmth, nay insolence of spirit;--
We would not with one foult dispense
To weaken the resemblance.
May he revive thy Nursery sin,
Peeping as daringly within,
His curley Locks but just descried,
With 'Bet, my be not come to bide.'--
Fearless of danger, braving pain,
And threaten'd very oft in vain,
Still may one Terror daunt his Soul,
One needful engine of Controul
Be found in this sublime array,
A neigbouring Donkey's aweful Bray.
So may his equal faults as Child,
Produce Maturity as mild!
His saucy words and fiery ways
In early Childhood's pettish days,
In Manhood, shew his Father's mind
Like him, considerate and Kind;
All Gentleness to those around,
And anger only not to wound.
Then like his Father too, he must,
To his own former struggles just,
Feel his Deserts with honest Glow,
And all his self-improvement know.
A native fault may thus give birth
To the best blessing, conscious Worth.
As for ourselves we're very well;
As unaffected prose will tell.--
Cassandra's pen will paint our state,
The many comforts that await
Our Chawton home, how much we find
Already in it, to our mind;
And how convinced, that when complete
It will all other Houses beat
The ever have been made or mended,
With rooms concise, or rooms distended.
You'll find us very snug next year,
Perhaps with Charles and Fanny near,
For now it often does delight us
To fancy them just over-right us.--

by Jane Austen.

Alfred Ebenezer Jackson was a very earnest man,
Who aspired to be a statesman, and he consequently ran
At a general election as the Candid Candidate,
Sworn to tell the truth ungarbled, leaving all the rest to Fate.


Jackson had a firm conviction that the average M.P.
Was not prefectly straightforward as a member ought to be.
'They disguise their actual motives,' Jackson said, 'and so they fail.
I shall leave no false suspicion that I'm sitting on a rail.'


'Fellow men,' quoth Ebenezer, in his first campaign address.
'My desire to gain election is most eager, I confess:
True, some patriotic ardor fills me with its holy fire;
But to get a safe and steady billet is my main desire.


'Now, to put the matter plainly, I've no wish to twist or hedge,
And I'm quite prepared to stand to all the things that I allege.
I aspire to serve Australia in the Big Affairs of State:
To that aim all local interests gladly I'll subordinate.


'I shall give no hasty promise for the sake of votes from you.
Roads and bridges you shall have them when they are your right and due;
But wre this whole country's interest clashes with your local lot,
Then my vote is for Australia and the rest can go to pot!


'I'll not stoop to curry favor for the sake of your back yard,
While the Big Things of the nation call for labor long and hard;
For I'm not of those hard grafters whose chief work is turning coats,
With their thoughts on next election, and their eyes upon your votes.


'Party ties shall never hold me when I hear Australia call,
Through my service to the nation do I seek to stand or fall.
And to talk election piffle in the House, if I be sent
There to work, I'll deem an insult to the folk I represent.


'I shall scheme to drag no railway through the back yard of this State;
Nor on any handy dust-heap in this dashed electorate
Shall I vote to plant a city, while the fact is evident
That abtter site is waiting elsewhere on the continent.


'I am solid for Protection: but my creed I won't abuse
By mean tricks to shift the duty from commodities you use:
Nor shall I denounce with loathing Socialists' experiments
While I howl for State assistance for my own constituents.


'Now, my worthy friends, you know me, and just what I mean to do.
As plain people of Australia I am ev'ry time for you,
With my eyes upon the future and this great land's destiny,
I shall not to 'local interests' sacrifice prosterity.'


Alfred Ebenezer Jackson raised a wild, derisive shout
From 'intelligent electors.' 'Mad!' they said, 'without a doubt.'
And because they knew he meant it - ev'ry work he spoke or wrote
Alfred Ebenezer Jackson did not get a single vote!

by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis.

In rich Virginian woods,
The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,
Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;
Heroic spirits haunt the solitudes,-
The noble souls of half a million braves,
Amid the murmurous pines.

Ah! who is left behind,
Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,
To consecrate their memories with words
Not all unmeet? with fitting dirge and song
To chant a requiem purer than the wind,
And sweeter than the birds?

Here, though all seems at peace,
The placid, measureless sky serenely fair,
The laughter of the breeze among the leaves,
The bars of sunlight slanting through the trees,
The reckless wild-flowers blooming everywhere,
The grasses' delicate sheaves,-

Nathless each breeze that blows,
Each tree that trembles to its leafy head
With nervous life, revives within our mind,
Tender as flowers of May, the thoughts of those
Who lie beneath the living beauty, dead,-
Beneath the sunshine, blind.

For brave dead soldiers, these:
Blessings and tears of aching thankfulness,
Soft flowers for the graves in wreaths enwove,
The odorous lilac of dear memories,
The heroic blossoms of the wilderness,
And the rich rose of love.

But who has sung their praise,
Not less illustrious, who are living yet?
Armies of heroes, satisfied to pass
Calmly, serenely from the whole world's gaze,
And cheerfully accept, without regret,
Their old life as it was,

With all its petty pain,
Its irritating littleness and care;
They who have scaled the mountain, with content
Sublime, descend to live upon the plain;
Steadfast as though they breathed the mountain-air
Still, wheresoe'er they went.

They who were brave to act,
And rich enough their action to forget;
Who, having filled their day with chivalry,
Withdraw and keep their simpleness intact,
And all unconscious add more lustre yet
Unto their victory.

On the broad Western plains
Their patriarchal life they live anew;
Hunters as mighty as the men of old,
Or harvesting the plenteous, yellow grains,
Gathering ripe vintage of dusk bunches blue,
Or working mines of gold;

Or toiling in the town,
Armed against hindrance, weariness, defeat,
With dauntless purpose not to serve or yield,
And calm, defiant, they struggle on,
As sturdy and as valiant in the street,
As in the camp and field.

And those condemned to live,
Maimed, helpless, lingering still through suffering years,
May they not envy now the restful sleep
Of the dear fellow-martyrs they survive?
Not o'er the dead, but over these, your tears,
O brothers, ye may weep!

New England fields I see,
The lovely, cultured landscape, waving grain,
Wide haughty rivers, and pale, English skies.
And lo! a farmer ploughing busily,
Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain,-
I see, in his frank eyes,

The hero's soul appear.
Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;
The light that on the past and distant gleams,
They cast upon the present and the near,
With antique virtues from some mystic land,
Of knightly deeds and dreams.

by Emma Lazarus.

How shall we comfort the Dying Year?
Beg him to linger, or bid him go?
The light in his eyes burns dim and low,
His hands are clammy, his pulse beats slow,
He wanders and mumbles, but doth not hear.
The lanes are sodden, the leaf-drifts sere,
And the wrack is weaving his shroud of white.
Do you not see he is weary quite
Of the languor of living, and longs for night?
Lo! He is gone! Now lower him down
In the snug-warm earth, 'neath the clods of brown
And the buds of the winter aconite.

How shall we part with the bygone Year?
Cover with cypress, or wreathe with bay?
He will not heed what you do or say,
He is deaf to to-morrow as yesterday.
Why do you linger about his bier?
He has gone to the Ghostland, he is not here.
We may go on our way, we may live and laugh,
Round the banqueting blaze can feast and quaff.
The purple catafalque, stately staff,
The dirges of sorrow, the songs of praise,
And the costliest monument man can raise,
Are but for the Spirit's cenotaph.

Dust unto dust, He is dead, though he
Was the last of the centuried years that flow,
We know not wherefore, we never shall know,
With the tide unebbing of Time, and go
To the phantom shore of Eternity.
Shadows to shadows, they flit and flee
Across the face of the flaming sun,
The vague generations, one by one,
That never are ended, never begun.
Where is the dome or the vault so vast,
As to coffin the bones of the perished Past,
Save the limitless tomb of Oblivion?

What tale would he tell, could the dead but speak?
``I was born, as I died, amid wrath and smoke,
When the war-wains rolled, and the cannons spoke,
When the vulture's cry and the raven's croak
Flapped hungrily over the dying shriek,
And nothing was seen but a blood-red streak
Betwixt lowering sky and leaden main;
When slanted and slashed the rifles' rain
Upon furrows whose harvest were sheaves of slain;
When the levin's glare by the thunder's crash
Was bellowed, and ever 'twixt flash and flash
The howl of the unspent hurricane.''

Let the dead discourse with the dead. So ask
How best now to welcome the new-born Year.
She is coming, is coming, and, lo! is here,
With forehead and footstep that know not fear.
She will shrink from no pleasure, evade no task,
But there never was worn or veil or mask
Like her frank fair face and her candid soul.
Do you fathom her thoughts, can you guess her goal,
Her waywardness chasten, her fate control?
She will wend with her doom, and that doom be ours;
So greet her with carol and snow-white flowers,
And crown her with Hope's own aureole.

Yet mind her dawn of the dark, for she,
She too must pass 'neath the lych-gate porch;
And give to her keeping the vestal Torch,
That may ofttime smoulder, and sometimes scorch,
But rebrightens and burns eternally:
The beacon on land and the planet at sea,
When the night is murk, and the mist is dense,
To guide us Whither, remind us Whence,
The Soul's sure lamp through the shades of sense.
She must tread the Unknown the dead years trod;
Though rugged the road, yet the goal is God,
And the will of all-wise Omnipotence.

by Alfred Austin.

In the roar of the storm, in the wild bitter voice of the tempest-whipped sea,
The cry of my darling, my child, comes ever and ever to me;
And I stand where the haggard-faced wood stares down on a sinister shore,
But all that is left is the hood of the babe I can cherish no more.
A little blue hood, with the shawl of the girl that I took for my wife
In a happy old season, is all that remains of the light of my life;
The wail of a woman in pain, and the sob of a smothering bird,
They come through the darkness again —
in the wind and the rain they are heard.

Oh, women and men who have known the perils of weather and wave,
It is sad that my sweet ones are blown under sea without shelter of grave;
I sob like a child in the night, when the gale on the waters is loud —
My darlings went down in my sight, with neither a coffin nor shroud.

In the whistle of wind, and the whirl of ominous fragments of wreck,
The wife, with her poor little girl, saw death on the lee of the deck;
But, sirs, she depended on me — she trusted my comforting word;
She is down in the depths of the sea — my love, with her beautiful bird.

In the boat I was ordered to go — I was not more afraid than the rest,
But a husband will falter, you know, with the love of his life at his breast;
My captain was angry a space, but soon he grew tender in tone —
Perhaps there had flashed by his face a wife and a child of his own.

I was weak for some moments, and cried; but only one hope was in life;
The hood upon baby I tied — I fastened the shawl on my wife.
The skipper took charge of the child — he stuck to his word till the last;
But only this hood on the wild, bitter shore of the sea had been cast.

In the place of a coward, who shook like a leaf in the quivering boat,
A seat by the rowlocks I took; but the sea had me soon by the throat,
The surge gripped me fast by the neck — in a ring, and a roll, and a roar,
I was cast like a piece of the wreck, on a bleak, beaten, shelterless shore.

And there were my darlings on board for the rest of that terrible day,
And I watched and I prayed to the Lord, as never before I could pray.
The windy hills stared at the black, heavy clouds coming over the wave;
My girl was expecting me back, but where was my power to save?

Ah! where was my power, when Death was glaring at me from the reef?
I cried till I gasped for my breath, aloof with a maddening grief.
We couldn’t get back to the deck: I wanted to go, but the sea
Dashed over the sides of the wreck, and carried my darling from me.

Oh, girl that I took by the hand to the altar two summers ago,
I would you were buried on land — my dear, it would comfort me so!
I would you were sleeping where grows the grass and the musical reed!
For how can you find a repose in the toss of the tangle and weed?

The night sped along, and I strained to the shadow and saw to the end
My captain and bird — he remained to the death a superlative friend:
In the face of the hurricane wild, he clung with the babe to the mast;
To the last he was true to my child — he was true to my child to the last.

The wind, like a life without home, comes mocking at door and at pane
In the time of the cry of the foam — in the season of thunder and rain,
And, dreaming, I start in the bed, and feel for my little one’s brow —
But lost is the beautiful head; the cradle is tenantless now!

My home was all morning and glow when wife and her baby were there,
But, ah! it is saddened, you know, by dresses my girl used to wear.
I cannot re-enter the door; its threshold can never be crossed,
For fear I should see on the floor the shoes of the child I have lost.

There were three of us once in the world; but two are deep down in the sea,
Where waif and where tangle are hurled — the two that were portions of me;
They are far from me now, but I hear, when hushed are the night and the tide,
The voice of my little one near — the step of my wife by my side.

by Henry Kendall.

Dear Sir—You wish to know my notions
On sartin pints thet rile the land;
There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns
Es bein' mum or underhand;
I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur
Thet blurts right out wut's in his head,
An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,
It is a nose thet wunt be led.

So, to begin at the beginnin';
An' come directly to the pint,
I think the country's underpinnin'
Is some consid'ble out o' jint;
I aint agoin' to try your patience
By tellin' who done this or thet,
I don't make no insinooations,
I jest let on I smell a rat.

Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,
But, ef the public think I'm wrong
I wunt deny but wut I be so—
An', fact, it don't smell very strong;
My mind's tu fair to lose its balance
An' say wich party hez most sense;
There may be folks o'greater talence
Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.

I'm an eclectic: ez to choosin'
'Twixt this an'thet, I'm plaguy lawth;
I leave a side thet looks like losin',
But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;
I stan' upon the Constitution,
Ez preudunt statesmun say, who've planned
A way to git the most profusion
O' chances ez to ware they'll stand.

Ez fer the war, I go agin it—
I mean to say I kind o' du—
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,
The best way wuz to fight it thru;
Not but wut abstract war is horrid,
I sign to thet with all my heart—
But civlyzation doos git forrid
Sometimes upon a powder-cart.

About thet darned Proviso matter
I never hed a grain o' doubt,
Nor I aint one my sense to scatter
So's no one couldn't pick it out;
My love fer North an' South is equil,
So I'll just answer plump an' frank,
No matter wut may be the sequil—
Yes, sir, I am agin a Bank.

Ez to the answerin' o' questions,
I 'am an off ox at bein' druv,
Though I aint one thet ary test shuns
I'll give our folks a helpin' shove;
Kind o' promiscoous I go it
Fer the holl country, an' the ground
I take, ez nigh ez I can show it,
Is pooty gen'ally all round.

I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;
You'd ough' to leave a feller free,
An' not go knockin' out the wedges
To ketch his fingers in the tree;
Pledges air awfle breachy cattle
Thet preudent farmers don't turn out—
Ez long'z the people git their rattle,
Wut is there fer'm to grout about?

Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion
In MY idees consarnin' them—
I think they air an Institution,
A sort of—yes, jest so—ahem:
Do I own any? Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

Ez to my principles, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort;
I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,
I'm jest a candidate, in short;
Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler,
But, ef the Public cares a fig
To hev me an' thin' in particler.
Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-wig.

P. S.

Ez we're a sort o' privateerin',
O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer
An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'
I'll mention in YOUR privit ear;
Ef you git ME inside the White House,
Your head with ile I'll kio' o' 'nint
By gitt'n' YOU inside the Light-house
Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint

An' ez the North hez took to brustlin'
At bein' scrouged from off the roost,
I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin'
An' give our side a harnsome boost—
Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question
I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth;
This gives you a safe pint to rest on,
An' leaves me frontin' South by North.
Editor notes
A LETTER FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS
PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S.
H. GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD.
JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL

Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s
and I wus chose at a public Meetin in Jalaam to du wut wus nessary fur
that town. I writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. the air called
candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about em. this here 1 which I
send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print
Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus
best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a
cocked hat wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance furthe
cheef madgutracy.-H. B

by James Russell Lowell.

WE took our work, and went, you see,
To take an early cup of tea.
We did so now and then, to pay
The friendly debt, and so did they,
Not that our friendship burnt so bright
That all the world could see the light ;
'Twas of the ordinary genus,
And little love was lost between us
We loved, I think, about as true
As such near neighbours mostly do.
At first, we all were somewhat dry ;
Mamma felt cold, and so did I :
Indeed, that room, sit where you will,
Has draught enough to turn a mill.
'I hope you're warm,' says Mrs. G.
'O, quite so,' says mamma, says she ;
'I'll take my shawl off by and by.'--
'This room is always warm,' says I.

At last the tea came up, and so,
With that, our tongues began to go.
Now, in that house, you're sure of knowing
The smallest scrap of news that's going ;
We find it there the wisest way
To take some care of what we say.

--Says she, 'there's dreadful doings still
In that affair about the will ;
For now the folks in Brewer's Street
Don't speak to James's when they meet.
Poor Mrs. Sam sits all alone,
And frets herself to skin and bone.
For months she managed, she declares,
All the old gentleman's affairs ;
And always let him have his way,
And never left him night nor day ;
Waited and watched his every look,
And gave him every drop he took.
Dear Mrs. Sam, it was too bad !
He might have left her all he had.'
'Pray ma'am,' says I, 'has poor Miss A.
Been left as handsome as they say ?'
'My dear,' says she, ''tis no such thing,
She'd nothing but a mourning ring.
But is it not uncommon mean
To wear that rusty bombazeen !'
'She had,' says I, 'the very same
Three years ago, for--what's his name ?'--
'The Duke of Brunswick --very true,
And has not bought a thread of new,
I'm positive,' said Mrs. G.
So then we laughed, and drank our tea.

'So,' says mamma, 'I find it's true
What Captain P. intends to do ;
To hire that house, or else to buy--
'Close to the tan-yard, ma'am,' says I ;
'Upon my word it's very strange,
I wish they mayn't repent the change !'
'My dear,' says she, ''tis very well
You know, if they can bear the smell.'

'Miss E.' says I, 'is said to be
A sweet young woman, is not she ?'
'O, excellent ! I hear,' she cried ;
'O, truly so !' mamma replied.
'How old should you suppose her, pray ?
She's older than she looks, they say.'
'Really,' says I,' 'she seems to me
Not more than twenty-two or three.'
'O, then you're wrong,' says Mrs. G.
'Their upper servant told our Jane,
She'll not see twenty-nine again.'
'Indeed, so old ! I wonder why
She does not marry then,' says I ;
'So many thousands to bestow,
And such a beauty, too, you know.'
'A beauty ! O, my dear Miss B.
You must be joking now,' says she ;
'Her figure's rather pretty,'----' Ah !
That's what I say,' replied mamma.

'Miss F.' says I, 'I've understood,
Spends all her time in doing good :
The People say her coming down
Is quite a blessing to the town.'
At that our hostess fetched a sigh,
And shook her head ; and so, says I,
'It's very kind of her, I'm sure,
To be so generous to the poor.'
'No doubt,' says she, ''tis very true ;
Perhaps there may be reasons too :--
You know some people like to pass
For patrons with the lower class.'

And here I break my story's thread,
Just to remark, that what she said,
Although I took the other part,
Went like a cordial to my heart.

Some innuendos more had passed,
Till out the scandal came at last.
'Come then, I'll tell you something more,'
Says she,--' Eliza, shut the door.--
I would not trust a creature here,
For all the world, but you, my dear.
Perhaps it's false--I wish it may,
--But let it go no further, pray !'
'O,' says mamma, 'You need not fear,
We never mention what we hear.'
And so, we drew our chairs the nearer,
And whispering, lest the child should hear her,
She told a tale, at least too long
To be repeated in a song ;
We panting every breath between,
With curiosity and spleen.
And how we did enjoy the sport !
And echo every faint report,
And answer every candid doubt,
And turn her motives inside out,
And holes in all her virtues pick,
Till we were sated, almost sick.

--Thus having brought it to a close,
In great good-humour we arose.
Indeed, 'twas more than time to go,
Our boy had been an hour below.
So, warmly pressing Mrs. G.
To fix a day to come to tea,
We muffled up in cloak and plaid,
And trotted home behind the lad.

by Jane Taylor.

There! once again I stand on home,
Though round me still there swirls the foam,
Leaping athwart the vessel's track
To bid a wanderer welcome back,
And though as yet through softening haze
White cliffs but vaguely greet my gaze.
For, England! yours the waves, the spray,
And, be one's foothold what it may,
Wherever billow wafts or wends,
Your soil is trodden, your shore extends.
How stern! how sweet! Though fresh from lands
Where soft seas heave on slumbering strands,
And zephyrs moistened by the south
Seem kisses from an infant's mouth,
My northern blood exults to face
The rapture of this rough embrace,
Glowing in every vein to feel
The cordial caress of steel
From spear-blue air and sword-blue sea,
The armour of your liberty.
Braced by the manly air, I reach
My soul out to the approaching beach,
And own, the instant I arrive,
The dignity of being alive!

And now with forward-faring feet
Eager I leap to land, and greet
The hearty grasp, the honest gaze,
The voice that means the thing it says,
The gait of men by birthright free,
Unceremonial courtesy.
None frown, none cringe, but, fearless-eyed,
Are kindly all; since, side by side,
Authority and Freedom reign
In twin equality, and drain
Their sanction from the self-same breast,
And Law is wise Will manifest.
Yes, this is England, frank and fair:
I tread its turf, I breathe its air,
And catch from every stalwart lung
The music of my mother tongue.

And who are these that cluster round
With hastening feet and silvery sound,
And eyes as liquid as the dawn,
When laughs the dew on Kentish lawn?
These England's daughters, frank yet arch,
Supple as April, strong as March:
Like pink-white windflowers in the grove,
That came while east and west wind strove
For mastery, and Spring seemed late,
Hardy alike and delicate.
How well their faces fit the scene,
The copses gray, the hedgerows green,
The white-veiled blackthorn, gorse afire,
The cottage yew, the village spire;
The pastures flecked with frisking lambs
Around their gravely grazing dams;
The children loitering home from school,
Their hands and pinafores all full
Of cuckoo-pint and bluebell spike,
Gathered in dingle, dell, and dyke;
The comely homes one just can see
Through flowering belts of bush and tree,
That all combine, all, all conspire,
To more than satisfy desire,
To make one love this lovely earth,
And bless Heaven for one's British birth.

Bewitching climes! where late I sought
In change of scene a change of thought,
Refreshment from familiar ground,
And, what I sought for, more than found,
Where old enchantment haunteth still
Ligurian coast and Tuscan hill,
Climes I have ventured oft and long
To celebrate in faltering song,
Where fearless almond, faery larch,
Smiling, disarm the frown of March,
Snow hath no terrors, frost no sting,
And playful Winter mimics Spring,
Deem me not thankless, nor deny
Fresh welcome from your shore and sky,
Repose from thought so oft implored,
And ne'er refused, if, now restored
By you to health, by you to home,
Glad I return, late glad to roam.
For dear to me though wayside shrine
By silent gorge or murmuring brine;
Dear though the barefoot peasant folk
Who lop the vine and steer the yoke
Of soft-eyed, sleek-skinned, creamy beeves,
Up narrow ways to broad slant eaves;
The stony mule-tracks twisting slow
Up slopes where cherry-blossoms blow
'Mid olive gray and ilex brown,
On to some sun-bronzed mountain town;
The hush and cool of marble domes,
Where, wed to reverie, one roams
Through transept, chancel, cloister, cell,
Where still with far-off faces dwell
Sages and saints devoutly limned
By hands long dust and eyes long dimmed;
Dear though all these, and ne'er forgot,
No southern shore, no sunniest spot,
Not Roccabruna's hamlet crest,
Not Eza's brow, not Taggia's breast,
Not Bellosguardo's sunset hour,
Not Dante's seat nor Giotto's Tower,
Nor even Spiaggiascura's foam,
Moisten and melt my heart like home.
For here the cuckoo seems more glad,
The nightingale more sweetly sad,
Primroses more akin in gaze
To childlike wonder, childlike ways;
And all things that one sees and hears,
Since rooted in the bygone years,
And blending with their warm caress
A touch of homely tenderness,
Bid the quick instinct in one's blood
Pay tribute unto motherhood.
How should strange lands, it boots not where,
Divorce one from one's native air,
Or in a loyal breast dethrone
Unreasoning reverence for one's own?
Yet love and reason surely blend
To stir this passion and commend?
And who will blame if, though one seeks
In gentler tides, and sterner peaks
That tower above a wider plain,
Contrast to northern hill and main,
I cherish still and hold apart
The fondest feeling in my heart
For where, beneath one's parent sky,
Our dear ones live, our dead ones lie?

And you, dear friend, who linger still
Beside the iris-crested rill
That silvers through your olives gray
From convent-capped Fiesole,
Think not that I forget, forswear,
The scenes we lately vowed so fair.
To these your wandering footsteps bring
The freshness of an English Spring;
And even Florence sunnier glows,
When Phyllis prattles and Ivor crows.
And, though among them still you stray,
Sweet-lengthening-out a Tuscan May,
You too will here return before
Our Northern roses blow once more,
To prove to all of kindred birth,
For winsome grace and sterling worth,
Nothing can match, where'er we roam,
An English wife in English home.

by Alfred Austin.

What virtue, or what mental grace
But men unqualified and base
Will boast it their possession?
Profusion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,
And dulness of discretion.

If every polish’d gem we find,
Illuminating heart or mind,
Provoke to imitation;
No wonder friendship does the same,
That jewel of the purest flame,
Or rather constellation.

No knave but boldly will pretend
The requisites that form a friend,
A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool, he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,
And dream that he had found one.

Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,
An error soon corrected—
For who but learns in riper years
That man, when smoothest he appears,
Is most to be suspected?

But here again a danger lies,
Lest, having misapplied our eyes,
And taken trash for treasure,
We should unwarily conclude
Friendship a false ideal good,
A mere Utopian pleasure.

An acquisition rather rare
Is yet no subject of despair;
Nor is it wise complaining,
If, either on forbidden ground,
Or where it was not to be found,
We sought without attaining.

No friendship will abide the test,
That stands on sordid interest,
Or mean self-love erected;
Nor such as may awhile subsist
Between the sot and sensualist,
For vicious ends connected.

Who seek a friend should come dispos’d
To exhibit, in full bloom disclos’d,
The graces and the beauties
That form the character he seeks,
For ‘tis a union that bespeaks
Reciprocated duties.

Mutual attention is implied,
And equal truth on either side,
And constantly supported;
‘Tis senseless arrogance to accuse
Another of sinister views,
Our own as much distorted.

But will sincerity suffice?
It is indeed above all price,
And must be made the basis;
But every virtue of the soul
Must constitute the charming whole,
All shining in their places.

A fretful temper will divide
The closest knot that may be tied,
By ceaseless sharp corrosion;
A temper passionate and fierce
May suddenly your joys disperse
At one immense explosion.

In vain the talkative unite
In hopes of permanent delight—
The secret just committed,
Forgetting its important weight,
They drop through mere desire to prate,
And by themselves outwitted.

How bright soe’er the prospect seems,
All thoughts of friendship are but dreams,
If envy chance to creep in;
An envious man, if you succeed,
May prove a dangerous foe indeed,
But not a friend worth keeping.

As envy pines at good possess’d,
So jealously looks forth distress’d
On good that seems approaching;
And, if success his steps attend,
Discerns a rival in a friend,
And hates him for encroaching.

Hence authors of illustrious name,
Unless belied by common fame,
Are sadly prone to quarrel,
To deem the wit a friend displays
A tax upon their own just praise,
And pluck each other’s laurel.

A man renown’d for repartee
Will seldom scruple to make free
With friendship’s finest feeling,
Will thrust a dagger at your breast,
And say he wounded you in jest,
By way of balm for healing.

Whoever keeps an open ear
For tattlers will be sure to hear
The trumpet of contention;
Aspersion is the babbler’s trade,
To listen is to lend him aid,
And rush into dissension.

A friendship that in frequent fits
Of controversial rage emits
The sparks of disputation,
Like hand-in-hand insurance-plates,
Most unavoidably creates
The thought of conflagration.

Some fickle creatures boast a soul
True as a needle to the pole,
Their humour yet so various—
They manifest their whole life through
The needle’s deviations too,
Their love is so precarious.

The great and small but rarely meet
On terms of amity complete;
Plebeians must surrender,
And yield so much to noble folk,
It is combining fire with smoke,
Obscurity with splendour.

Some are so placid and serene
(As Irish bogs are always green),
They sleep secure from waking;
And are indeed a bog, that bears
Your unparticipated cares
Unmoved and without quaking.

Courtier and patriot cannot mix
Their heterogeneous politics
Without an effervescence,
Like that of salts with lemon juice,
Which does not yet like that produce
A friendly coalescence.

Religion should extinguish strife,
And make a calm of human life;
But friends that chance to differ
On points which God has left at large,
How freely will they meet and charge!
No combatants are stiffer.

To prove at last my main intent
Needs no expense of argument,
No cutting and contriving—
Seeking a real friend, we seem
To adopt the chemist’s golden dream,
With still less hope of thriving.

Sometimes the fault is all our own,
Some blemish in due time made known
By trespass or omission;
Sometimes occasion brings to light
Our friend’s defect, long hid from sight,
And even from suspicion.

Then judge yourself, and prove your man
As circumspectly as you can,
And, having made election,
Beware no negligence of yours,
Such as a friend but ill endures,
Enfeeble his affection.

That secrets are a sacred trust,
That friends should be sincere and just,
That constancy befits them,
Are observations on the case,
That savour much of commonplace,
And all the world admits them.

But ‘tis not timber, lead, and stone,
An architect requires alone
To finish a fine building—
The palace were but half complete,
If he could possibly forget
The carving and the gilding.

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.

As similarity of mind,
Or something not to be defined,
First fixes our attention;
So manners decent and polite,
The same we practised at first sight,
Must save it from declension.

Some act upon this prudent plan,
“Say little, and hear all you can.”
Safe policy, but hateful—
So barren sands imbibe the shower,
But render neither fruit nor flower,
Unpleasant and ungrateful.

The man I trust, if shy to me,
Shall find me as reserved as he,
No subterfuge or pleading
Shall win my confidence again;
I will by no means entertain
A spy on my proceeding.

These samples—for, alas! at last
These are but samples, and a taste
Of evils yet unmention’d—
May prove the task a task indeed,
In which ‘tis much if we succeed,
However well intention’d.

Pursue the search, and you will find
Good sense and knowledge of mankind
To be at least expedient,
And, after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.

The noblest Friendship ever shown
The Saviour’s history makes known,
Though some have turn’d and turn’d it;
And, whether being crazed or blind,
Or seeking with a biass’d mind,
Have not, it seems, discern’d it.

O Friendship! if my soul forego
Thy dear delights while here below,
To mortify and grieve me,
May I myself at last appear
Unworthy, base, and insincere,
Or may my friend deceive me!

by William Cowper.

Meanwhile between the princes rose debate,
About the wond'rous steed the Syrian brought,
Algarsife urging not devoid of heat,
The motion some informing genius wrought:
But calm Camballo, with a sceptic air,
Seem'd to believe the secret lay within,
That hid remain'd the wheels of action there,
And mov'd or ceas'd directed by the pin.
Each brings new proofs the other to confute,
Till to the monarch's ear arriv'd the warm dispute.

Silent a while the king reflection made,
And saw the point not easy to decide;
Till kind rememb'rance offer'd to his aid
A hoary Sage, whose skill he oft had try'd,
Of Median birth, but whose enquiring sight
The travell'd regions of the east had known;
Wisdom, sole object of his calm delight.
And every art and science was his own.
Nor read in books alone, his generous mind
Embrac'd with cordial zeal the good of human kind.

The various faiths the peopled world divide
Truly impartial had his thoughts survey'd;
Reason his standard still, and truth his guide,
Nor passion, prejudice, or interest sway'd:
The Magi's antient laws, the Brachmin's lore,
Th' Egyptian character, and Jewish rite,
The christian faith intended to restore,
But now defac'd by superstition quite
With [illeg.] plan: th' Arabian prophet
O'er Ajar now which spread as new religions do!

He saw that nature thro' her wide command
O'er all her works had spread one equal smile;
Nor kept the bounties of her lavish hand,
Conn'd to this or that peculiar soil:
He knew that vain was every art design'd
To curb the native freedom of the will:
That by a thousand motives sway'd, the mind
Stood firm to virtue, or declin'd to ill:
And in th' extended scene of human race,
As different were the thoughts, as varied was the face!

Hence Cosroes (such the reverend sage's Name)
This healing principle reflective drew;
Candid to judge, devoid of selfish aim,
And calm the paths of wisdom to pursue;
Pleas'd with the little nature just requires,
Wealth, honours, pleasures, titles he disdain'd;
Few were his wants, as moderate his desires.
The happy master of himself he reign'd!
A joy to all but purer minds unknown,
Beyond the pride of crowns, or splendors of a throne.

By Oxus' bank, along the winding shore
Inclos'd with wood a little spot he found;
There had he fix'd his rest, and greatly poor,
Liv'd on the fruits of his domestic ground:
Oft had Cambuscan, tir'd with cares of state,
Delighted sought the refuge of his Cave,
There philosophic held the cool debate,
Nor scorn'd the councils which the hermit gave,
Whose life reveal'd the value of his art,
And to the learned head conjoin'd the friendly heart.

For him, immediate then the monarch sends,
His seasonable presence to require.
The honest sage the messenger attends,
And comes obedient to the king's desire:
His head with age's frost was Silver'd o'er,
Yet on his cheek still blush'd the temperate rose.
Decent, tho' plain, a flowing robe he wore,
And manly dignity his person shows:
For such his carriage seem'd and gentle port,
As if his life had been conversant with a court.

The Syrian knight (for so requests the king)
The nature of the caliph's gifts explains;
The horse, the sword, the mirror, and the ring,
And points the qualities which each retains;
When thus the prince — 'It suits thee to declare,
Wise Cosroes, for thy knowledge can impart;
Whence boast these presents their perfections rare!
From nature flows their virtue, or from art?
Or animates the steed some power divine?
Or do mechanic springs direct the bold design?'

To whom the sage — 'Not, mighty prince, I boast
Of such mysterious things to judge the cause!
Least knows the wisest mind in knowing most
Of matter's properties, and motion's laws;
Form'd of two principles distinguish'd quite,
Compos'd we find our own corporeal frame;
We know that spirit and earth in one unite,
Yet search in vain from whence the union came,
Or where subsists invisible the tye?
That Life itself maintains, and failing which, we dye!

'What gives commission to the wintry war,
When the loud storm enchafes the troubled deep?
Or sooths to peace the elemental jar,
And hushes the relenting winds to sleep?
What bids the moon's revolving light
By turns replenish and by turns decay?
Fair as she glides along the face of night,
Shaping through many a cloud her pathless way.
Or whence those clouds themselves unseen arise?
To paint with figur'd robes the ever-changing skies!

'All the phenomena of boundless air,
That strike with wonder the unletter'd eye,
The meteor's flash, the ruddy comet's glare,
Or the loud thunder bursting from the sky!
The dark eclipse, when o'er the lamp of day
Its gloomy blot prevailing darkness bends,
The painted bow, whose variegated ray
O'er the pale cloud its glittering arch distends:
All these, in vain, enquiry would pursue
With narrow schemes of sense, and systems still untrue.

'Yet science sees direct — far as it may,
While ignorance its dubious passage pores;
Safe walks the sage as reason lights the way,
One sovereign cause discovers and adores!
The more in nature's road he thoughtful treads,
He sees eternal wisdom rule the whole:
The more the book of heav'n intent he reads,
He feels that wisdom penetrate his soul.
And what the world beholds with careless eyes,
Silent he contemplates with reverence and surprize!

'Matter he views still struggling to a birth,
Through all her elemental forms aspire;
Earth rise from water, air refine from earth,
To purify itself at last in fire:
Fire! — the fix'd principle whose vital ray,
Heat, motion, action, and sensation breeds,
Which, shed eternal from exhaustless day,
Wakens to life the dull material seeds,
That to itself attractive all invites,
Till in its radiant cause each particle unites.

'Hence would it seem, that this mysterious horse,
Tho' form'd to semblance of material mold,
Is taught by sympathy to guide his course,
And act unerring all the wonders told;
This sure we know, that matter has its Laws,
By which impell'd the stubborn mass obeys;
That this [illeg.] pow'r; and undiscover'd cause,
Can seeming miracles in nature raise:
As the Greek Pegasus, is fam'd to bear
The bold Bellerophon thro' fields of trackless air.

'Hence taught, in matter can the sage infuse
New qualities, as suit his just design;
Can shape the form subservient to his views,
And stamp the workmanship with skill divine.
Thus, in the honour'd caliph's precious sword,
Opposing virtues may their influence shed;
The salutary hilt a balm afford,
To heal the cruel hurt the edge had made;
As the bruis'd scorpion press'd upon the wound,
Extracts his proper gall and leaves the patient sound.

'Thus may the mystick mirror and the ring
The gentle knight's description well maintain,
From planetary signs their virtues spring,
Which only deep-read science can attain.
As o'er affrighted Misraim's fruitful land
The word of Mousa once destruction spread,
Or grac'd the signet Solomon's right hand,
Whose power could wake the slumbers of the dead;
Could from the eye remove the veil of night,
And place the worlds unseen before th' astonish'd sight.

'But whether thou, great king, exalt thy head
In peaceful sway and foreign friendships blest;
Remember heav'n, that all thy grandeur made,
Nor let vain pride pollute thy royal breast!
All that we see in life's deceitful dream,
Like us, the thin beholders, glides away,
Only great Orosmanes shines the same
Unwasting fountain of eternal day!
The centre, where creation fondly tends,
Whence every being springs, in whom all being ends!'

He ceas'd — attentive as the Syrian knight
Heard the soft accents issue from his tongue,
Such mild instructions sweeten the delight,
He had not thought a midnight audience long.
Cambuscan thanks return'd, th' applauding crowd
With common justice spoke the sage's praise.
Sleep now began to spread his gentle shroud,
And summon nature to her wonted ease.
The king arose — the court retire to rest,
And thro' the palace wide — deep silence reigns confess'd.

by Samuel Boyse.

I

HAIL, orient Conqueror of gloomy Night!
Thou that canst shed the bliss of gratitude
On hearts howe'er insensible or rude;
Whether thy punctual visitations smite
The haughty towers where monarchs dwell;
Or thou, impartial Sun, with presence bright
Cheer'st the low threshold of the peasant's cell!
Not unrejoiced I see thee climb the sky
In naked splendour, clear from mist or haze,
Or cloud approaching to divert the rays,
Which even in deepest winter testify
Thy power and majesty,
Dazzling the vision that presumes to gaze.
--Well does thine aspect usher in this Day;
As aptly suits therewith that modest pace
Submitted to the chains
That bind thee to the path which God ordains
That thou shalt trace,
Till, with the heavens and earth, thou pass away!
Nor less, the stillness of these frosty plains,
Their utter stillness, and the silent grace
Of yon ethereal summits white with snow,
(Whose tranquil pomp and spotless purity
Report of storms gone by
To us who tread below)
Do with the service of this Day accord.
--Divinest Object which the uplifted eye
Of mortal man is suffered to behold;
Thou, who upon those snow-clad Heights has poured
Meek lustre, nor forget'st the humble Vale;
Thou who dost warm Earth's universal mould,
And for thy bounty wert not unadored
By pious men of old;
Once more, heart-cheering Sun, I bid thee hail!
Bright be thy course to-day, let not this promise fail!

II

'Mid the deep quiet of this morning hour,
All nature seems to hear me while I speak,
By feelings urged that do not vainly seek
Apt language, ready as the tuneful notes
That stream in blithe succession from the throats
Of birds, in leafy bower,
Warbling a farewell to a vernal shower.
--There is a radiant though a short-lived flame,
That burns for Poets in the dawning east;
And oft my soul hath kindled at the same,
When the captivity of sleep had ceased;
But He who fixed immoveably the frame
Of the round world, and built, by laws as strong,
A solid refuge for distress--
The towers of righteousness;
He knows that from a holier altar came
The quickening spark of this day's sacrifice;
Knows that the source is nobler whence doth rise
The current of this matin song;
That deeper far it lies
Than aught dependent on the fickle skies.

III

Have we not conquered?--by the vengeful sword?
Ah no, by dint of Magnanimity;
That curbed the baser passions, and left free
A loyal band to follow their liege Lord
Clear-sighted Honour, and his staid Compeers,
Along a track of most unnatural years;
In execution of heroic deeds
Whose memory, spotless as the crystal beads
Of morning dew upon the untrodden meads,
Shall live enrolled above the starry spheres.
He, who in concert with an earthly string
Of Britain's acts would sing,
He with enraptured voice will tell
Of One whose spirit no reverse could quell;
Of One that 'mid the failing never failed--
Who paints how Britain struggled and prevailed
Shall represent her labouring with an eye
Of circumspect humanity;
Shall show her clothed with strength and skill,
All martial duties to fulfil;
Firm as a rock in stationary fight;
In motion rapid as the lightning's gleam;
Fierce as a flood-gate bursting at midnight
To rouse the wicked from their giddy dream--
Woe, woe to all that face her in the field!
Appalled she may not be, and cannot yield.

IV

And thus is 'missed' the sole true glory
That can belong to human story!
At which they only shall arrive
Who through the abyss of weakness dive.
The very humblest are too proud of heart;
And one brief day is rightly set apart
For Him who lifteth up and layeth low;
For that Almighty God to whom we owe,
Say not that we have vanquished--but that we survive.

V

How dreadful the dominion of the impure!
Why should the Song be tardy to proclaim
That less than power unbounded could not tame
That soul of Evil--which, from hell let loose,
Had filled the astonished world with such abuse
As boundless patience only could endure?
--Wide-wasted regions--cities wrapt in flame--
Who sees, may lift a streaming eye
To Heaven;--who never saw, may heave a sigh;
But the foundation of our nature shakes,
And with an infinite pain the spirit aches,
When desolated countries, towns on fire,
Are but the avowed attire
Of warfare waged with desperate mind
Against the life of virtue in mankind;
Assaulting without ruth
The citadels of truth;
While the fair gardens of civility,
By ignorance defaced,
By violence laid waste,
Perish without reprieve for flower or tree!

VI

A crouching purpose--a distracted will--
Opposed to hopes that battened upon scorn,
And to desires whose ever-waxing horn
Not all the light of earthly power could fill;
Opposed to dark, deep plots of patient skill,
And to celerities of lawless force;
Which, spurning God, had flung away remorse--
What could they gain but shadows of redress?
--So bad proceeded propagating worse;
And discipline was passion's dire excess.
Widens the fatal web, its lines extend,
And deadlier poisons in the chalice blend.
When will your trials teach you to be wise?
--O prostrate Lands, consult your agonies!

VII

No more--the guilt is banished,
And, with the guilt, the shame is fled;
And, with the guilt and shame, the Woe hath vanished,
Shaking the dust and ashes from her head!
--No more--these lingerings of distress
Sully the limpid stream of thankfulness.
What robe can Gratitude employ
So seemly as the radiant vest of Joy?
What steps so suitable as those that move
In prompt obedience to spontaneous measures
Of glory, and felicity, and love,
Surrendering the whole heart to sacred pleasures?

VIII

O Britain! dearer far than life is dear,
If one there be
Of all thy progeny
Who can forget thy prowess, never more
Be that ungrateful Son allowed to hear
Thy green leaves rustle or thy torrents roar.
As springs the lion from his den,
As from a forest-brake
Upstarts a glistering snake,
The bold Arch-despot re-appeared;--again
Wide Europe heaves, impatient to be cast,
With all her armed Powers,
On that offensive soil, like waves upon a thousand shores.
The trumpet blew a universal blast!
But Thou art foremost in the field:--there stand:
Receive the triumph destined to thy hand!
All States have glorified themselves;--their claims
Are weighed by Providence, in balance even;
And now, in preference to the mightiest names,
To Thee the exterminating sword is given.
Dread mark of approbation, justly gained!
Exalted office, worthily sustained!

IX

Preserve, O Lord! within our hearts
The memory of thy favour,
That else insensibly departs,
And loses its sweet savour!
Lodge it within us!--as the power of light
Lives inexhaustibly in precious gems,
Fixed on the front of Eastern diadems,
So shine our thankfulness for ever bright!
What offering, what transcendent monument
Shall our sincerity to Thee present?
--Not work of hands; but trophies that may reach
To highest Heaven--the labour of the Soul;
That builds, as thy unerring precepts teach,
Upon the internal conquests made by each,
Her hope of lasting glory for the whole.
Yet will not heaven disown nor earth gainsay
The outward service of this day;
Whether the worshippers entreat
Forgiveness from God's mercy-seat;
Or thanks and praises to His throne ascend
That He has brought our warfare to an end,
And that we need no second victory!--
Ha! what a ghastly sight for man to see;
And to the heavenly saints in peace who dwell,
For a brief moment, terrible;
But, to thy sovereign penetration, fair,
Before whom all things are, that were,
All judgments that have been, or e'er shall be;
Links in the chain of thy tranquillity!
Along the bosom of this favoured Nation,
Breathe Thou, this day, a vital undulation!
Let all who do this land inherit
Be conscious of thy moving spirit!
Oh, 'tis a goodly Ordinance,--the sight,
Though sprung from bleeding war, is one of pure delight;
Bless Thou the hour, or ere the hour arrive,
When a whole people shall kneel down in prayer,
And, at one moment, in one rapture, strive
With lip and heart to tell their gratitude
For thy protecting care,
Their solemn joy--praising the Eternal Lord
For tyranny subdued,
And for the sway of equity renewed,
For liberty confirmed, and peace restored!

X

But hark--the summons!--down the placid lake
Floats the soft cadence of the church-tower bells;
Bright shines the Sun, as if his beams would wake
The tender insects sleeping in their cells;
Bright shines the Sun--and not a breeze to shake
The drops that tip the melting icicles.
'O, enter now his temple gate!'
Inviting words--perchance already flung
(As the crowd press devoutly down the aisle
Of some old Minster's venerable pile)
From voices into zealous passion stung,
While the tubed engine feels the inspiring blast,
And has begun--its clouds of sound to cast
Forth towards empyreal Heaven,
As if the fretted roof were riven.
'Us', humbler ceremonies now await;
But in the bosom, with devout respect
The banner of our joy we will erect,
And strength of love our souls shall elevate:
For to a few collected in his name,
Their heavenly Father will incline an ear
Gracious to service hallowed by its aim;--
Awake! the majesty of God revere!
Go--and with foreheads meekly bowed
Present your prayers--go--and rejoice aloud--
The Holy One will hear!
And what, 'mid silence deep, with faith sincere,
Ye, in your low and undisturbed estate,
Shall simply feel and purely meditate--
Of warnings--from the unprecedented might,
Which, in our time, the impious have disclosed;
And of more arduous duties thence imposed
Upon the future advocates of right;
Of mysteries revealed,
And judgments unrepealed,
Of earthly revolution,
And final retribution,--
To his omniscience will appear
An offering not unworthy to find place,
On this high DAY of THANKS, before the
Throne of Grace!

by William Wordsworth.

Present.

A meadow where the grass was deep,
Rich, square, and golden to the view,
A belt of elms with level sweep
About it grew.

The sun beat down on it, the line
Of shade was clear beneath the trees;
There, by a clustering eglantine,
We sat at ease.

And O the buttercups! that field
O' the cloth of gold, where pennons swam—
Where France set up his lilied shield,
His oriflamb,

And Henry's lion-standard rolled:
What was it to their matchless sheen,
Their million million drops of gold
Among the green!

We sat at ease in peaceful trust,
For he had written, 'Let us meet;
My wife grew tired of smoke and dust,
And London heat,

'And I have found a quiet grange,
Set back in meadows sloping west,
And there our little ones can range
And she can rest.

'Come down, that we may show the view,
And she may hear your voice again,
And talk her woman's talk with you
Along the lane.'

Since he had drawn with listless hand
The letter, six long years had fled,
And winds had blown about the sand,
And they were wed.

Two rosy urchins near him played,
Or watched, entranced, the shapely ships
That with his knife for them he made
Of elder slips.

And where the flowers were thickest shed,
Each blossom like a burnished gem,
A creeping baby reared its head,
And cooed at them.

And calm was on the father's face,
And love was in the mother's eyes;
She looked and listened from her place,
In tender wise.

She did not need to raise her voice
That they might hear, she sat so nigh;
Yet we could speak when 't was our choice,
And soft reply.

Holding our quiet talk apart
Of household things; till, all unsealed,
The guarded outworks of the heart
Began to yield;

And much that prudence will not dip
The pen to fix and send away,
Passed safely over from the lip
That summer day.

'I should be happy,' with a look
Towards her husband where he lay,
Lost in the pages of his book,
Soft did she say.

'I am, and yet no lot below
For one whole day eludeth care;
To marriage all the stories flow,
And finish there:

'As if with marriage came the end,
The entrance into settled rest,
The calm to which love's tossings tend,
The quiet breast.

'For me love played the low preludes,
Yet life began but with the ring,
Such infinite solicitudes
Around it cling.

'I did not for my heart divine
Her destiny so meek to grow;
The higher nature matched with mine
Will have it so.

'Still I consider it, and still
Acknowledge it my master made,
Above me by the steadier will
Of nought afraid.

'Above me by the candid speech;
The temperate judgment of its own:
The keener thoughts that grasp and reach
At things unknown.

'But I look up and he looks down,
And thus our married eyes can meet;
Unclouded his, and clear of frown,
And gravely sweet.

'And yet, O good, O wise and true!
I would for all my fealty,
That I could be as much to you
As you to me;

And knew the deep secure content
Of wives who have been hardly won,
And, long petitioned, gave assent,
Jealous of none.

'But proudly sure in all the earth
No other in that homage shares,
Nor other woman's face or worth
Is prized as theirs.'

'I said; ' And yet no lot below
For one whole day eludeth care.
Your thought.' She answered, 'Even so,
I would beware

'Regretful questionings; be sure
That very seldom do they rise,
Nor for myself do I endure—
I sympathise.

'For once'—she turned away her head,
Across the grass she swept her hand'—
There was a letter once,' she said,
'Upon the sand.'

'There was, in truth, a letter writ
On sand,' I said, 'and swept from view;
But that same hand which fashioned it
Is given to you.

'Efface the letter; wherefore keep
An image which the sands forego?'
'Albeit that fear had seemed to sleep,'
She answered low,

'I could not choose but wake it now;
For do but turn aside your face,
A house on yonder hilly brow
Your eyes may trace.

'The chestnut shelters it; ah me,
That I should have so faint a heart!
But yestereve, as by the sea
I sat apart,

'I heard a name, I saw a hand
Of passing stranger point that way—
And will he meet her on the strand,
When late we stray?

'For she is come, for she is there,
I heard it in the dusk, and heard
Admiring words, that named her fairs
But little stirred

'By beauty of the wood and wave,
And weary of an old man's sway;
For it was sweeter to enslave
Than to obey.'

—The voice of one that near us stood,
The rustle of a silken fold,
A scent of eastern sandalwood,
A gleam of gold!

A lady! In the narrow space
Between the husband and the wife,
But nearest him—she showed a face
With dangers rife;

A subtle smile that dimpling fled,
As night-black lashes rose and fell:
I looked, and to myself I said,
'The letter L.'

He, too, looked up, and with arrest
Of breath and motion held his gaze,
Nor cared to hide within his breast
His deep amaze;

Nor spoke till on her near advance
His dark cheek flushed a ruddier hue;
And with his change of countenance
Hers altered too.

'Lenore!' his voice was like the cry
Of one entreating; and he said
But that—then paused with such a sigh
As mourns the dead.

And seated near, with no demur
Of bashful doubt she silence broke,
Though I alone could answer her
When first she spoke.

She looked: her eyes were beauty's own;
She shed their sweetness into his;
Nor spared the married wife one moan
That bitterest is.

She spoke, and lo, her loveliness
Methought she damaged with her tongue;
And every sentence made it less,
So false they rung.

The rallying voice, the light demand,
Half flippant, half unsatisfied;
The vanity sincere and bland—
The answers wide.

And now her talk was of the East,
And next her talk was of the sea;
'And has the love for it increased
You shared with me?'

He answered not, but grave and still
With earnest eyes her face perused.
And locked his lips with steady will,
As one that mused—

That mused and wondered. Why his gaze
Should dwell on her, methought, was plain;
But reason that should wonder raise
I sought in vain.

And near and near the children drew,
Attracted by her rich array,
And gems that trembling into view
Like raindrops lay.

He spoke: the wife her baby took
And pressed the little face to hers;
What pain soe'er her bosom shook,
What jealous stirs

Might stab her heart, she hid them so,
The cooing babe a veil supplied;
And if she listened none might know,
Or if she sighed;

Or if forecasting grief and care
Unconscious solace thence she drew,
And lulled her babe, and unaware
Lulled sorrow too.

The lady, she interpreter
For looks or language wanted none,
If yet dominion stayed with her—
So lightly won;

If yet the heart she wounded sore
Could yearn to her, and let her see
The homage that was evermore
Disloyalty;

If sign would yield that it had bled,
Or rallied from the faithless blow,
Or sick or sullen stooped to wed,
She craved to know.

Now dreamy deep, now sweetly keen,
Her asking eyes would round him shine;
But guarded lips and settled mien
Refused the sign.

And unbeguiled and unbetrayed,
The wonder yet within his breast,
It seemed a watchful part he played
Against her quest.

Until with accent of regret
She touched upon the past once more,
As if she dared him to forget
His dream of yore.

And words of little weight let fall
The fancy of the lower mind;
How waxing life must needs leave all
Its best behind;

How he had said that 'he would fain
(One morning on the halcyon sea)
That life would at a stand remain
Eternally;

'And sails be mirrored in the deep,
As then they were, for evermore,
And happy spirits wake and sleep
Afar from shore:

'The well-contented heart be fed
Ever as then, and all the world
(It were not small) unshadowèd
When sails were furled.

'Your words'—a pause, and quietly
With touch of calm self ridicule:
'It may be so—for then,' said he,
'I was a fool.'

With that he took his book, and left
An awkward silence to my care,
That soon I filled with questions deft
And debonair;

And slid into an easy vein,
The favourite picture of the year;
The grouse upon her lord's domain—
The salmon weir;

Till she could feign a sudden thought
Upon neglected guests, and rise,
And make us her adieux, with nought
In her dark eyes

Acknowledging or shame or pain;
But just unveiling for our view
A little smile of still disdain
As she withdrew.

Then nearer did the sunshine creep,
And warmer came the wafting breeze;
The little babe was fast asleep
On mother's knees.

Fair was the face that o'er it leant,
The cheeks with beauteous blushes dyed;
The downcast lashes, shyly bent,
That failed to hide

Some tender shame. She did not see;
She felt his eyes that would not stir,
She looked upon her babe, and he
So looked at her.

So grave, so wondering, so content,
As one new waked to conscious life,
Whose sudden joy with fear is blent.
He said, 'My wife.'

'My wife, how beautiful you are!'
Then closer at her side reclined,
'The bold brown woman from afar
Comes, to me blind.

'And by comparison, I see
The majesty of matron grace,
And learn how pure, how fair can be
My own wife's face:

'Pure with all faithful passion, fair
With tender smiles that come and go;
And comforting as April air
After the snow.

'Fool that I was! my spirit frets
And marvels at the humbling truth,
That I have deigned to spend regrets
On my bruised youth.

'Its idol mocked thee, seated nigh,
And shamed me for the mad mistake,
I thank my God He could deny,
And she forsake.

'Ah, who am I, that God hath saved
Me from the doom I did desire,
And crossed the lot myself had craved,
To set me higher?

'What have I done that He should bow
From heaven to choose a wife for me?
And what deserved, He should endow
My home with THEE?

'My wife!' With that she turned her face
To kiss the hand about her neck;
And I went down and sought the place
Where leaped the beck—

The busy beck, that still would run
And fall, and falter its refrain;
And pause and shimmer in the sun,
And fall again.

It led me to the sandy shore,
We sang together, it and I—
'The daylight comes, the dark is o'er,
The shadows fly.'

I lost it on the sandy shore,
'O wife!' its latest murmurs fell,
'O wife, be glad, and fear no more
The letter L.'

by Jean Ingelow.

Scene--A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.

Katharine. What are the words ?

Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore ; here he comes. Kate has a favour
to ask of you, Sir ; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if
all those endearing young charms.--EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so
sweetly.

Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies ; but I do not recollect the
words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this :--

Love would remain the same if true,
When we were neither young nor new ;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.

Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my
mother admired so much ? It begins with something about two vines so close
that their tendrils intermingle.

Friend. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother.

We'll live together, like two neighbour vines,
Circling our souls and loves in one another !
We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ;
One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ;
One age go with us, and one hour of death
Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy.

Katharine. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old
age--this love--if true ! But is there any such true love ?

Friend. I hope so.

Katharine. But do you believe it ?

Eliza (eagerly). I am sure he does.

Friend. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a
less confident answer.

Katharine. A more sincere one, perhaps.

Friend. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of
Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at
Christmas times ?

Eliza. Nay, but be serious.

Friend. Serious ! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a
Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The
difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be
asked whether I am not the `elderly gentleman' who sate `despairing
beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block.

Eliza. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation.

Katharine. No ! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for
our presumption in expecting that Mr. ___ would waste his sense on two
insignificant girls.

Friend. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then commences the
discourse ; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished
from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often
usurps its name, on the other--

Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the
Friend). But is not Love the union of both ?

Friend (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so.

Eliza. Brother, we don't want you. There ! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the
flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman.

Lucius. I'll have my revenge ! I know what I will say !

Eliza. Off ! Off ! Now, dear Sir,--Love, you were saying--

Friend. Hush ! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.

Eliza (impatiently). Pshaw !

Friend. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not
the most common thing in the world : and that mutual love still less
so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated
by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the
well-known ballad, `John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a
depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes
a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature ; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul ; a delight in the
detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament
within--to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But
above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide
of life--even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt
oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which,
in all our lovings, is the Love ;----

Eliza. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to
understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself.

Katharine. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for
us.

Friend. ---- I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the
self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the
total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own
;--that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved
object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and,
finding, again seeks on ;--lastly, when `life's changeful orb has
pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus
brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly
experience ; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not
the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by
familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty
which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of
possessing the same or the correspondent excellence in their own
characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the
beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of
love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow ; and dares
make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a
thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged Virtue the
caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence of childhood, and
repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been
dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in
feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.

Eliza. What a soothing--what an elevating idea !

Katharine. If it be not only an idea.

Friend. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are
rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it
be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world
under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A
person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as a
neighbour, friend, housemate--in short, in all the concentric circles
of attachment save only the last and inmost ; and yet from how many
causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this ! Pride,
coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or
ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,--one or
the other--too often proves `the dead fly in the compost of spices',
and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction.
For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort
of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself
alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high
sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part,
grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of
preserving the same but by negatives--that is, but not doing or saying
any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical
;--or, (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which
some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most
worthless object they could be employed in remembering.

Eliza (in answer to a whisper from Katharine). To a hair ! He must have
sate for it himself. Save me from such folks ! But they are out of the
question.

Friend. True ! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too
general insensibility to a very important truth ; this, namely, that
the MISERY of human life is made up of large masses, each separated
from the other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a child ;
years after, a failure in trade ; after another longer or shorter
interval, a daughter may have married unhappily ;--in all but the
singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total
of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily counted, and distinctly
remembered. The HAPPINESS of life, on the contrary, is made up of
minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a
smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a
playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of
pleasurable thought and genial feeling.

Katharine. Well, Sir ; you have said quite enough to make me despair of
finding a `John Anderson, my Jo, John', with whom to totter down the hill
of life.

Friend. Not so ! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer than good
women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find
in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession
of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.

Eliza. Surely, he, who has described it so well, must have possessed it ?

Friend. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly
anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment !

(Then, after a pause of a few minutes),

--------------------------------------
ANSWER, ex improviso

Yes, yes ! that boon, life's richest treat
He had, or fancied that he had ;
Say, 'twas but in his own conceit--
The fancy made him glad !
Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish !
The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish,
The fair fulfilment of his poesy,
When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy !
But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain
Unnourished wane ;
Faith asks her daily bread,
And Fancy must be fed !
Now so it chanced--from wet or dry,
It boots not how--I know not why--
She missed her wonted food ; and quickly
Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.
Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,
His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow ;
Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay,
Above its anchor driving to and fro.

That boon, which but to have possess'd
In a belief, gave life a zest--
Uncertain both what it had been,
And if by error lost, or luck ;
And what is was ;--an evergreen
Which some insidious blight had struck,
Or annual flower, which, past its blow,
No vernal spell shall e'er revive ;
Uncertain, and afraid to know,
Doubts toss'd him to and fro :
Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive,
Like babes bewildered in a snow,
That cling and huddle from the cold
In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.

Those sparkling colours, once his boast
Fading, one by one away,
Thin and hueless as a ghost,
Poor Fancy on her sick bed lay ;
Ill at distance, worse when near,
Telling her dreams to jealous Fear !
Where was it then, the sociable sprite,
That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish !
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,
Itself a substance by no other right
But that it intercepted Reason's light ;
It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow !
Thank Heaven ! 'tis not so now.

O bliss of blissful hours !
The boon of Heaven's decreeing,
While yet in Eden's bowers
Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate !
The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing,
They bore with them thro' Eden's closing gate !
Of life's gay summer tide the sovran Rose !
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade ;
If this were ever his, in outward being,
Or but his own true love's projected shade,
Now that at length by certain proof he knows,
That whether real or a magic show,
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so ;
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,
Yet, Lady ! deem him not unblest :
The certainty that struck Hope dead,
Hath left Contentment in her stead :
And that is next to Best !

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Scene--A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.

Katharine. What are the words ?

Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore ; here he comes. Kate has a favour
to ask of you, Sir ; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if
all those endearing young charms.--EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so
sweetly.

Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies ; but I do not recollect the
words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this :--

Love would remain the same if true,
When we were neither young nor new ;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.

Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my
mother admired so much ? It begins with something about two vines so close
that their tendrils intermingle.

Friend. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother.

We'll live together, like two neighbour vines,
Circling our souls and loves in one another !
We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ;
One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ;
One age go with us, and one hour of death
Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy.

Katharine. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old
age--this love--if true ! But is there any such true love ?

Friend. I hope so.

Katharine. But do you believe it ?

Eliza (eagerly). I am sure he does.

Friend. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a
less confident answer.

Katharine. A more sincere one, perhaps.

Friend. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of
Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at
Christmas times ?

Eliza. Nay, but be serious.

Friend. Serious ! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a
Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The
difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be
asked whether I am not the `elderly gentleman' who sate `despairing
beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block.

Eliza. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation.

Katharine. No ! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for
our presumption in expecting that Mr. ___ would waste his sense on two
insignificant girls.

Friend. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then commences the
discourse ; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished
from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often
usurps its name, on the other--

Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the
Friend). But is not Love the union of both ?

Friend (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so.

Eliza. Brother, we don't want you. There ! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the
flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman.

Lucius. I'll have my revenge ! I know what I will say !

Eliza. Off ! Off ! Now, dear Sir,--Love, you were saying--

Friend. Hush ! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.

Eliza (impatiently). Pshaw !

Friend. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not
the most common thing in the world : and that mutual love still less
so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated
by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the
well-known ballad, `John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a
depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes
a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature ; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul ; a delight in the
detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament
within--to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But
above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide
of life--even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt
oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which,
in all our lovings, is the Love ;----

Eliza. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to
understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself.

Katharine. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for
us.

Friend. ---- I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the
self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the
total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own
;--that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved
object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and,
finding, again seeks on ;--lastly, when `life's changeful orb has
pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus
brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly
experience ; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not
the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by
familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty
which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of
possessing the same or the correspondent excellence in their own
characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the
beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of
love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow ; and dares
make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a
thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged Virtue the
caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence of childhood, and
repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been
dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in
feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.

Eliza. What a soothing--what an elevating idea !

Katharine. If it be not only an idea.

Friend. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are
rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it
be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world
under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A
person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as a
neighbour, friend, housemate--in short, in all the concentric circles
of attachment save only the last and inmost ; and yet from how many
causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this ! Pride,
coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or
ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,--one or
the other--too often proves `the dead fly in the compost of spices',
and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction.
For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort
of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself
alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high
sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part,
grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of
preserving the same but by negatives--that is, but not doing or saying
any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical
;--or, (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which
some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most
worthless object they could be employed in remembering.

Eliza (in answer to a whisper from Katharine). To a hair ! He must have
sate for it himself. Save me from such folks ! But they are out of the
question.

Friend. True ! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too
general insensibility to a very important truth ; this, namely, that
the MISERY of human life is made up of large masses, each separated
from the other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a child ;
years after, a failure in trade ; after another longer or shorter
interval, a daughter may have married unhappily ;--in all but the
singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total
of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily counted, and distinctly
remembered. The HAPPINESS of life, on the contrary, is made up of
minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a
smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a
playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of
pleasurable thought and genial feeling.

Katharine. Well, Sir ; you have said quite enough to make me despair of
finding a `John Anderson, my Jo, John', with whom to totter down the hill
of life.

Friend. Not so ! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer than good
women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find
in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession
of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.

Eliza. Surely, he, who has described it so well, must have possessed it ?

Friend. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly
anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment !

(Then, after a pause of a few minutes),

--------------------------------------
ANSWER, ex improviso

Yes, yes ! that boon, life's richest treat
He had, or fancied that he had ;
Say, 'twas but in his own conceit--
The fancy made him glad !
Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish !
The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish,
The fair fulfilment of his poesy,
When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy !
But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain
Unnourished wane ;
Faith asks her daily bread,
And Fancy must be fed !
Now so it chanced--from wet or dry,
It boots not how--I know not why--
She missed her wonted food ; and quickly
Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.
Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,
His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow ;
Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay,
Above its anchor driving to and fro.

That boon, which but to have possess'd
In a belief, gave life a zest--
Uncertain both what it had been,
And if by error lost, or luck ;
And what is was ;--an evergreen
Which some insidious blight had struck,
Or annual flower, which, past its blow,
No vernal spell shall e'er revive ;
Uncertain, and afraid to know,
Doubts toss'd him to and fro :
Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive,
Like babes bewildered in a snow,
That cling and huddle from the cold
In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.

Those sparkling colours, once his boast
Fading, one by one away,
Thin and hueless as a ghost,
Poor Fancy on her sick bed lay ;
Ill at distance, worse when near,
Telling her dreams to jealous Fear !
Where was it then, the sociable sprite,
That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish !
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,
Itself a substance by no other right
But that it intercepted Reason's light ;
It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow !
Thank Heaven ! 'tis not so now.

O bliss of blissful hours !
The boon of Heaven's decreeing,
While yet in Eden's bowers
Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate !
The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing,
They bore with them thro' Eden's closing gate !
Of life's gay summer tide the sovran Rose !
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade ;
If this were ever his, in outward being,
Or but his own true love's projected shade,
Now that at length by certain proof he knows,
That whether real or a magic show,
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so ;
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,
Yet, Lady ! deem him not unblest :
The certainty that struck Hope dead,
Hath left Contentment in her stead :
And that is next to Best !

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I

Where West Point crouches, and with lifted shield
Turns the whole river eastward through the pass;
Whose jutting crags, half silver, stand revealed
Like bossy bucklers of Leonidas;
Where buttressed low against the storms that wield
Their summer lightnings where her eaglets swarm,
By Freedom's cradle Nature's self has steeled
Her heart, like Winkelried, and to that storm
Of leveled lances bares her bosom warm.

II

But not to-night. The air and woods are still,
The faintest rustle in the trees below,
The lowest tremor from the mountain rill,
Come to the ear as but the trailing flow
Of spirit robes that walk unseen the hill;
The moon low sailing o'er the upland farm,
The moon low sailing where the waters fill
The lozenge lake, beside the banks of balm,
Gleams like a chevron on the river's arm.

III

All space breathes languor: from the hilltop high,
Where Putnam's bastion crumbles in the past,
To swooning depths where drowsy cannon lie
And wide-mouthed mortars gape in slumbers vast;
Stroke upon stroke, the far oars glance and die
On the hushed bosom of the sleeping stream;
Bright for one moment drifts a white sail by,
Bright for one moment shows a bayonet gleam
Far on the level plain, then passes as a dream.

IV

Soft down the line of darkened battlements,
Bright on each lattice of the barrack walls,
Where the low arching sallyport indents,
Seen through its gloom beyond, the moonbeam falls.
All is repose save where the camping tents
Mock the white gravestones farther on, where sound
No morning guns for reveille, nor whence
No drum-beat calls retreat, but still is ever found
Waiting and present on each sentry's round.

V

Within the camp they lie, the young, the brave,
Half knight, half schoolboy, acolytes of fame,
Pledged to one altar, and perchance one grave;
Bred to fear nothing but reproach and blame,
Ascetic dandies o'er whom vestals rave,
Clean-limbed young Spartans, disciplined young elves,
Taught to destroy, that they may live to save,
Students embattled, soldiers at their shelves,
Heroes whose conquests are at first themselves.

VI

Within the camp they lie, in dreams are freed
From the grim discipline they learn to love;
In dreams no more the sentry's challenge heed,
In dreams afar beyond their pickets rove;
One treads once more the piny paths that lead
To his green mountain home, and pausing hears
The cattle call; one treads the tangled weed
Of slippery rocks beside Atlantic piers;
One smiles in sleep, one wakens wet with tears.

VII

One scents the breath of jasmine flowers that twine
The pillared porches of his Southern home;
One hears the coo of pigeons in the pine
Of Western woods where he was wont to roam;
One sees the sunset fire the distant line
Where the long prairie sweeps its levels down;
One treads the snow-peaks; one by lamps that shine
Down the broad highways of the sea-girt town;
And two are missing,--Cadets Grey and Brown!

VIII

Much as I grieve to chronicle the fact,
That selfsame truant known as 'Cadet Grey'
Was the young hero of our moral tract,
Shorn of his twofold names on entrance-day.
'Winthrop' and 'Adams' dropped in that one act
Of martial curtness, and the roll-call thinned
Of his ancestors, he with youthful tact
Indulgence claimed, since Winthrop no more sinned,
Nor sainted Adams winced when he, plain Grey, was 'skinned.'


IX

He had known trials since we saw him last,
By sheer good luck had just escaped rejection,
Not for his learning, but that it was cast
In a spare frame scarce fit for drill inspection;
But when he ope'd his lips a stream so vast
Of information flooded each professor,
They quite forgot his eyeglass,--something past
All precedent,--accepting the transgressor,
Weak eyes and all of which he was possessor.

X

E'en the first day he touched a blackboard's space--
So the tradition of his glory lingers--
Two wise professors fainted, each with face
White as the chalk within his rapid fingers:
All day he ciphered, at such frantic pace,
His form was hid in chalk precipitation
Of every problem, till they said his case
Could meet from them no fair examination
Till Congress made a new appropriation.

XI

Famous in molecules, he demonstrated
From the mess hash to many a listening classful;
Great as a botanist, he separated
Three kinds of 'Mentha' in one julep's glassful;
High in astronomy, it has been stated
He was the first at West Point to discover
Mars' missing satellites, and calculated
Their true positions, not the heavens over,
But 'neath the window of Miss Kitty Rover.

XII

Indeed, I fear this novelty celestial
That very night was visible and clear;
At least two youths of aspect most terrestrial,
And clad in uniform, were loitering near
A villa's casement, where a gentle vestal
Took their impatience somewhat patiently,
Knowing the youths were somewhat green and 'bestial'--
(A certain slang of the Academy,
I beg the reader won't refer to me).

XIII

For when they ceased their ardent strain, Miss Kitty
Glowed not with anger nor a kindred flame,
But rather flushed with an odd sort of pity,
Half matron's kindness, and half coquette's shame;
Proud yet quite blameful, when she heard their ditty
She gave her soul poetical expression,
And being clever too, as she was pretty,
From her high casement warbled this confession,--
Half provocation and one half repression:--


NOT YET

Not yet, O friend, not yet! the patient stars
Lean from their lattices, content to wait.
All is illusion till the morning bars
Slip from the levels of the Eastern gate.
Night is too young, O friend! day is too near;
Wait for the day that maketh all things clear.
Not yet, O friend, not yet!

Not yet, O love, not yet! all is not true,
All is not ever as it seemeth now.
Soon shall the river take another blue,
Soon dies yon light upon the mountain brow.
What lieth dark, O love, bright day will fill;
Wait for thy morning, be it good or ill.
Not yet, O love, not yet!


XIV

The strain was finished; softly as the night
Her voice died from the window, yet e'en then
Fluttered and fell likewise a kerchief white;
But that no doubt was accident, for when
She sought her couch she deemed her conduct quite
Beyond the reach of scandalous commenter,--
Washing her hands of either gallant wight,
Knowing the moralist might compliment her,--
Thus voicing Siren with the words of Mentor.

XV

She little knew the youths below, who straight
Dived for her kerchief, and quite overlooked
The pregnant moral she would inculcate;
Nor dreamed the less how little Winthrop brooked
Her right to doubt his soul's maturer state.
Brown--who was Western, amiable, and new--
Might take the moral and accept his fate;
The which he did, but, being stronger too,
Took the white kerchief, also, as his due.

XVI

They did not quarrel, which no doubt seemed queer
To those who knew not how their friendship blended;
Each was opposed, and each the other's peer,
Yet each the other in some things transcended.
Where Brown lacked culture, brains,--and oft, I fear,
Cash in his pocket,--Grey of course supplied him;
Where Grey lacked frankness, force, and faith sincere,
Brown of his manhood suffered none to chide him,
But in his faults stood manfully beside him.

XVII

In academic walks and studies grave,
In the camp drill and martial occupation,
They helped each other: but just here I crave
Space for the reader's full imagination,--
The fact is patent, Grey became a slave!
A tool, a fag, a 'pleb'! To state it plainer,
All that blue blood and ancestry e'er gave
Cleaned guns, brought water!--was, in fact, retainer
To Jones, whose uncle was a paper-stainer!

XVIII

How they bore this at home I cannot say:
I only know so runs the gossip's tale.
It chanced one day that the paternal Grey
Came to West Point that he himself might hail
The future hero in some proper way
Consistent with his lineage. With him came
A judge, a poet, and a brave array
Of aunts and uncles, bearing each a name,
Eyeglass and respirator with the same.

XIX

'Observe!' quoth Grey the elder to his friends,
'Not in these giddy youths at baseball playing
You'll notice Winthrop Adams! Greater ends
Than these absorb HIS leisure. No doubt straying
With Caesar's Commentaries, he attends
Some Roman council. Let us ask, however,
Yon grimy urchin, who my soul offends
By wheeling offal, if he will endeavor
To find-- What! heaven! Winthrop! Oh! no! never!'

XX

Alas! too true! The last of all the Greys
Was 'doing police detail,'--it had come
To this; in vain the rare historic bays
That crowned the pictured Puritans at home!
And yet 'twas certain that in grosser ways
Of health and physique he was quite improving.
Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise
In other exercise, much more behooving
A soldier's taste than merely dirt removing.

XXI

But to resume: we left the youthful pair,
Some stanzas back, before a lady's bower;
'Tis to be hoped they were no longer there,
For stars were pointing to the morning hour.
Their escapade discovered, ill 'twould fare
With our two heroes, derelict of orders;
But, like the ghost, they 'scent the morning air,'
And back again they steal across the borders,
Unseen, unheeded, by their martial warders.

XXII

They got to bed with speed: young Grey to dream
Of some vague future with a general's star,
And Mistress Kitty basking in its gleam;
While Brown, content to worship her afar,
Dreamed himself dying by some lonely stream,
Having snatched Kitty from eighteen Nez Perces,
Till a far bugle, with the morning beam,
In his dull ear its fateful song rehearses,
Which Winthrop Adams after put to verses.

XXIII

So passed three years of their novitiate,
The first real boyhood Grey had ever known.
His youth ran clear,--not choked like his Cochituate,
In civic pipes, but free and pure alone;
Yet knew repression, could himself habituate
To having mind and body well rubbed down,
Could read himself in others, and could situate
Themselves in him,--except, I grieve to own,
He couldn't see what Kitty saw in Brown!

XXIV

At last came graduation; Brown received
In the One Hundredth Cavalry commission;
Then frolic, flirting, parting,--when none grieved
Save Brown, who loved our young Academician.
And Grey, who felt his friend was still deceived
By Mistress Kitty, who with other beauties
Graced the occasion, and it was believed
Had promised Brown that when he could recruit his
Promised command, she'd share with him those duties.

XXV

Howe'er this was I know not; all I know,
The night was June's, the moon rode high and clear;
''Twas such a night as this,' three years ago,
Miss Kitty sang the song that two might hear.
There is a walk where trees o'erarching grow,
Too wide for one, not wide enough for three
(A fact precluding any plural beau),
Which quite explained Miss Kitty's company,
But not why Grey that favored one should be.

XXVI

There is a spring, whose limpid waters hide
Somewhere within the shadows of that path
Called Kosciusko's. There two figures bide,--
Grey and Miss Kitty. Surely Nature hath
No fairer mirror for a might-be bride
Than this same pool that caught our gentle belle
To its dark heart one moment. At her side
Grey bent. A something trembled o'er the well,
Bright, spherical--a tear? Ah no! a button fell!

XXVII

'Material minds might think that gravitation,'
Quoth Grey, 'drew yon metallic spheroid down.
The soul poetic views the situation
Fraught with more meaning. When thy girlish crown
Was mirrored there, there was disintegration
Of me, and all my spirit moved to you,
Taking the form of slow precipitation!'
But here came 'Taps,' a start, a smile, adieu!
A blush, a sigh, and end of Canto II.


BUGLE SONG

Fades the light,
And afar
Goeth day, cometh night;
And a star
Leadeth all,
Speedeth all
To their rest!

Love, good-night!
Must thou go
When the day
And the light
Need thee so,--
Needeth all,
Heedeth all,
That is best?

by Francis Bret Harte.

NOTHING so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.

How many pictures of one Nymph we view,
All how unlike each other, all how true!
Arcadia's Countess, here, in ermin'd pride,
Is, there, Pastora by a fountain side.
Here Fannia, leering on her own good man,
And there, a naked Leda with a Swan.
Let then the Fair one beautifully cry,
In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye,
Or drest in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine,
With simpering Angels, Palms, and Harps divine;
Whether the Charmer sinner it, or saint it,
If Folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Come then, the colours and the ground prepare!
Dip in the Rainbow, trick her off in Air;
Choose a firm Cloud, before it fall, and in it
Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Rufa, whose eye quick-glancing o'er the Park,
Attracts each light gay meteor of a Spark,
Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke,
As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock;
Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task,
With Sappho fragrant at an evening Masque:
So morning Insects that in muck begun,
Shine, buzz, and flyblow in the setting sun.

How soft is Silia! fearful to offend;
The Frail one's advocate, the Weak one's friend:
To her, Calista prov'd her conduct nice;
And good Simplicius asks of her advice.
Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the wink,
But spare your censure; Silia does not drink.
All eyes may see from what the change arose,
All eyes may see--a Pimple on her nose.

Papillia, wedded to her amorous spark,
Sighs for the shades--"How charming is a Park!"
A Park is purchas'd, but the Fair he sees
All bath'd in tears--"Oh odious, odious Trees!"

Ladies, like variegated Tulips, show;
'Tis to their Changes half their charms we owe;
Fine by defect, and delicately weak,
Their happy Spots the nice admirer take,
'Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarm'd,
Aw'd without Virtue, without Beauty charmed;
Her tongue bewitch'd as oddly as her Eyes,
Less Wit than Mimic, more a Wit than wise;
Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad;
Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create,
As when she touch'd the brink of all we hate.

Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,
To make a wash, would hardly stew a child;
Has ev'n been prov'd to grant a Lover's pray'r,
And paid a Tradesman once to make him stare;
Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim,
And made a Widow happy, for a whim.
Why then declare Good-nature is her scorn,
When 'tis by that alone she can be borne?
Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name?
A fool to Pleasure, yet a slave to Fame:
Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres:
Now Conscience chills her, and now Passion burns;
And Atheism and Religion take their turns;
A very Heathen in the carnal part,
Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart.

See Sin in State, majestically drunk;
Proud as a Peeress, prouder as a Punk;
Chaste to her Husband, frank to all beside,
A teeming Mistress, but a barren Bride.
What then? let Blood and Body bear the fault,
Her Head's untouch'd, that noble Seat of Thought:
Such this day's doctrine--in another fit
She sins with Poets thro' pure Love of Wit.
What has not fir'd her bosom or her brain?
Caesar and Tallboy, Charles and Charlemagne.
As Helluo, late Dictator of the Feast,
The Nose of Hautgout, and the Tip of Taste,
Critick'd your wine, and analyz'd your meat,
Yet on plain Pudding deign'd at home to eat;
So Philomede, lecturing all mankind
On the soft Passion, and the Taste refin'd,
Th' Address, the Delicacy--stoops at once,
And makes her hearty meal upon a Dunce.

Flavia's a Wit, has too much sense to Pray;
To Toast our wants and wishes, is her way;
Nor asks of God, but of her Stars, to give
The mighty blessing, "while we live, to live."
Then all for Death, that Opiate of the soul!
Lucretia's dagger, Rosamonda's bowl.
Say, what can cause such impotence of mind?
A spark too fickle, or a Spouse too kind.
Wise Wretch! with Pleasures too refin'd to please;
With too much Spirit to be e'er at ease;
With too much Quickness ever to be taught;
With too much Thinking to have common Thought:
You purchase Pain with all that Joy can give,
And die of nothing but a Rage to live.

Turn then from Wits; and look on Simo's Mate,
No Ass so meek, no Ass so obstinate.
Or her, that owns her Faults, but never mends,
Because she's honest, and the best of Friends.
Or her, whose life the Church and Scandal share,
For ever in a Passion, or a Pray'r.
Or her, who laughs at Hell, but (like her Grace)
Cries, "Ah! how charming, if there's no such place!"
Or who in sweet vicissitude appears
Of Mirth and Opium, Ratafie and Tears,
The daily Anodyne, and nightly Draught,
To kill those foes to Fair ones, Time and Thought.
Woman and Fool are two hard things to hit;
For true No-meaning puzzles more than Wit.

But what are these to great Atossa's mind?
Scarce once herself, by turns all Womankind!
Who, with herself, or others, from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth:
Shines, in exposing Knaves, and painting Fools,
Yet is, whate'er she hates and ridicules.
No Thought advances, but her Eddy Brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the World has been her Trade,
The wisest Fool much Time has ever made.
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratify'd except her Rage.
So much the Fury still outran the Wit,
The Pleasure miss'd her, and the Scandal hit.
Who breaks with her, provokes Revenge from Hell,
But he's a bolder man who dares be well.
Her ev'ry turn with Violence pursu'd,
Nor more a storm her Hate than Gratitude:
To that each Passion turns, or soon or late;
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate:
Superiors? death! and Equals? what a curse!
But an Inferior not dependant? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live:
But die, and she'll adore you--Then the Bust
And Temple rise--then fall again to dust.
Last night, her Lord was all that's good and great;
A Knave this morning, and his Will a Cheat.
Strange! by the Means defeated of the Ends,
By Spirit robb'd of Pow'r, by Warmth of Friends,
By Wealth of Followers! without one distress
Sick of herself thro' very selfishness!
Atossa, curs'd with ev'ry granted pray'r,
Childless with all her Children, wants an Heir.
To Heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store,
Or wanders, Heav'n-directed, to the Poor.

Pictures like these, dear Madam, to design,
Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line;
Some wandering touches, some reflected light,
Some flying stroke alone can hit 'em right:
For how should equal Colours do the knack?
Chameleons who can paint in white and black?

"Yet Chloe sure was form'd without a spot--"
Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot.
"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part,
Say, what can Chloe want?"--She wants a Heart.
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought;
But never, never, reach'd one gen'rous Thought.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in Decencies for ever.
So very reasonable, so unmov'd,
As never yet to love, or to be lov'd.
She, while her Lover pants upon her breast,
Can mark the figures on an Indian chest;
And when she sees her Friend in deep despair,
Observes how much a Chintz exceeds Mohair.
Forbid it Heav'n, a Favour or a Debt
She e'er should cancel--but she may forget.
Safe is your Secret still in Chloe's ear;
But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear.
Of all her Dears she never slander'd one,
But cares not if a thousand are undone.
Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead?
She bids her Footman put it in her head.
Chloe is prudent--Would you too be wise?
Then never break your heart when Chloe dies.

One certain Portrait may (I grant) be seen,
Which Heav'n has varnish'd out, and made a Queen:
The same for ever! and describ'd by all
With Truth and Goodness, as with Crown and Ball.
Poets heap Virtues, Painters Gems at will,
And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill.
'Tis well--but, Artists! who can paint or write,
To draw the Naked is your true delight.
That robe of Quality so struts and swells,
None see what Parts of Nature it conceals:
Th' exactest traits of Body or of Mind,
We owe to models of an humble kind.
If QUEENSBURY to strip there's no compelling,
'Tis from a Handmaid we must take a Helen.
From Peer or Bishop 'tis no easy thing
To draw the man who loves his God, or King:
Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail)
From honest Mah'met, or plain Parson Hale.

But grant, in Public Men sometimes are shown,
A Woman's seen in Private life alone:
Our bolder Talents in full light displayed;
Your Virtues open fairest in the shade.
Bred to disguise, in Public 'tis you hide;
There, none distinguish twixt your Shame or Pride,
Weakness or Delicacy; all so nice,
That each may seem a Virtue, or a Vice.

In Men, we various Ruling Passions find;
In Women, two almost divide the kind;
Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey,
The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway.

That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught
Is but to please, can Pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by Man's oppression curst,
They seek the second not to lose the first.

Men, some to Business, some to pleasure take;
But ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake:
Men, some to Quiet, some to public Strife;
But ev'ry Lady would be Queen for life.

Yet mark the fate of a whole Sex of Queens!
Pow'r all their end, but Beauty all the means:
In Youth they conquer, with so wild a rage,
As leaves them scarce a subject in their Age:
For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam;
No thought of peace or happiness at home.
But Wisdom's triumph is a well-tim'd Retreat,
As hard a science to the Fair as Great!
Beauties, like Tyrants, old and friendless grown,
Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone,
Worn out in public, weary ev'ry eye,
Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die.

Pleasures the sex, as children Birds, pursue,
Still out of reach, yet never out of view;
Sure, if they catch, to spoil the Toy at most,
To covet flying, and regret when lost:
At last, to follies Youth could scarce defend,
It grows their Age's prudence to pretend;
Asham'd to own they gave delight before,
Reduc'd to feign it, when they give no more:
As Hags hold Sabbaths, less for joy than spite,
So these their merry, miserable Night;
Still round and round the Ghosts of Beauty glide,
And haunt the places where their Honour died.

See how the World its Veterans rewards!
A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot;
Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot!

Ah Friend! to dazzle let the Vain design;
To raise the Thought, and touch the Heart be thine!
That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring,
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing:
So when the Sun's broad beam has tir'd the sight,
All mild ascends the Moon's more sober light,
Serene in Virgin Modesty she shines,
And unobserv'd the glaring Orb declines.

Oh! blest with Temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make tomorrow cheerful as today;
She, who can love a Sister's charms, or hear
Sighs for a Daughter with unwounded ear;
She, who ne'er answers till a Husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humour most, when she obeys;
Let Fops or Fortune fly which way they will;
Disdains all loss of Tickets, or Codille;
Spleen, Vapours, or Smallpox, above them all,
And Mistress of herself, though China fall.

And yet, believe me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at best a Contradiction still.
Heav'n, when it strives to polish all it can
Its last best work, but forms a softer Man;
Picks from each sex, to make the Favorite blest,
Your love of Pleasure, our desire of Rest:
Blends, in exception to all general rules,
Your Taste of Follies, with our Scorn of Fools:
Reserve with Frankness, Art with Truth ally'd,
Courage with Softness, Modesty with Pride;
Fix'd Principles, with Fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces--You.

Be this a Woman's Fame: with this unblest,
Toasts live a scorn, and Queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promis'd (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care,
Averted half your Parents' simple Pray'r;
And gave you Beauty, but deny'd the Pelf
That buys your sex a Tyrant o'er itself.
The generous God, who Wit and Gold refines,
And ripens Spirits as he ripens Mines,
Kept Dross for Duchesses, the world shall know it,
To you gave Sense, Good Humour, and a Poet.

by Alexander Pope.

LEAVE now our streets, and in yon plain behold
Those pleasant Seats for the reduced and old;
A merchant's gift, whose wife and children died,
When he to saving all his powers applied;
He wore his coat till bare was every thread,
And with the meanest fare his body fed.
He had a female cousin, who with care
Walk'd in his steps, and learn'd of him to spare;
With emulation and success they strove,
Improving still, still seeking to improve,
As if that useful knowledge they would gain -
How little food would human life sustain:
No pauper came their table's crumbs to crave;
Scraping they lived, but not a scrap they gave:
When beggars saw the frugal Merchant pass,
It moved their pity, and they said, 'Alas!
Hard is thy fate my brother,' and they felt
A beggar's pride as they that pity dealt.
The dogs, who learn of man to scorn the poor,
Bark'd him away from every decent door;
While they who saw him bare, but thought him rich,
To show respect or scorn, they knew not which.
But while our Merchant seemed so base and mean,
He had his wanderings, sometimes 'not unseen;'
To give in secret was a favourite act,
Yet more than once they took him in the fact
To scenes of various woe he nightly went,
And serious sums in healing misery spent;
Oft has he cheer'd the wretched at a rate
For which he daily might have dined on plate;
He has been seen--his hair all silver-white,
Shaking and shining--as he stole by night,
To feed unenvied on his still delight.
A twofold taste he had; to give and spare,
Both were his duties, and had equal care;
It was his joy to sit alone and fast,
Then send a widow and her boys repast:
Tears in his eyes would spite of him appear,
But he from other eyes has kept the tear:
All in a wint'ry night from far he came,
To soothe the sorrows of a suffering dame;
Whose husband robb'd him, and to whom he meant
A ling'ring, but reforming punishment:
Home then he walked, and found his anger rise
When fire and rushlight met his troubled eyes;
But these extinguish'd, and his prayer address'd
To Heaven in hope, he calmly sank to rest.
His seventieth year was pass'd and then was seen
A building rising on the northern green;
There was no blinding all his neighbours' eyes,
Or surely no one would have seen it rise:
Twelve rooms contiguous stood, and six were near,
There men were placed, and sober matrons here:
There were behind small useful gardens made,
Benches before, and trees to give them shade;
In the first room were seen above, below,
Some marks of taste, a few attempts at show.
The founder's picture and his arms were there
(Not till he left us), and an elbow'd chair;
There, 'mid these signs of his superior place,
Sat the mild ruler of this humble race.
Within the row are men who strove in vain,
Through years of trouble, wealth and ease to gain;
Less must they have than an appointed sum,
And freemen been, or hither must not come;
They should be decent, and command respect,
(Though needing fortune), whom these doors protect,
And should for thirty dismal years have tried
For peace unfelt and competence denied.
Strange! that o'er men thus train'd in sorrow's

school,
Power must be held, and they must live by rule;
Infirm, corrected by misfortunes, old,
Their habits settled and their passions cold;
Of health, wealth, power, and worldly cares bereft,
Still must they not at liberty be left;
There must be one to rule them, to restrain
And guide the movements of his erring train.
If then control imperious, check severe,
Be needed where such reverend men appear;
To what would youth, without such checks, aspire,
Free the wild wish, uncurb'd the strong desire?
And where (in college or in camp) they found
The heart ungovern'd and the hand unbound?
His house endow'd, the generous man resign'd
All power to rule, nay power of choice declined;
He and the female saint survived to view
Their work complete, and bade the world adieu!
Six are the Guardians of this happy seat,
And one presides when they on business meet;
As each expires, the five a brother choose;
Nor would Sir Denys Brand the charge refuse;
True, 'twas beneath him, 'but to do men good
Was motive never by his heart withstood:'
He too is gone, and they again must strive
To find a man in whom his gifts survive.
Now, in the various records of the dead,
Thy worth, Sir Denys, shall be weigh'd and read;
There we the glory of thy house shall trace,
With each alliance of thy noble race.
Yes! here we have him!--'Came in William's

reign,
The Norman Brand; the blood without a stain;
From the fierce Dane and ruder Saxon clear,
Pict, Irish, Scot, or Cambrian mountaineer:
But the pure Norman was the sacred spring,
And he, Sir Denys, was in heart a king:
Erect in person and so firm in soul,
Fortune he seem'd to govern and control:
Generous as he who gives his all away,
Prudent as one who toils for weekly pay;
In him all merits were decreed to meet,
Sincere though cautious, frank and yet discreet,
Just all his dealings, faithful every word,
His passions' master, and his temper's lord.'
Yet more, kind dealers in decaying fame?
His magnanimity you next proclaim;
You give him learning, join'd with sound good

sense,
And match his wealth with his benevolence;
What hides the multitude of sins, you add,
Yet seem to doubt if sins he ever had.
Poor honest Truth! thou writ'st of living men,
And art a railer and detractor then;
They die, again to be described, and now
A foe to merit and mankind art thou!
Why banish Truth? It injures not the dead,
It aids not them with flattery to be fed;
And when mankind such perfect pictures view,
They copy less, the more they think them true.
Let us a mortal as he was behold,
And see the dross adhering to the gold;
When we the errors of the virtuous state,
Then erring men their worth may emulate.
View then this picture of a noble mind,
Let him be wise, magnanimous, and kind;
What was the wisdom? Was it not the frown
That keeps all question, all inquiry down?
His words were powerful and decisive all,
But his slow reasons came for no man's call.
''Tis thus,' he cried, no doubt with kind intent,
To give results and spare all argument: -
'Let it be spared--all men at least agree
Sir Denys Brand had magnanimity:
His were no vulgar charities; none saw
Him like the Merchant to the hut withdraw;
He left to meaner minds the simple deed,
By which the houseless rest, the hungry feed
His was a public bounty vast and grand,
'Twas not in him to work with viewless hand;
He raised the Room that towers above the street,
A public room where grateful parties meet;
He first the Life-boat plann'd; to him the place
Is deep in debt--'twas he revived the Race;
To every public act this hearty friend
Would give with freedom or with frankness lend;
His money built the Jail, nor prisoner yet
Sits at his ease, but he must feel the debt;
To these let candour add his vast display;
Around his mansion all is grand and gay,
And this is bounty with the name of pay.'
I grant the whole, nor from one deed retract,
But wish recorded too the private act:
All these were great, but still our hearts approve
Those simpler tokens of the Christian love;
'Twould give me joy some gracious deed to meet
That has not call'd for glory through the street:
Who felt for many, could not always shun,
In some soft moment, to be kind to one;
And yet they tell us, when Sir Denys died,
That not a widow in the Borough sigh'd;
Great were his gifts, his mighty heart I own,
But why describe what all the world has known?
The rest is petty pride, the useless art
Of a vain mind to hide a swelling heart:
Small was his private room: men found him there
By a plain table, on a paltry chair;
A wretched floor-cloth, and some prints around,
The easy purchase of a single pound:
These humble trifles and that study small
Make a strong contrast with the servants' hall;
There barely comfort, here a proud excess,
The pompous seat of pamper'd idleness,
Where the sleek rogues with one consent declare,
They would not live upon his honour's fare;
He daily took but one half hour to dine,
On one poor dish and some three sips of wine;
Then he'd abuse them for their sumptuous feasts,
And say, 'My friends! you make yourselves like

beasts;
One dish suffices any man to dine,
But you are greedy as a herd of swine;
Learn to be temperate.'--Had they dared t'obey,
He would have praised and turn'd them all away.
Friends met Sir Denys riding in his ground,
And there the meekness of his spirit found:
For that gray coat, not new for many a year,
Hides all that would like decent dress appear;
An old brown pony 'twas his will to ride,
Who shuffled onward, and from side to side;
A five-pound purchase, but so fat and sleek,
His very plenty made the creature weak.
'Sir Denys Brand! and on so poor a steed!'
'Poor! it may be--such things I never heed:'
And who that youth behind, of pleasant mien,
Equipped as one who wishes to be seen,
Upon a horse, twice victor for a plate,
A noble hunter, bought at dearest rate? -
Him the lad fearing yet resolved to guide,
He curbs his spirit while he strokes his pride.
'A handsome youth, Sir Denys; and a horse
Of finer figure never trod the course, -
Yours, without question?'--'Yes! I think a groom
Bought me the beast; I cannot say the sum
I ride him not; it is a foolish pride
Men have in cattle--but my people ride;
The boy is--hark ye, sirrah! what's your name?
Ay, Jacob, yes! I recollect--the same;
As I bethink me now, a tenant's son -
I think a tenant,--is your father one?'
There was an idle boy who ran about,
And found his master's humble spirit out;
He would at awful distance snatch a look,
Then run away and hide him in some nook;
'For oh!' quoth he, 'I dare not fix my sight
On him, his grandeur puts me in a fright;
Oh! Mister Jacob, when you wait on him,
Do you not quake and tremble every limb?'
The Steward soon had orders--'Summers, see
That Sam be clothed, and let him wait on me.'

---------------------

Sir Denys died, bequeathing all affairs
In trust to Laughton's long-experienced cares;
Before a Guardian, and Sir Denys dead,
All rule and power devolved upon his head,
Numbers are call'd to govern, but in fact
Only the powerful and assuming act.
Laughton, too wise to be a dupe to fame,
Cared not a whit of what descent he came,
Till he was rich; he then conceived the thought
To fish for pedigree, but never caught:
All his desire, when he was young and poor,
Was to advance; he never cared for more:
'Let me buy, sell, be factor, take a wife,
Take any road, to get along in life.'
Was he a miser then? a robber? foe
To those who trusted? a deceiver?--No!
He was ambitious; all his powers of mind
Were to one end controll'd, improved, combined;
Wit, learning, judgment, were, by his account,
Steps for the ladder he design'd to mount;
Such step was money: wealth was but his slave,
For power he gain'd it, and for power he gave:
Full well the Borough knows that he'd the art
Of bringing money to the surest mart;
Friends too were aids,--they led to certain ends,
Increase of power and claim on other friends.
A favourite step was marriage: then he gain'd
Seat in our Hall, and o'er his party reign'd;
Houses and land he bought, and long'd to buy,
But never drew the springs of purchase dry,
And thus at last they answer'd every call,
The failing found him ready for their fall:
He walks along the street, the mart, the quay,
And looks and mutters, 'This belongs to me.'
His passions all partook the general bent;
Interest inform'd him when he should resent,
How long resist, and on what terms relent:
In points where he determined to succeed,
In vain might reason or compassion plead;
But gain'd his point, he was the best of men,
'Twas loss of time to be vexatious then:
Hence he was mild to all men whom he led,
Of all who dared resist, the scourge and dread.
Falsehood in him was not the useless lie
Of boasting pride or laughing vanity:
It was the gainful, the persuading art,
That made its way and won the doubting heart,
Which argued, soften'd, humbled, and prevail'd,
Nor was it tried till ev'ry truth had fail'd;
No sage on earth could more than he despise
Degrading, poor, unprofitable lies.
Though fond of gain, and grieved by wanton

waste,
To social parties he had no distaste;
With one presiding purpose in his view,
He sometimes could descend to trifle too!
Yet, in these moments, he had still the art
To ope the looks and close the guarded heart;
And, like the public host, has sometimes made
A grand repast, for which the guests have paid.
At length, with power endued and wealthy grown,
Frailties and passions, long suppress'd, were

shown:
Then to provoke him was a dangerous thing,
His pride would punish, and his temper sting;
His powerful hatred sought th' avenging hour,
And his proud vengeance struck with all his power,
Save when th' offender took a prudent way
The rising storm of fury to allay:
This might he do, and so in safety sleep,
By largely casting to the angry deep;
Or, better yet (its swelling force t'assuage),
By pouring oil of flattery on its rage.
And now, of all the heart approved, possess'd,
Fear'd, favour'd, follow'd, dreaded, and caress'd,
He gently yields to one mellifluous joy,
The only sweet that is not found to cloy,
Bland adulation!--other pleasures pall
On the sick taste, and transient are they all;
But this one sweet has such enchanting power,
The more we take, the faster we devour:
Nauseous to those who must the dose apply,
And most disgusting to the standers-by;
Yet in all companies will Laughton feed,
Nor care how grossly men perform the deed.
As gapes the nursling, or, what comes more near,
Some Friendly-Island chief, for hourly cheer;
When wives and slaves, attending round his seat,
Prepare by turns the masticated meat;
So for this master, husband, parent, friend,
His ready slaves their various efforts blend,
And, to their lord still eagerly inclined,
Pour the crude trash of a dependent mind.
But let the Muse assign the man his due,
Worth he possess'd, nor were his virtues few: -
He sometimes help'd the injured in their cause;
His power and purse have back'd the failing laws;
He for religion has a due respect,
And all his serious notions, are correct;
Although he pray'd and languish'd for a son,
He grew resign'd when Heaven denied him one;
He never to this quiet mansion sends
Subject unfit, in compliment to friends;
Not so Sir Denys, who would yet protest
He always chose the worthiest and the best:
Not men in trade by various loss brought down,
But those whose glory once amazed the town,
Who their last guinea in their pleasures spent,
Yet never fell so low as to repent:
To these his pity he could largely deal,
Wealth they had known, and therefore want could

feel.
Three seats were vacant while Sir Denys reign'd,
And three such favourites their admission gain'd;
These let us view, still more to understand
The moral feelings of Sir Denys Brand.

by George Crabbe.

While with the public, you, my Lord, lament
A friend and father lost; permit the muse,
The muse assigned of old a double theme,
To praise the dead worth and humble living pride,
Whose generous task begins where interest ends;
Permit her on a Talbot's tomb to lay
This cordial verse sincere, by truth inspired,
Which means not to bestow but borrow fame.
Yes, she may sing his matchless virtues now -
Unhappy that she may. - But where begin?
How from the diamond single out each ray,
Where all, though trembling with ten thousand hues,
Effuse one dazzling undivided light?
Let the low-minded of these narrow days
No more presume to deem the lofty tale
Of ancient times, in pity to their own,
Romance. In Talbot we united saw
The piercing eye, the quick enlightened soul,
The graceful ease, the flowing tongue of Greece,
Joined to the virtues and the force of Rome.
Eternal wisdom, that all-quickening sun,
Whence every life, in just proportion, draws
Directing light and actuating flame,
Ne'er with a larger portion of its beams
Awakened mortal clay. Hence steady, calm,
Diffusive, deep, and clear, his reason saw,
With instantaneous view, the truth of things;
Chief what to human life and human bliss
Pertains, that noblest science, fit for man:
And hence, responsive to his knowledge, glowed
His ardent virtue. Ignorance and vice,
In consort foul, agree; each heightening each;
While virtue draws from knowledge brighter fire.
What grand, what comely, or what tender sense,
What talent, or what virtue was not his;
What that can render man or great, or good,
Give useful worth, or amiable grace?
Nor could he brook in studious shade to lie,
In soft retirement, indolently pleased
With selfish peace. The syren of the wise,
(Who steals the Aonian song, and, in the shape
Of Virtue, woos them from a worthless world)
Though deep he felt her charms, could never melt
His strenuous spirit, recollected, calm,
As silent night, yet active as the day.
The more the bold, the bustling, and the bad,
Press to usurp the reins of power, the more
Behoves it virtue, with indignant zeal,
To check their combination. Shall low views
Of sneaking interest or luxurious vice,
The villain's passions, quicken more to toil,
And dart a livelier vigour through the soul,
Than those that, mingled with our truest good,
With present honour and immortal fame,
Involve the good of all? An empty form
Is the weak Virtue, that amid the shade
Lamenting lies, with future schemes amused,
While Wickedness and Folly, kindred powers,
Confound the world. A Talbot's, different far,
To lose in deathlike sloth one pulse of life,
That might be saved; disdained for coward ease,
And her insipid pleasures, to resign
The prize of glory, the keen sweets of toil,
And those high joys that teach the truly great
To live for others, and for others die.
Early, behold! he breaks benign on life.
Not breathing more beneficence, the Spring
Leads in her swelling train the gentle airs;
While gay, behind her, smiles the kindling waste
Of ruffian storms and Winter's lawless rage.
In him Astrea, to this dim abode
Of ever wandering men, returned again:
To bless them his delight, to bring them back
From thorny error, from unjoyous wrong,
Into the paths of kind primeval faith,
Of happiness and justice. All his parts,
His virtues all, collected, sought the good
Of humankind. For that he, fervent, felt
The throb of patriots, when they model states;
Anxious for that, nor needful sleep could hold
His still-awakened soul; nor friends had charms
To steal, with pleasing guile, one useful hour;
Toil knew no languor, no attraction joy.
Thus with unwearied steps, by Virtue led,
He gained the summit of that sacred hill,
Where, raised above black Envy's darkening clouds,
Her spotless temple lifts its radiant front.
Be named, victorious ravagers, no more!
Vanish, ye human comets! shrink your blaze!
Ye that your glory to your terrors owe,
As, o'er the gazing desolated earth,
You scatter famine, pestilence, and war;
Vanish! before this vernal sun of fame;
Effulgent sweetness! beaming life and joy.
How the heart listened while he, pleading, spoke!
While on the enlightened mind, with winning art,
His gentle reason so persuasive stole,
That the charmed hearer thought it was his own.
Ah! when, ye studious of the laws, again
Shall such enchanting lessons bless your ear?
When shall again the darkest truths, perplexed,
Be set in ample day? when shall the harsh
And arduous open into smiling ease?
The solid mix with elegant delight?
His was the talent, with the purest light
At once to pour conviction on the soul,
And warm with lawful flame the impassioned heart.
That dangerous gift with him was safely lodged
By heaven - He, sacred to his country's cause,
To trampled want and worth, to suffering right,
To the lone widow's and her orphan's woes,
Reserved the mighty charm. With equal brow,
Despising then the smiles or frowns of power,
He all that noblest eloquence effused,
Which generous passion, taught by reason, breathes:
Then spoke the man; and, over barren art,
Prevailed abundant nature. Freedom then
His client was, humanity and truth.
Placed on the seat of justice, there he reigned,
In a superior sphere of cloudless day,
A pure intelligence. No tumult there,
No dark emotion, no intemperate heat,
No passion e'er disturbed the clear serene
That round him spread. A zeal for right alone,
The love of justice, like the steady sun,
Its equal ardour lent; and sometimes, raised
Against the sons of violence, of pride,
And bold deceit, his indignation gleamed,
Yet still by sober dignity restrained.
As intuition quick, he snatched the truth,
Yet with progressive patience, step by step,
Self-diffident, or to the slower kind,
He through the maze of falsehood traced it on,
Till, at the last, evolved, it full appeared,
And e'en the loser owned the just decree.
But when, in senates, he, to freedom firm,
Enlightened freedom, planned salubrious laws,
His various learning, his wide knowledge, then,
His insight deep into Britannia's weal,
Spontaneous seemed from simple sense to flow,
And the plain patriot smoothed the brow of law.
No specious swell, no frothy pomp of words
Fell on the cheated ear; no studied maze
Of declamation, to perplex the right,
He darkening threw around; safe in itself,
In its own force, all-powerful Reason spoke;
While on the great, the ruling point, at once,
He streamed decisive day, and showed it vain
To lengthen further out the clear debate.
Conviction breathes conviction; to the heart,
Poured ardent forth in eloquence unbid,
The heart attends: for let the venal try
Their every hardening, stupifying art,
Truth must prevail, zeal will enkindle zeal,
And Nature, skilful touched, is honest still.
Behold him in the councils of his prince.
What faithful light he lends! How rare, in courts,
Such wisdom! such abilities! and joined
To virtue so determined, public zeal,
And honour of such adamantine proof,
As e'en corruption, hopeless, and o'erawed,
Durst not have tempted! yet of manners mild,
And winning every heart, he knew to please,
Nobly to please; while equally he scorned
Or adulation to receive, or give.
Happy the state, where wakes a ruling eye
Of such inspection keen, and general care!
Beneath a guard so vigilant, so pure,
Toil may resign his careless head to rest,
And ever-jealous freedom sleep in peace.
Ah! lost untimely! lost in downward days!
And many a patriot-counsel have with him lost!
Counsels, that might have humbled Britain's foe,
Her native foe, from eldest time by fate
Appointed, as did once a Talbot's arms.
Let learning, arts, let universal worth,
Lament a patron lost, a friend and judge,
Unlike the sons of vanity, that, veiled
Beneath the patron's prostituted name,
Dare sacrifice a worthy man to pride,
And flush confusion o'er an honest cheek.
When he conferred a grace, it seemed a debt
Which he to merit, to the public, paid,
And to the great all-bounteous Source of good!
His sympathizing heart itself received
The generous obligation he bestowed.
This, this indeed, is patronizing worth.
Their kind protector him the Muses own,
But scorn with noble ride the boasted aid
Of tasteless vanity's insulting hand.
The gracious stream, that cheers the lettered world,
Is not the noisy gift of summer's noon,
Whose sudden current, from the naked root,
Washes the little soil which yet remained,
And only more dejects the blushing flowers:
No, 'tis the soft-descending dews at eve,
The silent treasures of the vernal year,
Indulging deep their stores, the still night long;
Till, with returning morn, the freshened world,
Is fragrance all, all beauty, joy, and song.
Still let me view him in the pleasing light
Of private life, where pomp forgets to glare,
And where the plain unguarded soul is seen.
There, with that truest greatness he appeared,
Which thinks not of appearing; kindly veiled
In the soft graces of the friendly scene,
Inspiring social confidence and ease.
As free the converse of the wise and good,
As joyous, disentangling every power,
And breathing mixed improvement with delight,
As when amid the various-blossomed spring,
Or gentle beaming autumn's pensive shade,
The philosophic mind with nature talks.
Say ye, his sons, his dear remains, with whom
The father laid superfluous state aside,
Yet raised your filial duty thence the more,
With friendship raised it, with esteem, with love,
Beyond the ties of love, oh! speak the joy,
The pure serene, the cheerful vision mild,
The virtuous spirit, which his vacant hours,
In semblance of amusement, through the breast,
Infused. And thou, O Rundle! lend thy strain,
Thou darling friend! thou brother of his soul!
In whom the head and heart their stores unite;
Whatever fancy paints, invention pours,
Judgment digests, the well-tuned bosom feels,
Truth natural, moral, or divine, has taught,
The virtues dictate, or the Muses sing.
Lend me the plaint, which, to the lonely main,
With memory conversing, you will pour,
As on the pebbled shore you, pensive, stray,
Where Derry's mountains a bleak crescent form,
And mid their ample round receive the waves,
That from the frozen pole, resounding, rush,
Impetuous. Though from native sunshine driven,
Driven from your friends, th sunshine of the soul,
By slanderous zeal, and politics infirm,
Jealous of worth; yet will you bless your lot,
Yet will you triumph in your glorious fate,
Whence Talbot's friendship glows to future times,
Intrepid, warm; of kindred tempers born;
Nursed, by experience, into slow esteem,
Calm confidence unbounded, love not blind,
And the sweet light from mingled minds disclosed,
From mingled chymic oils as bursts the fire.
I too remember well that cheerful bowl,
Which round his table flowed. The serious there
Mixed with the sportive, with the learned the plain;
Mirth softened wisdom, candour tempered mirth;
And wit its honey lent, without the sting.
Not simple nature's unaffected sons,
The blameless Indians, round their forest-cheer,
In sunny lawn or shady covert set,
Hold more unspotted converse; nor, of old,
Rome's awful consuls, her dictator swains,
As on the product of their Sabine farms
They fared, with stricter virtue fed the soul;
Nor yet in Athens, at an Attic meal,
Where Socrates presided, fairer truth,
More elegant humanity, more grace,
Wit more refined, or deeper science reigned.
But far beyond the little vulgar bounds
Of family, or friends, or native land,
By just degrees, and with proportioned flame,
Extended his benevolence: a friend
To humankind, to parent nature's works.
Of free access, and of engaging grace,
Such as a brother to a brother owes,
He kept an open judging ear for all,
And spread an open countenance, where smiled
The fair effulgence of an open heart;
While on the rich, the poor, the high, the low,
With equal ray, his ready goodness shone:
For nothing human foreign was to him.
Thus to a dread inheritance, my Lord,
And hard to be supported, you succeed:
But, kept by virtue, as by virtue gained,
It will, through latest time, enrich your race,
When grosser wealth shall moulder into dust,
And with their authors in oblivion sunk
Vain titles lie, the servile badges oft
Of mean submission, not the meed of worth.
True genuine honour its large patent holds
Of all mankind, through every land and age,
Of universal reason's various sons,
And e'en of God himself, sole perfect Judge!
Yet know, these noblest honours of the mind
On rigid terms descend: the high-placed heir,
Scanned by the public eye, that, with keen gaze,
Malignant seeks out faults, cannot through life,
Amid the nameless insects of a court,
Unheeded steal: but, with his sire compared,
He must be glorious, or he must be scorned.
This truth to you, who merit well to bear
A name to Britons dear, the officious Muse
May safely sing, and sing without reserve.
Vain were the plaint, and ignorant the tear
That should a Talbot mourn. Ourselves, indeed,
Our country robbed of her delight and strength,
We may lament. Yet let us, grateful, joy
That we such virtues knew, such virtues felt,
And feel them still, teaching our views to rise
Through ever-brightening scenes of future worlds,
Be dumb, ye worst of zealots! ye that, prone
To thoughtless dust, renounce that generous hope,
Whence every joy below its spirit draws,
And every pain its balm: a Talbot's light,
A Talbot's virtues, claim another source,
Than the blind maze of undesigning blood;
Nor when that vital fountain plays no more,
Can they be quenched beneath the gelid stream.
Methinks I see his mounting spirit, freed
From tangling earth, regain the realms of day,
Its native country; whence to bless mankind,
Eternal goodness on this darksome spot
Had rayed it down a while. Behold! approved
By the tremendous Judge of heaven and earth,
And to the Almighty Father's presence joined,
He takes his rank, in glory, and in bliss,
Amid the human worthies. Glad around
Crowd his compatriot shades, and point him out,
With joyful pride, Britannia's blameless boast.
Ah! who is he, that with a fonder eye
Meets thine enraptured? - 'Tis the best of sons!
The best of friends! -- Too soon is realized
That hope, which once forbad thy tears to flow!
Meanwhile the kindred souls of every land.
(Howe'er divided in the fretful days
Of prejudice and error) mingled now,
In one selected, never-jarring state,
Where God himself their only monarch reigns,
Partake the joy; yet, such the sense that still
Remains of earthly woes, for us below,
And for our loss, they drop a pitying tear.
But cease, presumptuous Muse, nor vainly strive
To quit this cloudy sphere, that binds thee down:
'Tis not for mortal hand to trace these scenes -
Scenes, that our gross ideas grovelling cast
Behind, and strike our boldest language dumb.
Forgive, immortal shade! if aught from earth,
From dust low warbled, to those groves can rise,
Where flows celestial harmony, forgive
This fond superfluous verse. With deep-felt voice,
On every heart impressed, thy deeds themselves
Attest thy praise. Thy praise the widow's sighs,
And orphan's tears, embalm. The good, the bad,
The sons of justice and the sons of strife,
All who or freedom or who interest prize,
A deep-divided nation's parties, all,
Conspire to swell thy spotless praise to Heaven.
Glad Heaven receives it, and seraphic lyres
With songs of triumph thy arrival hail.
How vain this tribute then! this lowly lay!
Yet nought is vain that gratitude inspires.
The Muse, besides, her duty thus approves
To virtue, to her country, to mankind,
To ruling nature, that, in glorious charge,
As to her priestess, gives it her to hymn
Whatever good and excellent she forms.

by James Thomson.

PROCRASTINATION.

Love will expire--the gay, the happy dream
Will turn to scorn, indiff'rence, or esteem:
Some favour'd pairs, in this exchange, are blest,
Nor sigh for raptures in a state of rest;
Others, ill match'd, with minds unpair'd, repent
At once the deed, and know no more content;
From joy to anguish they, in haste, decline,
And, with their fondness, their esteem resign;
More luckless still their fate, who are the prey
Of long-protracted hope and dull delay:
'Mid plans of bliss the heavy hours pass on,
Till love is withered, and till joy is gone.
This gentle flame two youthful hearts possess'd,
The sweet disturber of unenvied rest;
The prudent Dinah was the maid beloved,
And the kind Rupert was the swain approved:
A wealthy Aunt her gentle niece sustain'd,
He, with a father, at his desk remain'd;
The youthful couple, to their vows sincere,
Thus loved expectant; year succeeding year,
With pleasant views and hopes, but not a prospect

near.
Rupert some comfort in his station saw,
But the poor virgin lived in dread and awe;
Upon her anxious looks the widow smiled,
And bade her wait, 'for she was yet a child.'
She for her neighbour had a due respect,
Nor would his son encourage or reject;
And thus the pair, with expectation vain,
Beheld the seasons change and change again;
Meantime the nymph her tender tales perused,
Where cruel aunts impatient girls refused:
While hers, though teasing, boasted to be kind,
And she, resenting, to be all resign'd.
The dame was sick, and when the youth applied
For her consent, she groan'd, and cough'd, and

cried,
Talk'd of departing, and again her breath
Drew hard, and cough'd, and talk'd again of death:
'Here may you live, my Dinah! here the boy
And you together my estate enjoy:'
Thus to the lovers was her mind expressed,
Till they forbore to urge the fond request.
Servant, and nurse, and comforter, and friend,
Dinah had still some duty to attend;
But yet their walk, when Rupert's evening call
Obtain'd an hour, made sweet amends for all;
So long they now each other's thoughts had known,
That nothing seem'd exclusively their own:
But with the common wish, the mutual fear,
They now had travelled to their thirtieth year.
At length a prospect open'd--but alas!
Long time must yet, before the union, pass.
Rupert was call'd, in other clime, t'increase
Another's wealth, and toil for future peace.
Loth were the lovers; but the aunt declared
'Twas fortune's call, and they must be prepar'd:
'You now are young, and for this brief delay,
And Dinah's care, what I bequeath will pay;
All will be yours; nay, love, suppress that sigh;
The kind must suffer, and the best must die:'
Then came the cough, and strong the signs it gave
Of holding long contention with the grave.
The lovers parted with a gloomy view,
And little comfort, but that both were true;
He for uncertain duties doom'd to steer,
While hers remain'd too certain and severe.
Letters arrived, and Rupert fairly told
'His cares were many, and his hopes were cold:
The view more clouded, that was never fair,
And love alone preserved him from despair;'
In other letters brighter hopes he drew,
'His friends were kind, and he believed them true.'
When the sage widow Dinah's grief descried,
She wonder'd much why one so happy sigh'd:
Then bade her see how her poor aunt sustain'd
The ills of life, nor murmur'd nor complain'd.
To vary pleasures, from the lady's chest
Were drawn the pearly string and tabby vest;
Beads, jewels, laces, all their value shown,
With the kind notice--'They will be your own.'
This hope, these comforts, cherish'd day by day,
To Dinah's bosom made a gradual way;
Till love of treasure had as large a part,
As love of Rupert, in the virgin's heart.
Whether it be that tender passions fail,
From their own nature, while the strong prevail;
Or whether av'rice, like the poison-tree,
Kills all beside it, and alone will be;
Whatever cause prevail'd, the pleasure grew
In Dinah's soul,--she loved the hoards to view;
With lively joy those comforts she survey'd,
And love grew languid in the careful maid.
Now the grave niece partook the widow's cares,
Look'd to the great, and ruled the small affairs;
Saw clean'd the plate, arranged the china-show,
And felt her passion for a shilling grow:
Th' indulgent aunt increased the maid's delight,
By placing tokens of her wealth in sight;
She loved the value of her bonds to tell,
And spake of stocks, and how they rose and fell.
This passion grew, and gain'd at length such

sway,
That other passions shrank to make it way;
Romantic notions now the heart forsook,
She read but seldom, and she changed her book;
And for the verses she was wont to send,
Short was her prose, and she was Rupert's friend.
Seldom she wrote, and then the widow's cough,
And constant call, excused her breaking off;
Who now oppressed, no longer took the air,
But sat and dozed upon an easy chair.
The cautious doctor saw the case was clear,
But judged it best to have companions near;
They came, they reason'd, they prescribed,--at

last,
Like honest men, they said their hopes were past;
Then came a priest--'tis comfort to reflect
When all is over, there was no neglect:
And all was over.--By her husband's bones,
The widow rests beneath the sculptured stones,
That yet record their fondness and their fame,
While all they left the virgin's care became;
Stock, bonds, and buildings; it disturb'd her rest,
To think what load of troubles she possessed:
Yet, if a trouble, she resolved to take
Th' important duty for the donor's sake;
She too was heiress to the widow's taste,
Her love of hoarding, and her dread of waste.
Sometimes the past would on her mind intrude,
And then a conflict full of care ensued;
The thoughts of Rupert on her mind would press,
His worth she knew, but doubted his success:
Of old she saw him heedless; what the boy
Forebore to save, the man would not enjoy;
Oft had he lost the chance that care would seize,
Willing to live, but more to live at ease:
Yet could she not a broken vow defend,
And Heav'n, perhaps, might yet enrich her friend.
Month after month was pass'd, and all were spent
In quiet comfort, and in rich content;
Miseries there were, and woes the world around,
But these had not her pleasant dwelling found;
She knew that mothers grieved, and widows wept,
And she was sorry, said her prayers, and slept:
Thus passed the seasons, and to Dinah's board
Gave what the seasons to the rich afford;
For she indulged, nor was her heart so small,
That one strong passion should engross it all.
A love of splendour now with av'rice strove,
And oft appeared to be the stronger love:
A secret pleasure fill'd the Widow's breast,
When she reflected on the hoards possess'd;
But livelier joy inspired th' ambitious Maid,
When she the purchase of those hoards display'd:
In small but splendid room she loved to see
That all was placed in view and harmony.
There, as with eager glance she look'd around,
She much delight in every object found.
While books devout were near her--to destroy,
Should it arise, an overflow of joy.
Within that fair apartment guests might see
The comforts cull'd for wealth by vanity:
Around the room an Indian paper blazed,
With lively tint and figures boldly raised;
Silky and soft upon the floor below,
Th' elastic carpet rose with crimson glow;
All things around implied both cost and care,
What met the eye was elegant or rare:
Some curious trifles round the room were laid,
By hope presented to the wealthy Maid;
Within a costly case of varnish'd wood,
In level rows, her polish'd volumes stood;
Shown as a favour to a chosen few,
To prove what beauty for a book could do:
A silver urn with curious work was fraught;
A silver lamp from Grecian pattern wrought:
Above her head, all gorgeous to behold,
A time-piece stood on feet of burnish'd gold;
A stag's-head crest adorn'd the pictured case,
Through the pure crystal shone the enamel'd face;
And while on brilliants moved the hands of steel,
It click'd from pray'r to pray'r, from meal to

meal.
Here as the lady sat, a friendly pair
Stept in t'admire the view, and took their chair:
They then related how the young and gay
Were thoughtless wandering in the broad highway:
How tender damsels sail'd in tilted boats,
And laugh'd with wicked men in scarlet coats;
And how we live in such degen'rate times,
That men conceal their wants and show their crimes;
While vicious deeds are screen'd by fashion's name,
And what was once our pride is now our shame.
Dinah was musing, as her friends discoursed,
When these last words a sudden entrance forced
Upon her mind, and what was once her pride
And now her shame, some painful views supplied;
Thoughts of the past within her bosom press'd,
And there a change was felt, and was confess'd:
While thus the Virgin strove with secret pain,
Her mind was wandering o'er the troubled main;
Still she was silent, nothing seem'd to see,
But sat and sigh'd in pensive reverie.
The friends prepared new subjects to begin,
When tall Susannah, maiden starch, stalk'd in;
Not in her ancient mode, sedate and slow,
As when she came, the mind she knew, to know;
Nor as, when list'ning half an hour before,
She twice or thrice tapp'd gently at the door;
But all decorum cast in wrath aside,
'I think the devil's in the man!' she cried;
'A huge tall sailor, with his tawny cheek
And pitted face, will with my lady speak;
He grinn'd an ugly smile, and said he knew,
Please you, my lady, 't would be joy to you:
What must I answer?'--Trembling and distress'd
Sank the pale Dinah by her fears oppress'd;
When thus alarm'd and brooking no delay,
Swift to her room the stranger made his way.
'Revive, my love!' said he, 'I've done thee

harm;
Give me thy pardon,' and he look'd alarm:
Meantime the prudent Dinah had contrived
Her soul to question, and she then revived.
'See! my good friend,' and then she raised her

head,
'The bloom of life, the strength of youth is fled;
Living we die; to us the world is dead;
We parted bless'd with health, and I am now
Age-struck and feeble--so I find art thou;
Thine eye is sunken, furrow'd is thy face,
And downward look'st thou--so we run our race;
And happier they whose race is nearly run,
Their troubles over, and their duties done.'
'True, lady, true--we are not girl and boy,
But time has left us something to enjoy.'
'What! hast thou learn'd my fortune?--yes, I live
To feel how poor the comforts wealth can give:
Thou too perhaps art wealthy; but our fate
Still mocks our wishes, wealth is come too late.'
'To me nor late nor early; I am come
Poor as I left thee to my native home:
Nor yet,' said Rupert, 'will I grieve; 'tis mine
To share thy comforts, and the glory thine:
For thou wilt gladly take that generous part
That both exalts and gratifies the heart;
While mine rejoices'--'Heavens!' return'd the maid,
'This talk to one so wither'd and decay'd?
No! all my care is now to fit my mind
For other spousal, and to die resigned:
As friend and neighbour, I shall hope to see
These noble views, this pious love in thee;
That we together may the change await,
Guides and spectators in each other's fate;
When fellow pilgrims, we shall daily crave
The mutual prayer that arms us for the grave.'
Half angry, half in doubt, the lover gazed
On the meek maiden, by her speech amazed;
'Dinah,' said he, 'dost thou respect thy vows?
What spousal mean'st thou?--thou art Rupert's

spouse;
That chance is mine to take, and thine to give:
But, trifling this, if we together live:
Can I believe, that, after all the past,
Our vows, our loves, thou wilt be false at last?
Something thou hast--I know not what--in view;
I find thee pious--let me find thee true.'
'Ah! cruel this; but do, my friend, depart;
And to its feelings leave my wounded heart.'
'Nay, speak at once; and Dinah, let me know,
Mean'st thou to take me, now I'm wreck'd, in tow?
Be fair; nor longer keep me in the dark;
Am I forsaken for a trimmer spark?
Heaven's spouse thou art not; nor can I believe
That God accepts her who will man deceive:
True I am shatter'd, I have service seen,
And service done, and have in trouble been;
My cheek (it shames me not) has lost its red,
And the brown buff is o'er my features spread:
Perchance my speech is rude; for I among
Th' untamed have been, in temper and in tongue;
Have been trepann'd, have lived in toil and care,
And wrought for wealth I was not doom'd to share;
It touch'd me deeply, for I felt a pride
In gaining riches for my destin'd bride:
Speak then my fate; for these my sorrows past,
Time lost, youth fled, hope wearied, and at last
This doubt of thee--a childish thing to tell,
But certain truth--my very throat they swell:
They stop the breath, and but for shame could I
Give way to weakness, and with passion cry;
These are unmanly struggles, but I feel
This hour must end them, and perhaps will heal.'
Here Dinah sigh'd, as if afraid to speak -
And then repeated--'They were frail and weak:
His soul she lov'd, and hoped he had the grace
To fix his thoughts upon a better place.'
She ceased;--with steady glance, as if to see
The very root of this hypocrisy, -
He her small fingers moulded in his hard
And bronzed broad hand; then told her his regard,
His best respect were gone, but love had still
Hold in his heart, and govern'd yet the will -
Or he would curse her: --saying this, he threw
The hand in scorn away, and bade adieu
To every lingering hope, with every care in view.
Proud and indignant, suffering, sick, and poor,
He grieved unseen: and spoke of love no more -
Till all he felt in indignation died,
As hers had sunk in avarice and pride.
In health declining, as in mind distressed,
To some in power his troubles he confess'd,
And shares a parish-gift; at prayers he sees
The pious Dinah dropp'd upon her knees;
Thence as she walks the street with stately air
As chance directs, oft meet the parted pair;
When he, with thickset coat of badgeman's blue,
Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue;
When his thin locks of gray approach her braid,
A costly purchase made in Beauty's aid;
When his frank air, and his unstudied pace,
Are seen with her soft manner, air, and grace;
And his plain artless look with her sharp meaning

face;
It might some wonder in a stranger move,
How these together could have talk'd of love.
Behold them now!--see there a tradesman stands,
And humbly hearkens to some fresh commands;
He moves to speak, she interrupts him--'Stay,'
Her air expresses,--'Hark to what I say!'
Ten paces off, poor Rupert on a seat
Has taken refuge from the noon-day heat,
His eyes on her intent, as if to find
What were the movements of that subtle mind:
How still!--how earnest is he!--it appears
His thoughts are wand'ring through his earlier

years;
Through years of fruitless labour, to the day
When all his earthly prospects died away:
'Had I,' he thinks, 'been wealthier of the two,
Would she have found me so unkind, untrue?
Or knows not man when poor, what man when rich will

do?
Yes, yes! I feel that I had faithful proved,
And should have soothed and raised her, bless'd and

loved.'
But Dinah moves--she had observed before
The pensive Rupert at an humble door:
Some thoughts of pity raised by his distress,
Some feeling touch of ancient tenderness;
Religion, duty urged the maid to speak,
In terms of kindness to a man so weak:
But pride forbade, and to return would prove
She felt the shame of his neglected love;
Nor wrapp'd in silence could she pass, afraid
Each eye should see her, and each heart upbraid;
One way remain'd--the way the Levite took,
Who without mercy could on misery look;
(A way perceiv'd by craft, approved by pride),
She cross'd and pass'd him on the other side.

by George Crabbe.

When Vertue's Standard Ecclesiasticks bear,
Their sacred Robe the noblest Minds revere.
All to its Guidance do their Thoughts submit,
But such who triumph in licentious Wit;
And nauseous Mirth as high Desert esteem,
When rais'd by Scorn upon Religion's Theme
As Kings by Right Divine o'er Nations sway,
As the most worthy, their high Pow'rs obey;
Homage by all is to the Priesthood born,
And none but Fools their Heav'nly Pastors scorn.


Yet censure not the Muse's Freedom here:
If urg'd by Errors, she must seem severe!
Tho' keen her Satyr, she no Envy bears;
Tho' Priests she lashes, she their Function spares.
Nor for ill Members such the Clergy calls,
But on their Shame, and not their Glory, falls.


Of all the Plagues with which the World is curst,
Time has still prov'd that Priestcraft is the worst.
By some, what Notions thro' the World are spread?
On Falshoods grounded, and from Int'rest bred;
Errour has still the giddy World perplext,
Whilst Scripture gilds it with some sacred Text.
This wild Opinions Strife and Faction brings,
The Bane of Nations, the Misrule of Kings.
Priests oft profane what they from Heav'n derive;
Some live by Legends, some by Murders thrive,
Some sell their Gods, and Altar-Rites deface,
With Doctrines some the Brain-sick People craze.


The Pagan prey on slaughter'd Wretches Fates,
The Romish fatten on the best Estates,
The British stain what Heav'n has right confest,
And Sectaries the Scriptures falsly wrest.


Amongst the Tribe, how few are, as they ought,
Clear in their Souls, instructive in their Thought!
The Good, like Prophets, shew their Precepts pure;
The Ill with Craft the Heav'nly Light obscure;
False to their Trust, they lead their Flocks astray,
And with their Errors cloud the sacred Way.


Tho' artless Numbers may my Verses throng,
Yet now Religion's Cause inspires my Song:
Undaunted then, my Muse, thy Purpose say,
And for the Church thy warmest Zeal display!
An Erring Prelate let thy Lays proclaim,
And sing the Convocation's sacred Fame.


When dire Confusion bore a dreadful Hand,
And sore Divisions shook the guilty Land;
When Schisms rent the Church, Faction the State,
And Schoolmens Quarrels did new Broils create;
'Midst Crowds of Libels publish'd to enrage,
Writ to corrupt, but not t'improve the Age,
Forth to the World from a Learn'd Author came
Two, which bear Censures equal to their Fame:
By some admired, and by some contemn'd,
Prais'd by the Vulgar, by his Peers condemn'd.
If from Sincerity Faith ought can claim,
Hard Deprivations theirs aloud proclaim.


Next, Ordination to explode he seems,
Orders are Trifles, Church-Commissions Dreams!
The Sense it self these Explanations own,
Which none unbyass'd, can as just disown.


What more can Deists to the Church reply?
They in this wise her Sacraments deny;
Against her Canons and her Forms combine,
And with such Wretches will a Bishop joyn?


The Topmost Sequel next, of his Essays,
The Pulpit trumpets, and the Press displays.
New Doctrines still advanc'd, the World alarm,
And, all his Brethren with Resentment warm.
Ye Pow'rs! If Priests thus their own Craft betray,
If what they should conceal, themselves display,
Atheists may well mysterious Rights deride,
Nor suffer sacred Faith as Reason's Guide.


But whilst th'Infection thro' the Nation flies,
A Rev'rend Author to the Work replies.
Oh SNAPE! what Charms thy Genius here bestows;
Where nervous Sense in candid Smoothness flows.
Sublime thy Thought! with no harsh Stile defil'd,
Bold in thy Charge! yet in Expressions mild:
Reason Divine in each illustrious Page,
Points out those Errors, which you here engage.


So Henry wrote, by Heav'n inspir'd, when he
From Luther's Errors strove the Faith to free:
When that great Title in Return was born,
Which has e're since by British Kings been worn.


The Gospel's Light does here such Clouds dispel,
As Magus's Witchcraft by th'Apostle fell.
So wrote that Tribe in sacred Annals past,
When Nations yielded, and the Faith embrac'd.


The Clergy now in Convocation meet,
And in Debate on these new Doctrines sit.
No Contest in th'inferiour House arose;
But one Consent these dang'rous Errors shews.
None cou'd oppose! So plain did they appear:
Nor Doubts could rise their Innocence to clear.


He, who a Priest, a Prelate's Doctrine blam'd,
Is, now a Prelate, here himself arraign'd.
He, who did once a worthy Doctor gall,
Finds now just Judgment on his Errors fall.


The first is Moss appointed in this Cause;
Who the sharp Charge against this Church-man draws.
On his sweet Tongue learn'd Elocution dwells,
Which in loud Strains the World their Duty tells.
His smooth Persuasions Men from Ills entice,
Reveal the Gospel, and dipel their Vice.


Next, Learned Sprat in this Performance joins,
Who sprung from a late Pious Prelate's Loins:
His Father's Goodness did his Function grace,
And the Son's Vertues do his Footsteps trace.


Next, Florid Biss the glorious Cause maintains,
Who vast Applause from just Attention gains.
Vert'ous his Soul, his Mind does Wisdom shew,
And wholsome Doctrines from his Learning flow.


Sherlock's a Name that ever will survive:
For the dead Sire does in the Son revive.
Amidst the Clan, the Son is nam'd t'oppose
The Ill that from such Innovations grows.


Next in the List, but not the least, is Friend,
Worthy the Cause now chosen to defend!
Let tutour'd Youth his wondrous Learning prove,
As to the Church his Actions do his Love.


Cannon and Davies, Barrel, Dawson, stand,
And act in Concert with this sacred Band.
These, to the Upper House are nam'd to give
The Charge, which there they with Consent receive.


But e're the Aim of all this Zeal was done,
It here was vanquish'd when 'twas scarce begun.
As Jove on high Olympus feign'd to sway,
With Thunder parted an immortal Fray:
To end the Jarrs that in Religion fall,
GEORGE from the Throne at once prorogues 'em all.


But thus the Parties, more incens'd with Rage,
Cease not the Contest; but new Conflicts wage.
In Print their Quarrels still confuse the World,
And Libels now promiscuously are hurl'd!
Their Trumpet Scandal loud Detraction sounds,
Diffuses Lies, and Reputations wounds.


Thus Paper-Squibs wing'd from the Presses fly!
Alarm! inflame! and loud for Answers cry!
Answers pursue th'Attack! Both Parties write!
Pens are their Swords, and Papers urge the Fight!
The Chiefs with Conduct both maintain the Day;
Others confound; but none decide the Fray.
Those best succeed, whose Works the Curious buy,
Whilst Scrawls neglected, on the Compter lie.
But still the Press supplies each empty Brain,
No Cyclop Authors form the Bolts in vain,
Thence they rush forth, and do the War sustain.


As thus they 'ngage amidst this Clash of Arms,
Quills, I shou'd say, that thus the Town alarms!
A Minor Phillips, now Romance is scarce,
Seizes Religion, as a Plot for Farce.
His Muse grown weary of the Northern Climes,
Strives here to raise dull Satyr from the Times.
The High Church now with double Rage he wounds,
Faith serves for Mirth, the Clergy for Buffoons.
Yet the wise Work to aid a Churchman means,
The aptest Hero for such low-stil'd Scenes.


Demetrius aims to copy his Design;
Jo's ridicul'd, that Ben again may shine,
The worthiest all, the Spleens of Wretches raise,
And Farce to deck the Lawn bestows the Bays.


Libels the Convocation now abuse,
Which not worth Notice, wou'd but pall the Muse:
Answers to Snape the World's Attention claim;
But pass unheeded, like each Author's Fame.


B--r's chief Letter bears the great Applause;
For Learning varnishes the vilest Cause;
Oft casts false Beauties, and obscures each Taint,
Makes Right look wrong, th'Offender seem the Saint;
Howe'er thro' Eloquence there still are view'd,
The Charge evaded, but the Guilt pursu'd.


Now H--dly's Text Trap's Genius does convey;
Its Beauties here the Errors there display.
Sherlock, and He, who for the Church appear,
Snape's just Remarks from each Evasion clear.


Next, Law, whose Writing does his Worth proclaim,
Answers the Doctrines which the World inflame.
His Strength of Judgment their weak Force repels;
Their Errors lashes, their Defence reveals.


Hilliard, like Trap, the Soul's true Guidance shews,
All see the Poyson, and its Cure disclose.
Cockbourn's Remarks have by Church-Canons prov'd,
How from its Bounds such Heresy's remov'd,
That their own Words against such Guides prevail,
Where Errors drive 'em from its sacred Pale.


Now from the Tories Pamphlets rush apace,
Answers to Answers thus the Contest trace.
In vain with Slander Whigs the Truth wou'd soil:
For Scandals back upon themselves recoil!
The Tories now their former Pleas enlarge,
And in Replies they thus renew their Charge.


By Quæry first they urge this strange Mistake:
Can Ben's Resistance passive Bangor make?
What Hoadly preach'd, thus Bangor does evince,
'Twas lawful to resist a Tyrant-Prince!


Here he reviles a King expell'd his Throne,
Who for his Conscience sacrific'd his Crown.
Swoln with Preferment thus the Wretch prophanes
The Sacred Reliques with unhallow'd Strains.
Cou'd He no other dark Evasions bring,
But to asperse a poor departed King?


As Conscience-Freedom thus he grants to Slaves.
By Nature thoughtless,-he a King's enslaves.
The Rights of Kingdoms, as he here proclaims,
He those of Christian Faith at once disclaims.
What Charity can suit the Rules he owns?
Or Loyalty the Love he bears to Crowns?
Such partial Treatment Sov'reign Rulers braves!
Of Slaves makes Princes, and of Princes Slaves.


All Earthly Pow'rs he in Christ's Church disowns,
Regardless of his Function, or of Crowns.
Why is the King its great Supreme no more?
Why is the Pow'r from God's Vicegerent tore?


In vain false Logic thus at Truth wou'd aim,
To prove Christ's Kingdom and his Church the same;
Heathens and Devils then Church-Members are,
'Cause they Subjection to his Kingdom bear.
VVhy a cold, lifeless Motion is Pray'r made?
The VVorld's great Saviour sweated as he pray'd.


An eager Zeal we in the Garden find,
Which on the Cross possess'd his anxious Mind;
Exerted Transports in his Accents hung,
And flow'd with Fervour from his Heav'nly Tongue.


When on our Knees to Heav'n's high Throne we bow,
Love, as inspir'd, shou'd purest Raptures shew.
The Soul exerted, shou'd each Wish impart,
And for its Off'ring throw a contrite Heart.


Whilst thus these Errors Churchmen all explode,
And clear the Vapours which the Faith wou'd cloud;
Snape, who to head the Van did first appear,
With equal Conduct now commands the Rear!
His second Answer's for th'Engagement chose,
Which does the Prelate's weak Defence expose.


This, which his Plea does of its Force despoil,
No Pen can answer, nor Resistance foil.
When Truth thus sallies forth, Evasions all
Start from the Conflict, and confuted fall.
In vain new Pamphlets to their Rescue run,
Their Chief retreats, the Vict'ry is begun:
Those, who the Church against its Foes maintain,
Beneath its Banners thus the Glory gain.


But still their Pride will not the Conquest yield,
Like Wasps disarm'd, they buz around the the Field;
Or, from the Press, whilst envious Nonsence springs,
They hiss, like Serpents that have lost their Stings.


Behold! They drop the Theme they can't oppose,
And Advertisements their Retreat disclose.
With Aims evasive seem to swell the News,
And what shou'd Glorious be, to Farce reduce.


Now the Courant for War is made the Plain,
Where B--g--r pours forth all his Force again,
Howe'er ill posted, yet more desp'rate grown,
To guard this Breach, his Reputation's thrown!
His Pen with Fury does Snape's Strength assail,
He charges!-True: But does that Charge avail?


Carlisle here seconds Snape! The Plea maintains!
Whilst baneful Discord 'twixt each Prelate reigns.
If, as Church-Pillars we the Mitres stile,
Tott'ring by Jarrs they shake the sacred Pile!
Errors start up! whilst weak the Structure stands,
And Factions rage, as in divided Lands!
Altars 'gainst Altars rise! Confusions spring!
And a long Train of endless Horrors bring.


Fierce Advertisements now i'th' News are seen
From these two B--s and a trifling D--
With zealous Warmth each in the Contest burns,
Whilst from the Truth the D--n Deserter turns.


Carlisle then quits the Plain, whilst neither yield,
And urges Bangor to a nobler Field:
Nor for his Standard Advertisements rears!
But in a Stile more Glorious now appears.
Still in Retreat Bangor his Flag displays,
And fiercer Vollies from the News conveys.
By Kennet strengthen'd, in Opinion high,
He does the Foe with future Deeds defie!


When in his Hand he shall the Pencil bear,
The Victor's Honours in the Draught he'll wear.
How can true Colours then the Work assure,
If Him they flatter, Them in Shades obscure?


What can these prove, but mere Evasions all?
Which quit the Contest, and on Trifles fall?
Snape's heavy Charge as yet unanswer'd stands,
And either Vict'ry or Defence demands!


Now from a Party Clamours rise in vain
Against Carlisle, who does his Plea maintain,
Spite of the D--n, who in Desertion flies,
And Peter like, what once he own'd, denies.


Truth is the Bulwark thus keen Envy storms!
The Dæmon rages deck'd in various Forms.
Here, like a Churchman, dress'd in sacred Stile,
With smooth Corruptions she'd the World beguile.
And seems t'advance the Church, whilst she'd ensnare
Its Rites, its Orders, and Foundation, Pray'r.


Next Politician like, she'd raise Debate,
To bring the Faith subservient to the State;
Like a false Light, their black Designs to gild,
Or Ground, on which vile Policies she'd build.


Lastly, In Slander cloath'd, she sallies forth
To blast those Fames that bear the noblest Worth!
In this black Form the Fiend each Libel shews,
Which fiercely arm'd 'gainst Snape or Carlisle goes!
Here against Trap! From Sykes 'gainst Sherlock there,
Where Bangor's Postscript does its Aid declare.


'Gainst thee, O Sherlock! Such Efforts are vain:
They but asperse what they can never stain.
Thy Foes augment by Scandal, Crimes they'd clear,
As their black Charge thy Vertue scorns to bear!
Thy Strength of Reason stems the rapid Course,
And rowls it backwards with resistless Force.


Next Whitby seems (as he'd Snape's Worth oppose)
Weak as the Cause in which Defence he rose.


As Frantick Dunton with the Tribe combines,
Th'Ecclesiastick with the Madman joins.
Pardon the Muse that on such Trifles dwells,
One shews his Weakness, one his Phrenzy tells!
As These, so Others, such Essays have made,
Who, like their Chief, not answer,-but evade.


How can Divines here seem to give Applause,
Where Heresies support the impious Cause?
A Cause, which on the Church's Triumph frowns,
And levels Mitres as Resistance crowns.
Enthusiasts, Sect'ries, here with Aid supply,
And wing'd like Serpents, at our Altars fly!
But o'er these Fiends the Faith at length shall reign,
Which Worthies thus with bright Essays sustain!


Hear then, ye Pow'rs; on your own Works look down!
VVhere are your Rites, when Supplication's gone?
VVho shall your Altar's Sacraments prepare,
If Pious Zeal's depriv'd of Fervent Pray'r?
VVho at the Throne of Grace shall Homage pay,
If your own Priests their sacred Trust betray?
Assist! inspire! and with a Light Divine,
Now let the Faith from Clouds in Glory shine!


Oh Snape! Assert! Pursue the sacred Cause!
Improve the Soul! Defend the Church's Laws!
Still to thy Aid the sacred Scriptures bring,
Whilst Brightest Youths from thy Tuition spring!
They, as Examples, shall thy Worth proclaim,
And to Time's End shall consecrate thy Fame!


The Convocation may to joyn thee meet;
And what's so well begun, as well compleat.

Finis

by Richard Savage.

--A COSTLY good ; that none e'er bought or sold
For gem, or pearl, or miser's store, twice told :
Save certain watery pearls, possessed by all,
Which, one by one, may buy it as they fall.
Of these, though precious, few will not suffice,
So slow the traffic, and so large the price !

It is for wrinkled brows, grey locks, and sighs,
Not for bright blooming cheeks and sparkling eyes ;
When those have faded, these as dimly shine--
Then, in their stead, Experience may be thine.
Books will assert, and sires and pulpits teach,
And youth may listen to their sober speech,
And smiling lips pronounce a careless 'yes,'
While neither eye nor heart can acquiesce.
But grief extorts conviction ; brings to view
Those slightest words, and answers--'very true.'
Surprised, reluctant, yet at last compelled
To own, what long in doubtful scale was held,
That life, whate'er the course our own has led,
Is much the same as what our fathers said.

A tattered cottage, to the view of taste,
In beauty glows, at needful distance placed :
Its broken panes, its richly ruined thatch,
Its gable graced with many a mossy patch,
The sunset lighting up its varied dyes,
Form quite a picture to poetic eyes ;
And yield delight that modern brick and board,
Square, sound, and well arranged, would not afford.
But, cross the mead to take a nearer ken,--
Where all the magic of the vision then ?
The picturesque is vanished, and the eye,
Averted, turns from loathsome poverty ;
And while it lingers, e'en the sun's pure ray
Seems almost sullied by its transient stay.
The broken walls, with slight repairs embossed,
Are but cold comforts in a winter's frost :
No smiling, peaceful peasant, half refined,
There tunes his reed on rustic seat reclined ;
But there the bended form and haggard face,
Worn with the lines that vice and misery trace.
Thus fades the charm, by vernal hope supplied
To every object it has never tried ;
--To fairy visions, and elysian meads,
Thus vulgar, cold reality succeeds.

When sanguine youth the plain of life surveys,
It does not calculate on rainy days.
Some, as they enter on the unknown way,
Expect large troubles at a distant day ;
--The loss of wealth, or friends they fondly prize ;
But reckon not on ills of smaller size,
Those nameless, trifling ills, that intervene,
And people life, infesting every scene ;
And there with silent, unavowed success,
Wear off the keener edge of happiness :
Those teazing swarms, that buzz about our joys,
More potent than the whirlwind that destroys ;
--Potent, with heavenly teaching, to attest
Life is a pilgrimage, and not a rest.

That lesson, learned aright, is valued more
Than all experience ever taught before ;
For this her choicest secret, timely given,
Is wisdom, virtue, happiness, and heaven.
Long is religion viewed, by many an eye,
As wanted more for safety by and by,
--A thing for times of danger and distress,
Than needful for our present happiness.
But after fruitless, wearisome assays
To find repose and peace in other ways,
The sickened soul--when Heaven imparts its grace,
Returns to seek its only resting place ;
And sweet Experience proves, as years increase,
That wisdom ways are pleasantness and peace.
Yes, and the late conviction, fraught with pain,
On many a callous conscience strikes in vain.
Blind to ourselves--to others not less blind,
We slowly learn to understand mankind.
Sanguine and ardent, indisposed to hold
The cautious maxims that our fathers told,
We place new objects in the fairest light,
And offer generous friendship at first sight ;--
Expect (though not the first-rate mental powers)
A mind, at least, in unison with ours ;
Free from those meaner faults, that most conspire
To damp our love, if not put out its fire.
Cold o'er the heart the slight expression steals,
That first some trait of character reveals ;
A fault, perhaps, less prominent alone,
But causing painful friction with our own.
Long is the harsh, reluctant thought supprest,
We drive the cold suspicion from our breast ;
But when confirmed, our generous love condemn,
Turn off disgusted with the world and them--
Resolve no more at Friendship's fane to serve,
And call her names she does not quite deserve.
But this is rash--Experience would confess
That friendship's very frailties chill us less
(Sincere and well-intentioned all the while)
Than the world's complaisant and polished smile.
With other chattels, nameless in my verse,
Friends must be held 'for better and for worse ;'
And that alone true friendship we should call,
Which undertakes to love us faults and all ;
And, she who guides this humble line could prove
There is, there is, such candid, generous love :
And from the life, her faithful hand could paint
Glowing exceptions to her own complaint.

But that, of all discoveries life can boast,
Which disappoints us and surprises most,
Is, when the pleasing veil that serves to hide
Self from itself, by chance is drawn aside.
As when, perhaps, some kindred mind is shown,
In which we trace a portrait of our own :
Dissolved at once, as by the morning ray,
The mists of self-delusion pass away,
As that bright moment's unexpected glare
Shows us the best and worst of what we are.
--Or some chance word, in hasty converse dropt,
By which the wheel-work of the mind is stopt,
--That movement which in daily course goes round,
And leaves us just precisely where it found :
This casual word creates a wholesome pause ;
The startled mind its quick conclusion draws,
Perceives the form it wears to other eyes,
The proper level where its talents rise,
And ere returning to a different theme,
Sinks a degree or two in self-esteem ;
Then off it goes again, with little cost,
Save that the multiplying wheel is lost.

But if such sudden shock abate its force,
Experience aids it by a slower course :
Time, spite of fools and flattery, lets us see
Just what we are, not what we thought to be.
Midway in life we pause, compare with shame
Our present progress with our early aim ;
Look back on years with purpose high begun,
In which the task intended was not done,
And see beyond us a declining sun ;
--Fair opportunities for ever fled ;
The vigorous impulse dying, if not dead ;
And we, in knowledge, habit, temper, state,
Nothing superior to the common rate.

How false is found, as on in life we go,
Our early estimate of bliss and woe !
--Some sparkling joy attracts us, that we fain
Would sell a precious birth-right to obtain.
There all our hopes of happiness are placed ;
Life looks without it like a joyless waste ;
No good is prized, no comfort sought beside ;
Prayers, tears implore, and will not be denied.
Heaven pitying hears the intemperate, rude appeal,
And suits its answer to our truest weal.
The self-sought idol, if at last bestowed,
Proves, what our wilfulness required--a goad ;
Ne'er but as needful chastisement is given
The wish thus forced, and torn, and stormed from Heaven :
But if withheld, in pity, from our prayer,
We rave, awhile, of torment and despair,
Refuse each proffered comfort with disdain,
And slight the thousand blessings that remain ;
Meantime, Heaven bears the grievous wrong, and waits
In patient pity till the storm abates ;
Applies with gentlest hand the healing balm,
Or speaks the ruffled mind into a calm ;
Deigning, perhaps, to show the mourner soon,
'Twas special mercy that denied the boon.

Our blasted hopes, our aims and wishes crost,
Are worth the tears and agonies they cost,
When the poor mind, by fruitless efforts spent,
With food and raiment learns to be content.
Bounding with youthful hope, the restless mind
Leaves that divine monition far behind,
But tamed at length by suffering, comprehends
The tranquil happiness to which it tends ;
Perceives the high-wrought bliss it aimed to share,
Demands a richer soil, a purer air ;
That 'tis not fitted, and would strangely grace
The mean condition of our mortal race ;
And all we need in this terrestrial spot,
Is calm contentment with 'the common lot.'
Oh, who that takes a retrospective view
Of years, now fading in the distant blue,
The snares to which impetuous we had flown,
Restrained by God's resistless arm alone.
How, ever yielding to our own self--will,
We would refuse the good, and choose the ill,
He interposing still on our behalf,
Still safely guiding by His rod and staff ;
But with subdued, submissive heart would cry,
'Choose Thou my portion, guide me with thine eye ;
One sole condition would I dare suggest--
That thou wouldst save me from mine own request !'

In many streams may trouble wind its course ;
But to ourselves we still must trace its source,
And 'tis a thing impossible, we find,
Go where we will, to leave ourselves behind.
Feeling that burden wearisome to bear,
We seek to shift the scene and change the air ;
From homespun cares commence our sanguine flight,
And on some verdant, peaceful vale alight.
Sweet is the scene, and sweet the tranquil hour ;
The harassed mind perceives its soothing power ;
For that short moment novelty can please,
Imagines health and joy in every breeze ;
That moment past, the quick returning mood
Spreads its own tinge on wood, and vale, and flood ;
The pearly heaven is tinctured with our pain,
And casts its faint reflection on the main ;
The hills' bare outline seems to represent
The very features of our discontent ;
The rock's fantastic fragments range as though
Fresh shivered to the pattern of our woe.
In vain we argue with ourselves, and prove
The scene delightful, just the kind we love ;
In vain we urge and strain the languid sense,
To wring a drop of happiness from thence :
Yet, charge not rocks and hills with thy complaint,
The scene is lovely, but the heart is faint :
Invite sweet peace and charity to flow,
And nature brightens to her purest glow.

When hope her seat to memory has resigned,
And our chief solace is to look behind,
Then shall we learn, perhaps too late, to know
That sin weighs heavier on the mind than woe.
Grief, genuine grief, that comes at God's command,
In which our own misconduct has no hand,
Though, for the present, not a joyous thing,
Yet, when it passes over, leaves no sting.
The pains we feared, the ills we dreaded most,
Departed--seem a weak and harmless host ;
We suffered, wept, but now can smile serene,
And wonder that our anguish was so keen :
Or if some blow that struck the tenderest part,
Has left its deep impression and its smart ;
Still years allay it, and at length diffuse
A pleasing sadness that we would not lose.
But when by conscience, memory's eye is cast,
Pained and reluctant, on the guilty past,
And sees life's path bestrewed on every side
With sins and follies, thick and multiplied,
Follies for which our shame arrives too late,
Sins that Heaven only can obliterate,
And what slight efforts had restrained their powers--
How bitter the remembrance to this hour !

--Once in a town remote in Britain's isle,
A female stranger lodged in humble style :
The village gossip, roused when first she came,
At last discovered little but her name ;
And scandal, weary with its fruitless quest,
Conjectured and invented all the rest.
Her quiet habits, and abstracted cast,
Repelled inquiry, and it dropt at last.
Her years were waning, and her whole array
Bespoke neglect, indifference, and decay ;
Yet no wild look betrayed a wandering brain,
--It was not 'crazy Kate,' nor 'crazy Jane ;'
Nor high expression marked some sudden fall,
--A common care-worn person--that was all.

Year after year she wandered up and down,
Mid the dull out-skirts of that little town :
She loved a lonely turn, but 'twas her way
To put it off till towards the close of day ;
And there, all winter long, she might be met
Taking her walk as soon as sun was set.
When the dark sky foretold a stormy night,
And all the parlour fires were blazing bright,
Just as their social parties came to meet,
They used to see her pacing down the street.
'Twas said she used a wishful eye to cast
On such a lively circle as she passed,
As though the smiling group and cheerful blaze
Waked some remembrance of her early days ;
But still her lonely wanderings would prefer,
For she was strange to them, and they to her.

Beyond the town some low, damp meadows lay,
Through which a sluggish stream pursued its way ;
Tall reeds in that slow, silent water stood,
And curling vapours rested on its flood :
This walk she chose, and though it seemed so dull,
It pleased her much, because her heart was full ;
And there, unheeded by the passing breeze,
She used to vent it in such words as these.

'There's something suits the temper of my mind
In the deep howlings of this wintry wind :
How the sky lowers ! all darkly overspread,
Save one horizon streak of awful red :
So lowers my sky, and that bright line appears,
Like the last glimmer of departed years.
If those who loved me then, could see this sight,--
--Me, wandering here on such a cheerless night,
A poor, lone stranger in this friendless wild,
How they would mourn for their deserted child !
But they are gone, and now these storms may blow,
And I, unheeded, wander to and fro,
And not in all this peopled world, find one
To screen and cherish me as they had done.
I thought the world was kinder, and would prove
Some compensation for my parents' love :
I thought of friends--that once united band
With whom I used to journey hand in hand ;
But some are gone whence traveller ne'er returns,
The rest are eager in their own concerns ;
They might not spurn me, but I would not go
To tax them with the burden of my woe.
This rugged world affords, at last, no rest
Like the safe covert of a parent's breast.
Oh, they had pity for my slightest pain,
I never sought their sympathy in vain !
--My dear indulgent father, how he strove
To train and win me by his patient love ;
Endured my froward temper, and displayed
A kind forbearance that was ill repaid ;
To thwart my little pleasures ever loth,
They yielded much, he and my mother both.
I was a sicky one, and all her skill,
And all her pity came when I was ill :
I can remember how she was distrest,
And took more thought for me than all the rest ;
And what a sweet relief it seemed to be
To lay my aching head upon her knee :
Then she would moan, and stroke my sickly cheek,
And I was better while I heard her speak.
Thus I was fostered, thus my early days
She would enliven in a thousand ways,
My slightest pleasure to her own prefer--
Yet, I grew up, and was not kind to her.
I grew up selfish, full of thoughts and cares
For my own good, but unconcerned for theirs ;
I had my tastes and pleasures, but despised
The homespun comforts that my parents prized ;
Warm friendships cherished, but I felt above
The common claims of duteous filial love :
I gave cold service, but the smile that cheers,
The softer tone that soothes declining years,
These I withheld--they felt it--and the dart
That wounded them, now rankles in my heart.
--They had their failings--ah, dear parents ! how
Those few infirmities are vanished now !
Would that I now could bear them, now too late,
Sustain and soothe instead of aggravate !
Would they could hear these wailings !--but they died--
There, there they sweetly slumber, side by side !
And would not lift a hand, nor raise an eye,
To bid me cease this unavailing cry.'

'Twas thus, in those dull evenings, all alone,
She used, from time to time, to make her moan ;
And long frequented she the meadow's side,
In that desponding way :--at last she died.

Far having wandered, let the muse rehearse,
And gather up the fragments of her verse.
--It seems, at last, Experience does but show
What sense and conscience witnessed long ago ;
Decides the whole dispute 'twixt Heaven and Earth,
Proving her promise to be nothing worth ;
And that He knew our hearts and wants, who spoke
Of a light burden and an easy yoke.
Could we but credit Heaven's unerring pen,
We need not wait till three-score years and ten.
--He says His ways are pleasant--not alone
To pure, bright spirits bending round the throne,
But pleasant, peaceful, suited to the powers
Of such poor sordid, earthly souls as ours ;
We doubt--and all Experience claims to do,
Is simply this--to prove the statement true.

by Jane Taylor.

In the gay and crowded city
Where the tall and jostling roof-trees
Jealous seem of one another,
Jealous of the ground they stand on,
Each one thrusting out its neighbor
From the sunrise, or the sunset,
In a boarding school of fashion
Was Miranda comprehended,
Goal of her supreme ambition.

--Girls were there from different regions,
Distant States, and varying costumes,
She was beautiful they told her,
And her mirror when she sought it
Gave concurrent testimony.

--Many teachers met their classes
In this favorite Institution
Where accomplishments or studies
Were pursued as each selected,
Or their parents gave commandment.
But Miranda was impeded
In successful application,
By the consciousness of beauty
And the vanity it fosters.

--Very fond was she of walking
In the most frequented places,
Fondly fancying all beholders
Gazed on her with admiration.
Striking dresses, gay with colors
She disported and commended,
Not considering that the highest
Of attractions in a woman
Is simplicity of costume,
And a self-forgetful sweetness.

--Men with business over-laden,
Men of science, pondering axioms,
Men of letters, lost in reverie,
She imagined when they passed her
Gaz'd with secret admiration,
Ask'd in wonder, '_who can that be_?'
Backward turned perchance, to view her,
As she lightly glided onward.

--So completely had this beauty
Leagued with vanity, uprooted
Serious thought and useful purpose,
And the nobler ends of being,
That even in the solemn Temple
Where humility befitteth
All who offer adoration,
Close observance of the apparel
Of acquaintances or strangers,
And a self-display intruded
On the service of devotion,
While her fair cheek oft-times rested
Daintily on gloveless fingers
Where the radiant jewels sparkled
On a hand like sculptured marble.

* * * * *

Meantime in the rural mansion
Whence with gladness she departed,
Sate the mother and the sister
By the hearth-stone or the lamp-light,
Thinking of their loved Miranda,
Speaking of her, working for her,
Writing tender, earnest letters
To sustain her mid her studies,
Fearing that her health might suffer
By the labor and privation
That a year at school demanded.

--As the autumnal evenings lengthen'd,
Bertha with a filial sweetness
Sought her mother's favorite authors,
And with perfect elocution
Made their sentiments and feelings,
Guests around the quiet fireside.

--Page of Livy, or of Cæsar,
Stirring scenes of tuneful Maro,
From their native, stately numbers
To the mother's ear she rendered;
Or with her o'er ancient regions,
Fallen sphynx, or ruin'd column,
Led by guiding Rollin, wandered,
Deeply mused with saintly Sherlock,
Or through Milton's inspiration
Scanned the lore of forfeit Eden.

* * * * *

With the vertic rays of Summer
Homeward came the fair Miranda.
How the village people wonder'd
At her fashions, and her movements,
How she made the new piano
Tremble to its inmost centre
With _andante_, and _bravura_,
What a piece she had to show them
Of Andromache the Trojan,
Wrought in silks of every color,
And 'twas said a foreign language
Such as princes use in Paris,
She could speak to admiration.

--Greatly their surprise amused her,
But the Mother and the Sister
With their eagle-eyed affection,
Spied a thorn amid the garland,
Heard the sighing on her pillow,
Saw the flush invade her forehead,
And were sure some secret sorrow
Rankled in that snowy bosom.

* * * * *

Rumor, soon with hundred voices
Whisper'd of a dashing lover,
Irreligious and immoral,
And the anxious Mother counsel'd
Sad of heart her fair-hair'd daughter.

--Scarce with any show of reverence
Listen'd the impatient maiden,
Then with tearless eyes wide open
Like full orbs of shadeless sapphire
All unpausing, thus responded.

--'I have promised Aldebaran,
To be his,--alone,--forever!
And I'll keep that promise, Mother,
Though the firm skies fall around me,
And yon stars in fragments shatter'd,
Each with thousand voices warn'd me.

--Thou hast spoken words reproachful,
Doubting of his soul's salvation,
Of his creed I never question'd,
But where'er he goes, I follow.
Whatsoe'er his lot, I'll share it,
Though it were the darkest chamber
In the lowest hell. 'Twere better
There with him, than 'mid the carols
Of the highest heaven, without him.'
Swan-like arms were wrapped around her
With a cry of better pleading,
'Oh Miranda!--Oh my Sister!
Gather back the words you've spoken,
Quickly, ere the angel write them
Weeping on the doom's day tablet.

--You have grieved our blessed Mother:
See you not the large tears trickle
Down those channels deeply furrow'd
Which the widow-anguish open'd?
Kneel beside me, Oh my Sister!
Darling of my cradle slumbers,
Ask the grace of God to cleanse thee
From thy blasphemy and blindness,
Supplicate the Great Enlightener
Here to purge away thy madness,
Pray our Saviour to forgive thee.'

* * * * *

'Bertha! Bertha! speak not to me,
What knowest thou of love almighty?
Naught except that craven spirit
Measuring, weighing, calculating,
That goes shivering to its bridal.
On this deathless soul, all hazard
Here I take, and if it perish,
Let it perish.
From the socket
This right eye I'd pluck, extinguish
This right hand, if he desire it,
And go maim'd through all the ages
That Eternity can number.

--Prayer is not for me, but action,
Against thee, and Her who bare me
Stand I at Love's bidding, boldly
In the armor that he giveth,
For life's battle, strong and ready.
--Hush! I've sworn, and I'll confirm it.'

* * * * *

In due time, the handsome suitor
Paid his devoirs to Miranda,
In her own paternal dwelling.
Very exquisite in costume,
Very confident in manner,
Pompous, city-bred, and fearless
Was the accepted Aldebaran.

--Axious felt she, lest the customs
Of the rustic race around her,
So she styled her rural neighbors,
Might discourage or disgust him,
But he gave them no attention,
Quite absorbed in other matters.

--In their promenades together
She beheld the people watching
Mid their toils of agriculture,
Saw them gaze from door and windows,
Little ones from gates and fences,
On the stylish Alderbaran,
And her heart leap'd up exulting.

--Notice took he of the homestead,
With an eye of speculation,
Ask'd the number of its acres,
And what revenue they yielded.
Notice took of herds and buildings
With their usufruct, and value,
Closer note than seem'd consistent
With his delicate position;
But Miranda, Cupid blinded,
No venality detected.

--He, in gorgeous phrase address'd her,
With an oriental worship,
As some goddess condescending
To an intercourse with mortals.
Pleas'd was she with such observance,
Pleas'd and proud that those around her
Should perceive what adoration
Was to her, by him accorded.

--When he left, 'twas with the assurance
The next visit should be final.
Marking on his silver tablet
With gay hand, the day appointed
When he might return to claim her
In the nuptial celebration.

* * * * *

There's a bridal in the spring-time,
When the bee from wintry covert
Talking to the unsheath'd blossoms,
Meditates unbounded plunder,
And the bird mid woven branches
Brooding o'er her future treasures
Harkeneth thrilling to the love-song
Of her mate, who nestward tendeth.

--There's a bridal in the spring-time,
And the beautiful Miranda
Through her veil of silvery tissue
Gleams, more beautiful than ever.
From the hearth-stone of her fathers,
With the deathless love of woman
Trusting all for earth or heaven
To a mortal's rule and guidance,
One, but short time since, a stranger,
Forth she goes.
The young beholders
Gazing on the handsome bridegroom,
Gazing on the nuptial carriage,
Where the milk-white horses sported
Knots of evergreen and myrtle,
Felt a pleasure mix'd with envy
At a happiness so perfect.

--But more thoughtful ones, instructed
By the change of time and sorrow,
By the cloud and by the sunbeam,
Felt the hazard that attended
Such intrustment without limit,
Vows that none had right to cancel
Save the hand of Death's dark Angel.

* * * * *

Of the sadness left behind her
In the mansion whence she parted,
Loneliness, and bitter heart-ache,
Deep, unutter'd apprehension,
Fearful looking for of judgment,
It were vain in lays so feeble
To attempt a true recital.

--Still, to Mother and to Sister
Came epistles from Miranda,
Essenc'd and genteelly written,
Painting happiness so perfect,
So transcending expectation,
So surpassing all that fancy
In her wildest flights had pencil'd,
That even Eden ere the tempter
Coil'd himself amid the blossoms
Fail'd to furnish fitting symbol.

* * * * *

Heartfelt bliss is never boastful,
Like the holy dew it stealeth
To the bosom of the violet,
Only told by deeper fragrance.

--He who saith 'See! see! I'm happy?
Happier than all else around me,'
Leaves, perchance, a doubt behind him
Whether he hath comprehended
What true happiness implieth.

* * * * *

Oh, the storm-cloud and the tempest!
Oh, the dreary night of winter!
Drifting snows, and winds careering
Down the tall, wide-throated chimney,
Like the shrieking ghosts from Hades.
Shrieking ghosts of buried legions.

--'Mother! hear I not the wailing
Of a human voice?'
'My daughter!
'Tis the blast that rends the pine-trees.
The old sentry-Oak is broken,
Close beside our chamber-window,
And its branches all are moaning.
'Tis their grief you hear, my daughter.'

* * * * *

But the maiden's car was quicken'd
To all plaint of mortal sorrow,
And when next, the bitter north wind
Lull'd, to gather strength and vigor,
For a new exacerbation,
Listening close, she caught the murmur,
'Hush mein daughter! hush mein baby.'
Then she threw the door wide open,
Though the storm rush'd in upon her,
With its blinding sleet and fury.

What beheld she, near the threshold,
Prostrate there beside the threshold,
But a woman, to whose bosom
Clung a young and sobbing infant?

--Oh the searching look that kindled
'Neath those drooping, straining eye-lids,
Searching mid the blast and darkness,
For some helper in her anguish,
Searching, kindling look, that settled
Into heavy, deadly slumber,
As the waning taper flashes
Once, to be relumin'd never.

Still her weak arm clasp'd the baby,
Rais'd its pining, pinching features,
Faintly cried, 'Mein kind! Have pity,
Pity, for the love of Jesus!'

--Yes, forlorn, benighted wanderer,
Thy poor, failing feet have brought thee
Where the love of Jesus dwelleth.
Gently in a bed they laid her,
Chafed her stiffening limbs and temples,
Pour'd the warm, life-giving cordial,
But what seem'd the most to cheer her,
Were some words by Bertha spoken
In her own, dear native language.
Voice of Fatherland! it quicken'd
All the heart's collapsing heart-strings,
As though bath'd, and renovated
In the Rhine's blue, rushing waters.

* * * * *

O'er the wildering waste of ocean,
Moved by zeal of emigration
She had ventured with her husband
To this western World of promise,
Rainbow-vested El-Dorado.

On that dreary waste of waters
He had died, and left her mourning,
All unguided, unbefriended.
--There the mother-sorrow found her
And compell'd her by the weeping
Of the new-born, to encounter
With a broken-hearted welcome
Life once more, which in the torrent
of her utter desolation
She had cast aside, contemning
As a burden past endurance.

--Outcast in this land of strangers,
Strange of speech, and strange in manner,
She had travel'd, worn and weary,
Here and there, with none to aid her,
Ask'd for work, and none employ'd her,
Ask'd for alms, and few reliev'd her,
Till at length, the wintry tempest
Smote her near that blessed roof-tree.

* * * * *

Heavy slumber weigh'd her downward,
Slumber from whence none awaketh.
Yet at morn they heard her sighing,
On her pillow faintly sighing,
'I am ready! I am ready!'
'Leonore! my child! my darling!'

Then they brought the infant to her,
Cleanly robed, and sweetly smiling,
And the parting soul turn'd backward,
And the clay-seal on the eyelids
Lifted up to gaze upon it.

Bertha kiss'd the little forehead,
Said '_mein kind_,' and lo! a shudder
Of this earth's forgotten pleasure
Trembled o'er the dying woman,
And the white hand cold as marble
Strove to raise itself in blessing,
For the mother-joy was stronger
That one moment, while it wrestled
With the pausing king of terrors,
Stronger than the king of terrors.

Then they laid her icy fingers
Mid the infant's budding ringlets,
And the pang and grasp subsided
In a smile and whispering cadence,
'God, mein God, be praised!'--and silence
Settled on those lips forever.

* * * * *

Favor'd is the habitation
Where a gentle infant dwelleth,
When its brightening eye revealeth
The immortal part within it,
And its curious wonder scanneth
All its wide spread, tiny fingers,
And its velvet hand caressing
Pats the nurse's cheek and bosom,
Hoary Age grows young before it,
As the branch that Winter blighted
At the touch of Spring reviveth.

When its healthful form evolveth,
And with quadrupedal pleasure
Creeping o'er the nursery carpet,
Aiming still, its flowery surface
With faint snatches to appropriate,
Or the bolder art essaying
On its two round feet to balance
And propel the swaying body
As with outstretch'd arms it hastens
Tottering toward the best beloved,
Hope, her freshest garland weaveth
Glittering with the dews of morning.

When the lisping tongue adventures
The first tones of imitation,
Or with magic speed o'ermasters
The philosophy of language
Twining round the mind of others,
Preferences, and pains and pleasures,
Tendrils strong, of sentient being,
Seeking kindness and indulgence,
Loving sports and smiles, and gladness,
Tenderest love goes forth to meet it,
Love that every care repayeth.

* * * * *

Thus the little German exile
Leaning on her foster parents
Brought a love that soothed and cheer'd them,
And with sweet confiding meekness
Taught to older ones the lesson
Of the perfect trust, we children
Of One Great Almighty Parent
Should repose in His protection
Goodness and unerring wisdom:
Though His discipline mysterious
Oft transcendeth feeble reason,
And perchance overthrows the fabrics
That in arrogance we builded,
Call'd _our own_, and vainly rented
To a troop of hopes and fancies,
Gay-robed joys, or fond affections.

* * * * *

'Tis a solemn thing and lovely,
To adopt a child, whose mother
Dwelleth in the land of spirits:
In its weakness give it succor,
Be in ignorance its teacher,
In all sorrow its consoler,
In temptation its defender,
Save what else had been forsaken,
Win for it a crown in Heaven,--
Tis a solemn thing and lovely,
Such a work as God approveth.

* * * * *

Blessed are the souls that nurture
With paternal care the orphan,
Neath their roof-tree lending shelter,
At their table breathing welcome,
Giving armor for the journey
And the warfare that awaiteth
Every pilgrim, born of woman,
Blessed, for the grateful prayer
Riseth unto Him who heareth
The lone sigh of the forsaken,
Bendeth, mid the song of seraphs,
To the crying of the ravens,
From whose nest the brooding pinion
By the archer's shaft was sever'd.

* * * * *

Pomp and wealth, and pride of office
With their glitter and their shouting,
May not pass through death's dark valley,
May not thrill the ear that resteth
Mid the silence of the grave-yard;
But the deed that wrought in pity
Mid the outcast and benighted,
In the hovel or the prison,
On the land or on the ocean,
Shunning still the applause of mortals,
Comes it not to His remembrance
Who shall say amid the terrors
Of the last Great Day of Judgment,
'Inasmuch as ye have done it
Unto one, the least, the lowest.
It was done to Me, your Saviour.'

by Lydia Huntley Sigourney.

'TRADES and Professions'--these are themes the Muse,
Left to her freedom, would forbear to choose;
But to our Borough they in truth belong,
And we, perforce, must take them in our song.
Be it then known that we can boast of these
In all denominations, ranks, degrees;
All who our numerous wants through life supply,
Who soothe us sick, attend us when we die,
Or for the dead their various talents try.
Then have we those who live by secret arts,
By hunting fortunes, and by stealing hearts;
Or who by nobler means themselves advance,
Or who subsist by charity and chance.
Say, of our native heroes shall I boast,
Born in our streets, to thunder on our coast,
Our Borough-seamen? Could the timid Muse
More patriot ardour in their breasts infuse;
Or could she paint their merit or their skill,
She wants not love, alacrity, or will:
But needless all; that ardour is their own,
And for their deeds, themselves have made them known.
Soldiers in arms! Defenders of our soil!
Who from destruction save us; who from spoil
Protect the sons of peace, who traffic, or who toil;
Would I could duly praise you; that each deed
Your foes might honour, and your friends might read:
This too is needless; you've imprinted well
Your powers, and told what I should feebly tell:
Beside, a Muse like mine, to satire prone,
Would fail in themes where there is praise alone.
- Law shall I sing, or what to Law belongs?
Alas! there may be danger in such songs;
A foolish rhyme, 'tis said, a trifling thing,
The law found treason, for it touch'd the King.
But kings have mercy, in these happy times.
Or surely One had suffered for his rhymes;
Our glorious Edwards and our Henrys bold,
So touch'd, had kept the reprobate in hold;
But he escap'd,--nor fear, thank Heav'n, have I,
Who love my king, for such offence to die.
But I am taught the danger would be much,
If these poor lines should one attorney touch -
(One of those Limbs of Law who're always here;
The Heads come down to guide them twice a year.)
I might not swing, indeed, but he in sport
Would whip a rhymer on from court to court;
Stop him in each, and make him pay for all
The long proceedings in that dreaded Hall: -
Then let my numbers flow discreetly on,
Warn'd by the fate of luckless Coddrington,
Lest some attorney (pardon me the name)
Should wound a poor solicitor for fame.
One Man of Law in George the Second's reign
Was all our frugal fathers would maintain;
He too was kept for forms; a man of peace,
To frame a contract, or to draw a lease:
He had a clerk, with whom he used to write
All the day long, with whom he drank at night,
Spare was his visage, moderate his bill,
And he so kind, men doubted of his skill.
Who thinks of this, with some amazement sees,
For one so poor, three flourishing at ease;
Nay, one in splendour! see that mansion tall,
That lofty door, the far-resounding hall;
Well-furnish'd rooms, plate shining on the board,
Gay liveried lads, and cellar proudly stored:
Then say how comes it that such fortunes crown
These sons of strife, these terrors of the town?
Lo! that small Office! there th' incautious guest
Goes blindfold in, and that maintains the rest;
There in his web, th' observant spider lies,
And peers about for fat intruding flies;
Doubtful at first, he hears the distant hum,
And feels them fluttering as they nearer come;
They buzz and blink, and doubtfully they tread
On the strong bird-lime of the utmost thread;
But when they're once entangled by the gin,
With what an eager clasp he draws them in;
Nor shall they 'scape, till after long delay,
And all that sweetens life is drawn away.
'Nay, this,' you cry, 'is common-place, the tale
Of petty tradesmen o'er their evening ale;
There are who, living by the legal pen,
Are held in honour,--'Honourable men''
Doubtless--there are who hold manorial courts,
Or whom the trust of powerful friends supports,
Or who, by labouring through a length of time,
Have pick'd their way, unsullied by a crime.
These are the few: in this, in every place,
Fix the litigious rupture-stirring race;
Who to contention as to trade are led,
To whom dispute and strife are bliss and bread.
There is a doubtful Pauper, and we think
'Tis not with us to give him meat and drink;
There is a Child; and 'tis not mighty clear
Whether the mother lived with us a year:
A Road's indicted, and our seniors doubt
If in our proper boundary or without:
But what says our attorney? He, our friend,
Tells us 'tis just and manly to contend.
'What! to a neighbouring parish yield your cause,
While you have money, and the nation laws?
What! lose without a trial, that which, tried,
May--nay it must--be given on our side?
All men of spirit would contend; such men
Than lose a pound would rather hazard ten.
What! be imposed on? No! a British soul
Despises imposition, hates control:
The law is open; let them, if they dare,
Support their cause; the Borough need not spare.
All I advise is vigour and good-will:
Is it agreed then--Shall I file a bill?'
The trader, grazier, merchant, priest, and all,
Whose sons aspiring, to professions call,
Choose from their lads some bold and subtle boy,
And judge him fitted for this grave employ:
Him a keen old practitioner admits,
To write five years and exercise his wits:
The youth has heard--it is in fact his creed -
Mankind dispute, that Lawyers may be fee'd:
Jails, bailiffs, writs, all terms and threats of Law,
Grow now familiar as once top and taw;
Rage, hatred, fear, the mind's severer ills,
All bring employment, all augment his bills:
As feels the surgeon for the mangled limb,
The mangled mind is but a job for him;
Thus taught to think, these legal reasoners draw
Morals and maxims from their views of Law;
They cease to judge by precepts taught in schools,
By man's plain sense, or by religious rules;
No! nor by law itself, in truth discern'd,
But as its statutes may be warp'd and turn'd:
How they should judge of man, his word and deed,
They in their books and not their bosoms read:
Of some good act you speak with just applause;
'No, no!' says he, ''twould be a losing cause:
Blame you some tyrant's deed?--he answers 'Nay,
He'll get a verdict; heed you what you say.'
Thus to conclusions from examples led,
The heart resigns all judgment to the head;
Law, law alone for ever kept in view,
His measures guides, and rules his conscience too;
Of ten commandments, he confesses three
Are yet in force, and tells you which they be,
As Law instructs him, thus: 'Your neighbour's wife
You must not take, his chattles, nor his life;
Break these decrees, for damage you must pay;
These you must reverence, and the rest--you may.'
Law was design'd to keep a state in peace;
To punish robbery, that wrong might cease;
To be impregnable: a constant fort,
To which the weak and injured might resort:
But these perverted minds its force employ,
Not to protect mankind, but to annoy;
And long as ammunition can be found,
Its lightning flashes and its thunders sound.
Or Law with lawyers is an ample still,
Wrought by the passions' heat with chymic skill:
While the fire burns, the gains are quickly made,
And freely flow the profits of the trade;
Nay, when the fierceness fails, these artists blow
The dying fire, and make the embers glow,
As long as they can make the smaller profits flow:
At length the process of itself will stop,
When they perceive they've drawn out every drop.
Yet, I repeat, there are who nobly strive
To keep the sense of moral worth alive;
Men who would starve, ere meanly deign to live
On what deception and chican'ry give;
And these at length succeed; they have their strife,
Their apprehensions, stops, and rubs in life;
But honour, application, care, and skill,
Shall bend opposing fortune to their will.
Of such is Archer, he who keeps in awe
Contending parties by his threats of law:
He, roughly honest, has been long a guide
In Borough-business, on the conquering side;
And seen so much of both sides, and so long,
He thinks the bias of man's mind goes wrong:
Thus, though he's friendly, he is still severe,
Surly, though kind, suspiciously sincere:
So much he's seen of baseness in the mind,
That, while a friend to man, he scorns mankind;
He knows the human heart, and sees with dread,
By slight temptation, how the strong are led;
He knows how interest can asunder rend
The bond of parent, master, guardian, friend,
To form a new and a degrading tie
'Twixt needy vice and tempting villainy.
Sound in himself, yet when such flaws appear,
He doubts of all, and learns that self to fear:
For where so dark the moral view is grown,
A timid conscience trembles for her own;
The pitchy-taint of general vice is such
As daubs the fancy, and you dread the touch.
Far unlike him was one in former times,
Famed for the spoil he gather'd by his crimes;
Who, while his brethren nibbling held their prey,
He like an eagle seized and bore the whole away.
Swallow, a poor Attorney, brought his boy
Up at his desk, and gave him his employ;
He would have bound him to an honest trade,
Could preparations have been duly made.
The clerkship ended, both the sire and son
Together did what business could be done;
Sometimes they'd luck to stir up small disputes
Among their friends, and raise them into suits:
Though close and hard, the father was content
With this resource, now old and indolent:
But his young Swallow, gaping and alive
To fiercer feelings, was resolved to thrive: -
'Father,' he said, 'but little can they win,
Who hunt in couples where the game is thin;
Let's part in peace, and each pursue his gain,
Where it may start--our love may yet remain.'
The parent growl'd, he couldn't think that love
Made the young cockatrice his den remove;
But, taught by habit, he the truth suppress 'd,
Forced a frank look, and said he 'thought it best.'
Not long they'd parted ere dispute arose;
The game they hunted quickly made them foes.
Some house the father by his art had won
Seem'd a fit cause of contest to the son,
Who raised a claimant, and then found a way
By a staunch witness to secure his prey.
The people cursed him, but in times of need
Trusted in one so certain to succeed:
By Law's dark by-ways he had stored his mind
With wicked knowledge, how to cheat mankind.
Few are the freeholds in our ancient town;
A copyright from heir to heir came down,
From whence some heat arose, when there was doubt
In point of heirship; but the fire went out,
Till our attorney had the art to raise
The dying spark, and blow it to a blaze:
For this he now began his friends to treat;
His way to starve them was to make them eat,
And drink oblivious draughts--to his applause,
It must be said, he never starved a cause;
He'd roast and boil'd upon his board; the boast
Of half his victims was his boil'd and roast;
And these at every hour: --he seldom took
Aside his client, till he'd praised his cook;
Nor to an office led him, there in pain
To give his story and go out again;
But first the brandy and the chine where seen,
And then the business came by starts between.
'Well, if 'tis so, the house to you belongs;
But have you money to redress these wrongs?
Nay, look not sad, my friend; if you're correct,
You'll find the friendship that you'd not expect.'
If right the man, the house was Swallow's own;
If wrong, his kindness and good-will were shown:
'Rogue!' 'Villain!' 'Scoundrel!' cried the losers all:
He let them cry, for what would that recall?
At length he left us, took a village seat,
And like a vulture look'd abroad for meat;
The Borough-booty, give it all its praise,
Had only served the appetite to raise;
But if from simple heirs he drew their land,
He might a noble feast at will command;
Still he proceeded by his former rules,
His bait their pleasures, when he fished for fools -
Flagons and haunches on his board were placed,
And subtle avarice look'd like thoughtless waste:
Most of his friends, though youth from him had fled,
Were young, were minors, of their sires in dread;
Or those whom widow'd mothers kept in bounds,
And check'd their generous rage for steeds and hounds;
Or such as travell'd 'cross the land to view
A Christian's conflict with a boxing Jew:
Some too had run upon Newmarket heath
With so much speed that they were out of breath;
Others had tasted claret, till they now
To humbler port would turn, and knew not how.
All these for favours would to Swallow run,
Who never sought their thanks for all he'd done;
He kindly took them by the hand, then bow'd
Politely low, and thus his love avow'd -
(For he'd a way that many judged polite,
A cunning dog--he'd fawn before he'd bite) -
'Observe, my friends, the frailty of our race
When age unmans us--let me state a case:
There's our friend Rupert--we shall soon redress
His present evil--drink to our success -
I flatter not; but did you ever see
Limbs better turn'd? a prettier boy than he?
His senses all acute, his passions such
As Nature gave--she never does too much;
His the bold wish the cup of joy to drain,
And strength to bear it without qualm or pain.
'Now view his father as he dozing lies,
Whose senses wake not when he opes his eyes;
Who slips and shuffles when he means to walk,
And lisps and gabbles if he tries to talk;
Feeling he's none--he could as soon destroy
The earth itself, as aught it holds enjoy;
A nurse attends him to lay straight his limbs,
Present his gruel, and respect his whims:
Now shall this dotard from our hero hold
His lands and lordships? Shall he hide his gold!
That which he cannot use, and dare not show,
And will not give--why longer should he owe?
Yet, t'would be murder should we snap the locks,
And take the thing he worships from the box;
So let him dote and dream: but, till he die,
Shall not our generous heir receive supply?
For ever sitting on the river's brink?
And ever thirsty, shall he fear to drink?
The means are simple, let him only wish,
Then say he's willing, and I'll fill his dish.'
They all applauded, and not least the boy,
Who now replied, 'It fill'd his heart with joy
To find he needed not deliv'rance crave
Of death, or wish the Justice in the grave;
Who, while he spent, would every art retain,
Of luring home the scatter'd gold again;
Just as a fountain gaily spirts and plays
With what returns in still and secret ways.'
Short was the dream of bliss; he quickly found
His father's acres all were Swallow's ground.
Yet to those arts would other heroes lend
A willing ear, and Swallow was their friend;
Ever successful, some began to think
That Satan help'd him to his pen and ink;
And shrewd suspicions ran about the place,
'There was a compact'--I must leave the case.
But of the parties, had the fiend been one,
The business could not have been speedier done:
Still when a man has angled day and night,
The silliest gudgeons will refuse to bite:
So Swallow tried no more: but if they came
To seek his friendship, that remain'd the same:
Thus he retired in peace, and some would say
He'd balk'd his partner, and had learn'd to pray.
To this some zealots lent an ear, and sought
How Swallow felt, then said 'a change is wrought.'
'Twas true there wanted all the signs of grace,
But there were strong professions in their place;
Then, too, the less that men from him expect,
The more the praise to the converting sect;
He had not yet subscribed to all their creed,
Nor own'd a Call, but he confess'd the need:
His aquiescent speech, his gracious look,
That pure attention, when the brethren spoke,
Was all contrition,--he had felt the wound,
And with confession would again be sound.
True, Swallow's board had still the sumptuous treat;
But could they blame? the warmest zealots eat:
He drank--'twas needful his poor nerves to brace;
He swore--'twas habit; he was grieved--'twas grace:
What could they do a new-born zeal to nurse?
'His wealth's undoubted--let him hold our purse;
He'll add his bounty, and the house we'll raise
Hard by the church, and gather all her strays:
We'll watch her sinners as they home retire,
And pluck the brands from the devouring fire.'
Alas! such speech was but an empty boast;
The good men reckon'd, but without their host;
Swallow, delighted, took the trusted store,
And own'd the sum; they did not ask for more,
Till more was needed; when they call'd for aid -
And had it?--No, their agent was afraid:
'Could he but know to whom he should refund
He would most gladly--nay, he'd go beyond;
But when such numbers claim'd, when some were gone.
And others going--he must hold it on;
The Lord would help them.'--Loud their anger grew,
And while they threat'ning from his door withdrew,
He bow'd politely low, and bade them all adieu,
But lives the man by whom such deeds are done!
Yes, many such--But Swallow's race is run;
His name is lost,--for though his sons have name,
It is not his, they all escape the shame;
Nor is there vestige now of all he had,
His means are wasted, for his heir was mad:
Still we of Swallow as a monster speak,
A hard bad man, who prey'd upon the weak.

by George Crabbe.

A. —If then, in sooth, Pretension and Pretence,
The coxcomb's half, the worldling's double sense,
If these our age divide, or jointly share,
Compelling to confederate or to bear;
To court Pretension, while we scorn its pride,
Pretence detect, and yet conspire to hide;
How sweet, my friend, as now, to steal away,
And give to frankness one unblushing day.

Chased from yon spreading oak's serene alcove
By modish nymph, our Dryad of the grove;

But, luckier far than Horace in his walk,
Escaped yon worldling's overweening talk;
Peaceful with books, come, let this shrouding room
Receive us to its window-tinted gloom;
Such, Lambeth! as thy towers have harboured long,
Like cowlèd monk amid the city's throng—
Here, from intrusion free of pride or pelf,
Here let us range, at will, each silent shelf;
And, odours round while tattered bindings cast,
Inhale the dying gales of centuries past.

Lo! here around, the minds of every age,
Pilgrim and bard, theologist and sage.
Some forth have fared, to paint, with faithful pen,
The modes and cities of far distant men;
Some choose a quest, more deep, if more confined,
And sound each process of the thinking mind;
Or quit that more abstracted search, to sean
Event or act of individual man;
Or legends old, or languages explore,
And guide from age to age, from lore to lore.
These watch the eternal planets eyeling by,
And win the wondrous wisdom of the sky;

These sift each smallest growth of earth or air,
And find, not less, ennobling knowledge there.
Here too are they who own no single thrall,
But catch, to re-transmit, the lights of all;
Now, track the One intelligence and rule
From system vast to tiniest molecule;
And now a yet more blessed lore impart,
And fix the principles, and mould the heart.

How oft, at evening, when the mind, o'erwrought,
Finds, in dim reverie, repose from thought,
Just at that hour when soft subsiding day
Slants on the glimmering shelves its latest ray;
And pensive breeze, from dewy jessamin,
Through open casement, scarcely felt, steals in,—
Along those darkling files I ponder slow,
And muse, how vast the debt to books we owe.

Yes! friends they are! and friends thro' life to last!
Hopes for the future! memories for the past!
With them, no fear of leisure unemployed;
Let come the leisure, they shall fill the void;
With them, no dread of joys that fade from view;
They stand beside us, and our youth renew;

Telling fond tales of that exalted time,
When lore was bliss, and power was in its prime.
Come then, delicious converse still to hold,
And still to teach, ye long-loved volumes old!

Yet here commix, at will, the old and new,
Grave first-editions and the last review.
All sizes, as all ages, crowd the wall,
Sermons from Oxford, pamphlets from Whitehall;
Huge quarto tomes, that curve the groaning shelves,
Sedate octavos; petit-maître twelves;
Here thick black hides some ancient sage enfold;
Here last year's witlings fade in green and gold.

Yon folios, jerkined, clasped, in stout array,
Were all renowned polemics in their day;
Right fierce were they to argue or to rail,
Nor boded once yon spider's dusky veil.
But thou, polemic though thou wert, o'er thee,
Thou mild as learned, mitred Jeremy!
If ever that dark spinner chance to stray,
With pious hand I brush the film away.

More near, and often stirred with reverent hand,
No cobwebbed race, immortal poets stand.
Their leaves, by Time's own autumn tinted o'er,
Come turn we now, and fondly taste their lore;
With curious eye oft pausing to survey
Where the shy worm hath worked his ancient way;
And, undiverted then by fresh review,
A hermit-student, went his volume through.

Due honour to the stout-built Man of Prose!
Reasoner on facts! who scorns to feel, but knows!
Yet be it mine, who love not less the true,
To lead, well-feigning bards! my hours with you;
And sick, long since, of facts that falsify,
And reasonings, that logically lie,
With you live o'er my wisely-credulous youth,
And in your fictions find life's only truth.

And sweet 'twill be, or hope would so believe,
When close round life its fading tints of eve,
To turn again our earlier volumes o'er,
And love them then, because we've loved before;
And inly bless the waning hour that brings
A will to lean once more on simple things.

If this be weakness, welcome life's decline!
If this be second childhood, be it mine!

Yet to the radiance of new-risen mind
Nor stupidly, nor insolently blind,
And no mere praisers of departed hours,
We hate no day, because more bright than ours.
But, as the pilgrim, worn with toil or time,
Will fondly hanker for his native clime,
And wins, or hopes to win, reviving powers
From first-loved fields and childhood's simple bowers,
E'en so do we reclaim our youthful light,
To us more mildly healing, if less bright.

Who has not loved, erewhile, to pause and look
On childhood's record in some old school-book,
Name—or grim portrait scrawled in ink—agen
Awakening memories, which had slept till then?
What if the spirit shrink in sudden grief,
When the eye lights on some remembered leaf,
With parent, or beloved friend, once read,
The, now, for-ever-parted—or the dead!
Though for brief space the stroke be still severe,
Not long we shun the line that wakes the tear,

But, stealing back to that love-hallowed page,
With its own balsam its own wound assuage.

Digression o'er, turn once again to see
These witnesses of many a century.
Yes! ages—present—past—are mingling here;
Yet, welcome elders! still to me most dear.
As when along some gallery's pictured line
Frown statesmen old, and modern beauties shine;
Though Reynolds there bestow his breathing skill,
Hard-featuring Holbein holds the fancy still.

Now—doubly sweet such refuge found with books!
To stray with mild Piscator up the brooks;
With Cowley muse beneath the greenwood tree,
Or taste old Fuller's wise simplicity.
Or if his Worthies, though removed their span,
Smack yet too strongly of the living man,
Then backward turn to question Homer o'er,
Or dream of storied ages, rolled before;
Faint-glimmering now, like far-off beacon light
O'er misty ocean scarcely read aright.

But if, perplexed by history's fabling theme,
Vexed thought would float entire on fancy's stream,
To me more dear than all the East e'er gave,
Those nightly tales, Arabia's gift, I crave
With Sinbad let me wander, sailor bold,
And hear his mighty marvels, ten times told;
Or read again of Morgiana, who
The robber-chief with whirling dagger slew;
Or, fondlier lingering, through charmed hours prolong
'Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song.'
Thrice summoned, scarce I quit those Genii bowers,
Most loved, as most unlike this world of ours.

To us the mere material world is all;
Our pride; our tax; our pleasure and our thrall.
Science, whom scarce the circling spheres may fold,
Chained to a desk we hire to scheme for gold;
Drag from his heights Imagination down,
To please, for daily bread, the modish town;
And daintiest Art, the dreaming child of Grace,
Wake from her dream to paint some idiot face.
Virtue herself, born guest of Heaven's high roof,
Gift of the Godhead; gift at once and proof;

E'en Her, blind bigots of our planet birth,
E'en Her, we fain would fetter down to earth;
Just mark where Bat-Expedience flits at height,
And meanly, there, would bound her eagle-flight.

From such a world, all touch, all ear, all eye,
What marvel, then, if proud Abstraction fly;
Amid Hercynian shades pursue his theme,
And leave the land of Locke to gold and steam?

But thou art not of those who, hence and thence,
Glean for low ends their pic-nie scraps of sense;
A lofty thinker, proud thy thirst to slake
At truth's well-head, unbribed, for truth's own sake;
Or art thou of the race still more unfit
To wrestle with the clans of worldly wit;
One, whom ere yet thy youngling thought could reach
To wield sweet verse, or e'en well-painting speech,
Some unseen presence fed with many a dream
Won from old bard, or caught from cloud or stream;
And still, though turmoiled mid the things that are,
Still dost thou love to muse on Good and Fair;

And, faith outworking from far names sublime,
The brethren-band of every age and clime,
To thy young heart's first creed of virtue cling,
Nor stoop to think her an unreal thing;
Oh! prize those dreams, oh! guard that creed of thine;
But guard it hid within thy bosom's shrine;
To clasp, at silent eve, at unwatched morn,
But let not garish day detect to scorn.

And scorn it will. For, while on viewless wings
Thou soarest 'mid thy high imaginings,
The future, not the present, is thy lot;
Thou livest in a world that knows thee not.
Of this be warned; nor yet of this alone;
Those who once loved shall mock thee or disown.
Lo! one and all the former friendly band,
Who stand in lofty place, or wish to stand,
Look on, and 'do confess they wonder much
They e'er could hold companionship with such!
'Tis true, those dreams of Good, in earlier youth,
Might wear—did wear—a sort of look of truth;
But forty years should surely tame the brain,
Such reveries at forty scarce are sane,

And hurt one's fortune, when they last such while!'
—Then hug they their own wisdom with a smile.

'But books, thou say'st, shall shield thee; and when men
Neglect or scorn, thou'lt turn to books agen;
And, safe from all that slight and all that sneer,
With truth and wisdom nurse high musings here.'

And blest it were with them, if wise and true,
Once more to live and candid youth renew;
But truth and wisdom guide not every pen;
In trust we flee to books, and find them—men.
And here, e'en here, 'mid this conventual gloom,
And sacred, as might seem, Pretence finds room,
Mid ancient tomes niched in, and learned dust,
To offend the moral or the taste disgust;
And plies herself a hundred worldly ways
For petty interest, or as petty praise.

The sordid tribes who say and then unsay,
And flatter or asperse, and each for pay,
Of these, though here full rife, no talk we hold,
But leave them—glad to leave them—to their gold.

Mere pelf Furilio scorns, and burns for fame;
But easier finds to filch than build a name;
So picks and steals from authors little read,
As birds of carrion banquet on the dead.

Such rob in silence. Some, hard rogues, abuse
The very victims they design to use.
Some praise to steal; but cloak in such disguise,
The stolen babe might cheat a mother's eyes.
Thus Gulo, at a feast, tactician fine,
Hints the fish stale on which he schemes to dine;
Yon limner thus, with skill to understand,
Views the great product of some master's hand;
Extols each firmer touch, each finer trace,
The strength of muscle and the turn of grace;
Then to his task; where, if not line by line,
He steals the spirit of the whole design.
Changes perhaps a gesture, helm, or gown,
For posture, arms, or drapery of his own;
And having wrought a picture not amiss,
Brings forth the pilfered piece and calls it his.

And not Pretence alone, in borrowed dress,
Pretension comes to taint these shelves no less,

And, false to mere-affected softened down,
Infects alike the laic and the gown;
And, as herself more slender, wadded more,
Struts in such robe as nature never wore;
Whate'er the theme more pleased to seem than be,
And verse and prose one wide hyperbole.

Behold her there, where, scorning sponge or file,
She o'erinforms yon bard's plethoric style;
And with strange freight of similes, far sought,
Cumbers all o'er his shallow waves of thought.
'Tis true, by fits e'en mighty Homer slept,
Then from repose to freshened force up-leapt;
But bard nor critic now give truce to vigour;
Each syllable must strive; each word be figure.

So fame is won. Nor only poet's rhyme
Must feed on flowers and flutter in sublime;
But, like false head that froths on sickly beer,
When drugs belie sweet malt and hop austere,
Church-briefs themselves with tropes are mantling o'er,
And humble prose is humble prose no more.

Yet strip, more oft, from each its fine brocade,
How mean the mould of thought beneath displayed!
Thus, posset-stirred, old January pranks
In youthful hose too wide for shrunken shanks;
Thus when, the booth without, some bumpkin's eye
Hath fed on pictured monster, ten feet high,
Giant or huge Bonassus, from his lair
Hurling at once three hunters high in air,
Let in, his visage takes most rueful touch,
To find that In and Out unlike so much.

From them—the grandiose or superfine,
In various guise who travesty the Nine;
And them, who thus in petty pilferings deal,
And them, yet more, who slander while they steal;
But most from such as serve men's hates for hire,
And burn with coals from off the Muse's fire,
Oft would I flee, beyond all printing's reach,
Back to the golden days of simple speech,
When yet of Press no prophecy could wot,
And e'en preserving Manuscript was not.

Oh! blessed days, too blest again to see,
Alike from authors and from critics free.

Then talk to simple topics was addrest;
Who best dispatched the boar, or cooked him best;
Which fur was found the warmest, wolf's or bear's;
If turf or clay best fenced from wintry airs;
Who foremost his bold spear in battle bore,
Or dared his vessel farthest from the shore.
Then none sat, chair-bound, forced to hear or say
Of this man's sermon, or of that man's play;
Nor inly yawned, while evenings ran to waste
In wise discourse on learning or on taste.
Then, too, no promised guest, engaged to dine
With scribbler-host, so tempted by his wine,
Was bound, as now, in rueful compliment,
To read that host's dull book before he went.

Yet minds were then, as now, with fruitage fraught,
And wit could point his jest, while wisdom thought;
And each passed current, for delight or law,
In gay allusion or the solid saw.
Yet whoso thus aspired to please or teach
Was strained to hang his fame on passing speech;
Such transient fame as living breaths afford;
A fleeting glory from a winged word!

So sped the unwriting age. Came Cadmus then,
To leave in doubt if worse his lettered pen,
Or serpents' teeth that grew to armèd men.

For smothered hates could now find seemlier vent,
And stab with peaceful-looking instrument.
Yet Wit and Wisdom hence advantage gained;
Their Spoken would have flown; their Writ remained;
And them the pen most served, if not alone;
—As gems we set, but slight the meaner stone.
Nay, when, as chance it would, the hungry scribe
Was won to toil for Folly's tempting bribe,
The ephemeral birth just fluttered, and was gone;
Bavius soon passed, while Maro still lived on.

The great Emathian conqu'ror bade infold
Iliad and Odyssee in cist of gold!
Nor less did every age, in safest crypt,
Strive to preserve the darling manuscript.
But when the wild barbarians, horde on horde,
Surged on, and letters died beneath the sword;
Then every secret nook, designed to save
The fondly-reverenced scroll, became its grave,

Where lost it lay, through mouldering years of gloom,
Like mummy-king, forgotten in his tomb.

Princely Lorenzo, who not scorned the gown,
But wreathed the scholar's with the statesman's crown,
With generous quest explored them, where they lay,
And gave each glorious vellum back to day.
They came, like heralds from some far-off clime
Of ancient fame, ambassadors from Time;
And who but burned to unseal their trusted lore,
And turn the high dispatches o'er and o'er?
Nay, then, 'twas held no scorn to copy out,
And pause, and pore, till texts were free from doubt;
Genius himself on such slow task might moil;
Where great the End, ne'er vulgar is the Toil.

Oh matchless line of years, whose generous strife
Reared man's reviving mind to perfect life.
Then Petrarch's native lay refined on love;
Then Angelo the' impetuous chisel drove;
Then Oracles, that stirred young Raphael's breast,
Spoke forth in colours, clear as words, exprest;

And Learning, made no coldly gainful art,
Was Sacrifice, and offered from the heart.

When first, our questing age to scourge or bless,
Ingenious Faust had framed the wondrous press,
And taught to each, intent on good or ill,
To waft on volant leaf the thought at will,
Along the skies what dubious omen sailed,
What prophecy or greeted, or bewailed?
Or who might guess from whence the power was given,
Upsent—from hell—to tempt, or dropt—in love—from heaven?

Come back, long-toiling Faust! come back and see
The produce of thy Good-and-Evil tree;
Count o'er its mingled fruits of joy and pain,
Then say if thou wouldst plant it o'er again!
Thou too, wise Caliph Omar! who art said
All Alexandria's ovens to have fed,
Visit our shelves once more. Where'er we look
Pamphlet on pamphlet, book buds out on book;
Turn wheresoe'er we will, new volumes sprout;
Some of fair promise; most lack clearing out.

Come, then, thou Critic-Caliph—come again,
Nor decimate; but take the nine in ten!

B. —The ground thus cleared, you plant your own instead,
And shrewdly gain one chance of being read.

by John Kenyon.

A Merchant, who by generous pains
Prospered in honourable gains,
Could boast, his wealth and fame to share,
Three manly Sons, three Daughters fair;
With these he felt supremely blest.-
His latest born surpass'd the rest:
She was so gentle, good and kind,
So fair in feature, form, and mind,
So constant too in filial duty,
The neighbours called her Little Beauty!
And when fair childhood's days were run,
That title still she wore and won;
Lovelier as older still she grew,
Improv'd in grace and goodness too.-
Her elder Sisters, gay and vain,
View'd her with envy and disdain,
Toss'd up their heads with haughty air;
Dress, Fashion, Pleasure, all their care.


'Twas thus, improving and improv'd;
Loving, and worthy to be lov'd,
Sprightly, yet grave, each circling day
Saw Beauty innocently gay.
Thus smooth the May-like moments past;
Blest times! but soon by clouds o'ercast!


Sudden as winds that madd'ning sweep
The foaming surface of the deep,
Vast treasures, trusted to the wave,
Were buried in the billowy grave!
Our Merchant, late of boundless store,
Saw Famine hasting to his door.


With willing hand and ready grace,
Mild Beauty takes the Servant's place;
Rose with the sun to household cares,
And morn's repast with zeal prepares,
The wholesome meal, the cheerful fire:
What cannot filial love inspire?
And when the task of day was done,
Suspended till the rising sun,
Music and song the hours employ'd,
As more deserv'd, the more enjoy'd;
Till Industry, with Pastime join'd,
Refresh'd the body and the mind;
And when the groupe retir'd to rest,
Father and Brothers Beauty blest.


Not so the Sisters; as before
'Twas rich and idle, now 'twas poor.
In shabby finery array'd,
They still affected a parade:
While both insulted gentle Beauty,
Unwearied in the housewife's duty;
They mock'd her robe of modest brown,
And view'd her with a taunting frown;
Yet scarce could hold their rage to see
The blithe effects of Industry.


In this retreat a year had past,
When happier tidings came at last,
And in the Merchant's smile appear'd
Prospects that all the Cotters cheer'd:
A letter came; its purport good;
Part of his ventures brav'd the flood:
'With speed,' said he, 'I must to town,
'And what, my girls, must I bring down?'
The envious Sisters, all confusion,
Commissions gave in wild profusion;
Caps, hats, and bonnets, bracelets, broaches,
To cram the pockets of the coaches,
With laces, linens, to complete
The order, and to fill the seat.


Such wants and wishes now appear'd,
To make them larger Beauty fear'd;
Yet lest her silence might produce
From jealous Sisters more abuse,
Considerately good, she chose,
The emblem of herself,-a Rose.


The good man on his journey went,
His thoughts on generous Beauty bent.
'If Heav'n,' he said, and breath'd a prayer,
'If Heav'n that tender child should spare,
'Whate'er my lot, I must be bless'd,
'I must be rich:'-he wept the rest.
Timely such feelings!-Fortune still,
Unkind and niggard, crost his will.
Of all his hopes, alas, the gains
Were far o'erbalanc'd by the pains;
For after a long tedious round,
He had to measure back his ground.


A short day's travel from his Cot,
New misadventures were his lot;
Dark grew the air, the wind blew high,
And spoke the gathering tempest nigh;
Hail, snow, and night-fog join'd their force,
Bewildering rider and his horse.
Dismay'd, perplext, the road they crost,
And in the dubious maze were lost.


When glimmering through the vapours drear,
A taper shew'd a dwelling near.
And guess our Merchant's glad surprise,
When a rich palace seemed to rise
As on he mov'd! The knee be bent,
Thankful to Heaven; then nearer went.


But, O! how much his wonder grew,
When nothing living met his view!-
Entering a splendid hall, he found,
With every luxury around,
A blazing fire, a plenteous board,
A costly cellaret, well stor'd,
All open'd wide, as if to say,
'Stranger, refresh thee on thy way!'


The Merchant to the fire drew near,
Deeming the owner would appear,
And pardon one who, drench'd in rain,
Unask'd, had ventured to remain.
The court-yard clock had number'd seven,
When first he came; but when eleven
Struck on his ear as mute he sate,
It sounded like the knoll of Fate.


And yet so hungry was he grown,
He pick'd a capon to the bone;
And as choice wines before him stood,
He needs must taste if they were good:
So much he felt his spirits cheer'd-
The more he drank, the less he fear'd.


Now bolder grown, he pac'd along,
(Still hoping he might do no wrong),
When, entering at a gilded door,
High-rais'd upon a sumptuous floor,
A sofa shew'd all Persia's pride,
And each magnificence beside:
So down at once the Merchant lay,
Tir'd with the wonders of the day.
But had it been a rushy bed,
Tuck'd in the corner of a shed,
With no less joy had it been press'd:
The good man pray'd, and sank to rest.


Nor woke he till the noon of day;
And as he thus enchanted lay,
'Now for my storm-sopp'd clothes,' he cries:
When lo! a suit complete he spies;
'Yes, 'tis all fairy-work, no doubt,
'By gentle Pity brought about!'
Tenfold, when risen, amazement grew;
For bursting on his gazing view,
Instead of snow, he saw fair bowers
In all the pride of summer flowers.
Entering again the hall, behold,
Serv'd up in silver, pearl, and gold,
A breakfast, form'd of all things rare,
As if Queen Mab herself were there.


As now he past, with spirits gay,
A shower of Roses strew'd the way,
E'en to his hand the branches bent:
'One of these boughs-I go content!
'Beauty, dear Beauty-thy request
'If I may bear away, I'm blest.'
The Merchant pull'd-the branches broke!-
A hideous growling while he spoke,
Assail'd his startled ears; and then
A frightful Beast, as from a den,
Rushing to view, exclaimed, 'Ingrate!
'That stolen branch has seal'd thy fate.
'All that my castle own'd was thine,
'My food, my fire, my bed, my wine:
'Thou robb'st my Rose-trees in return,
'For this, base Plunderer, thou shalt mourn!'


'My Lord, I swear upon my knees,
'I did not mean to harm your trees;
'But a lov'd Daughter, fair as spring,
'Intreated me a Rose to bring;
'O didst thou know, my lord, the Maid!'-


'I am no Lord,' Beast angry said,
'And so no flattery!-but know,
'If, on your oath before you go,
'Within three wasted Moons you here
'Cause that lov'd Daughter to appear,
'And visit Beast a volunteer
'To suffer for thee, thou mayest live:-
'Speak not!-do this!-and I forgive.'
Mute and deprest the Merchant fled,
Unhappy traveller, evil sped!


Beauty was first her sire to meet,
Springing impatient from her seat;
Her Brothers next assembled round;
Her straying Sisters soon were found.
While yet the Father fondly press'd
The Child of Duty to his Breast,-
'Accept these Roses, ill-starr'd Maid!
'For thee thy Father's life is paid.'


The Merchant told the tale of Beast;
And loud lamentings, when he ceas'd,
From both the jealous Sisters broke,
As thus with taunting rage they spoke:
'And so thou kill'st thy Father, Miss,
'Proud, sinful creature, heardst thou this?
'We only wish'd a few new clothes;
'Beauty, forsooth, must have her Rose!
'Yet, harden'd Wretch, her eyes are dry,
'Tho' for her Pride our Sire must die!'


'Die! Not for worlds!' exclaim'd the Maid;
'Beast kindly will take me instead:
'And O, a thousand deaths I'd prove
'To shew my Father how I love!'
The Brothers cried, 'Let us away,
'We'll perish, or the Monster slay.'


'Vain hope, my gen'rous Sons, his power
'Can troops of men and horse devour:
'Your offer, Beauty, moves my soul;
'But no man can his fate controul:
'Mine was the fault; you, Love, are free;
'And mine the punishment shall be.'
Beauty was firm! the Sire caress'd
Again his Darling to his breast;
With blended love and awe survey'd,
And each good Brother blest the Maid!


Three months elaps'd, her Father's heart
Heav'd high, as she prepar'd to part;
The Sisters try'd a tear to force,
While Beauty smil'd as she took horse;
Yet smil'd thro' many a generous tear,
To find the parting moment near!
And just as evening's shades came on,
The splendid Palace court they won.
Beauty, now lost in wonder all,
Gain'd with her Sire the spacious hall;
Where, of the costliest viands made,
Behold, a sumptuous table laid!
The Merchant, sickening at the sight,
Sat down with looks of dire affright,
But nothing touch'd; tho' Beauty prest,
And strove to lull his fears to rest.


Just as she spoke, a hideous noise
Announc'd the growling monster's voice.
And now Beast suddenly stalk'd forth,
While Beauty well nigh sank to earth:
Scarce could she conquer her alarms,
Tho' folded in a father's arms.
Grim Beast first question'd fierce, if she
Had hither journey'd willingly?
'Yes,' Beauty cried-in trembling tone:
'That's kind,' said Beast, and thus went on-
'Good Merchant, at to-morrow's dawn,
'I charge and warn you to be gone!
'And further, on life's penalty,
'Dare not again to visit me.
'Beauty, farewell!' he now withdrew,
As she return'd the dread adieu.


Each then their separate pillow prest,
And slumber clos'd their eyes in rest.


As zephyr light, from magic sleep,
Soon as the sun began to peep,
Sprang Beauty; and now took her way
To where her anguish'd father lay,-
But envious time stole swiftly on;
'Begone! lov'd Father! ah! begone!
'The early dew now gems the thorn,
'The sun-beams gain upon the morn.
'Haste, Father, haste! Heaven guards the good!'
In wonder rapt the Merchant stood;
And while dread fears his thoughts employ,
A child so generous still was joy.
'My Father's safe!' she cried, 'blest Heaven!
'The rest is light, this bounty given.'


She now survey'd th' enchanting scene,
Sweet gardens of eternal green;
Mirrors, and chandeliers of glass,
And diamonds bright which those surpass;
All these her admiration gain'd;
But how was her attention chain'd,
When she in golden letters trac'd,
High o'er an arch of emeralds plac'd,
'Beauty's apartment! Enter, blest!
'This, but an earnest of the rest!'


The fair one was rejoic'd to find,
Beast studied less her eye, than mind.
But, wishing still a nearer view,
Forth from the shelves a book she drew,
In whose first page, in lines of gold,
She might heart-easing words behold:
'Welcome Beauty, banish fear!
'You are Queen, and Mistress here:
'Speak your wishes, speak your will,
'Swift obedience meets them still.'


'Alas!' said she, with heartfelt sighs,
The daughter rushing to her eyes,
'There's nothing I so much desire,
'As to behold my tender Sire.'


Beauty had scarce her wish express'd,
When it was granted by the Beast:
A wond'rous mirror to her eye,
Brought all her cottage family.
Here her good Brothers at their toil,
For still they dress'd the grateful soil;
And there with pity she perceiv'd,
How much for her the Merchant griev'd;
How much her Sisters felt delight
To know her banish'd from their sight,
Altho' with voice and looks of guile,
Their bosoms full of joy the while,
They labour'd hard to force a tear,
And imitate a grief sincere.


At noon's repast, she heard a sound
Breathing unseen sweet music round;
But when the evening board was spread,
The voice of Beast recall'd her dread:
'May I observe you sup?' he said;
'Ah, tremble not; your will is law;
'One question answer'd, I withdraw.-
'Am I not hideous to your eyes?'
'Your temper's sweet,' she mild replies.
'Yes, but I'm ugly, have no sense:'-
'That's better far, than vain pretence.'-
'Try to be happy, and at ease,'
Sigh'd Beast, 'as I will try to please.'-
'Your outward form is scarcely seen
'Since I arriv'd, so kind you've been.'


One quarter of the rolling year,
No other living creature near,
Beauty with Beast had past serene,
Save some sad hours that stole between.
That she her Father's life had sav'd,
Upon her heart of hearts was grav'd:
While yet she view'd the Beast with dread,
This was the balm that conscience shed.
But now a second solace grew,
Whose cause e'en conscience scarcely knew.
Here on a Monster's mercy cast,-
Yet, when her first dire fears were past,
She found that Monster, timid, mild,
Led like the lion by the child.
Custom and kindness banish'd fear;
Beauty oft wish'd that Beast were near.


Nine was the chosen hour that Beast
Constant attended Beauty's feast,
Yet ne'er presum'd to touch the food,
Sat humble, or submissive stood,
Or, audience crav'd, respectful spoke,
Nor aim'd at wit, or ribald joke,
But oftner bent the raptur'd ear
Or ravish'd eye, to see or hear.
And if th' appointed hour pass'd by,
'Twas marked by Beauty with a sigh.
'Swear not to leave me,' sigh'd the Beast:
'I swear'-for now her fears were ceas'd,
'And willing swear,-so now and then
'I might my Father see again-
'One little week-he's now alone.'
'Granted!' quoth Beast: your will be done!'
'Your Ring upon the table lay
'At night,-you're there at peep of day:
'But oh,-remember, or I die!'
He gaz'd, and went without reply.


At early morn, she rang to rise;
The Maid beholds with glad surprise:
Summons her Father to her side,
Who, kneeling and embracing, cried,
With rapture and devotion wild,
'O bless'd be Heaven, and blest my Child!'


Beauty the Father now address'd,
And strait to see her Sisters press'd.
They both were married, and both prov'd
Neither was happy or belov'd.
And when she told them she was blest
With days of ease, and nights of rest;
To hide the malice of the soul,
Into the garden sly they stole,
And there in floods of tears they vent
Their hate, and feel its punishment.
'If,' said the eldest, 'you agree,
'We'll make that wench more curs'd than we!
'I have a plot, my sister dear:
'More than her week let's keep her here.
'No more with Monster shall she sup,
'Who, in his rage, shall eat her up.'


And now such art they both employ'd,
While Beauty wept, yet was o'erjoy'd;
And when the stated hour was come,-
'Ah! can you quit so soon your home?'
Eager they question'd-tore their hair-
And look'd the Pictures of Despair.
Beauty, tho' blushing at delay,
Promis'd another week to stay.


Meantime, altho' she err'd from love,
Her conscious heart could ill approve-
'Thy vow was giv'n, thy vow was broke!'
Thus Conscience to her bosom spoke.


Thoughts such as these assail'd her breast,
And a sad vision broke her rest!
The palace-garden was the place,
Which her imaginations trace:
There, on a lawn, as if to die,
She saw poor Beast extended lie,
Reproaching with his latest breath
Beauty's ingratitude in death.


Rous'd from her sleep, the contrite Maid
The Ring upon her toilette laid,
And Conscience gave a sound repose:
Balmy her rest; and when she rose,
The palace of poor Beast she found,
Groves, gardens, arbours, blooming round:
The morning shone in summer's pride,
Beauty for fairer evening sigh'd-
Sigh'd for the object once so fear'd,
By worth, by kindness now endear'd.
But when had past the wonted hour,
And no wish'd footstep pass'd the door;-
When yet another hour lagg'd on,-
Then to the wide canal she ran:
'For there in vision,' said the fair,
'Was stretch'd the object of my care!'
And there, alas! he now was found,
Extended on the flowery ground.
'Ah! fond and faithful Beast,' she cried,
'Hast thou for me perfidious died?
'O! could'st thou hear my fervid prayer,
''Twould ease the anguish of despair.'


Beast open'd now his long-clos'd eyes,
And saw the fair with glad surprise.
'In my last moments you are sent;
'You pity, and I die content.'
'Thou shalt not die,' rejoin'd the Maid;
'O rather live to hate, upbraid-
'But no! my grievous fault forgive!
'I feel I can't without thee live.'


Beauty had scarce pronounc'd the word,
When magic sounds of sweet accord,
The music of celestial spheres
As if from seraph harps she hears;
Amaz'd she stood,-new wonders grew;
For Beast now vanish'd from her view;
And, lo! a Prince, with every grace
Of figure, fashion, feature, face,
In whom all charms of Nature meet,
Was kneeling at fair Beauty's feet.
'But where is Beast?' still Beauty cried:
'Behold him here!' the Prince replied.
'Orasmyn, lady, is my name,
'In Persia not unknown to fame;
'Till this re-humanizing hour,
'The victim of a Fairy's pow'r;-
'Till a deliverer could be found,
'Who, while the accursed spell still bound,
'Could first endure, tho' with alarm,
'And break at last by love the charm!'


Beauty delighted gave her hand,
And bade the Prince her fate command;
The Prince now led through rooms of state,
Where Beauty's family await,
In bridal vestments all array'd,
By some superior power convey'd.


'Beauty,' pronounc'd a heavenly voice,
'Now take from me your princely choice.
'Virtue, to every good beside
'While wit and beauty were denied,
'Fix'd your pure heart! for which, unseen,
'I led your steps; and now a Queen,
'Seated on Persia's glittering throne,
''Tis mine and Virtue's task to crown!


'But as for you, ye Sisters vain,
'Still first and last in envy's train,
'Before fair Beauty's Palace-gate,
'Such Justice has decreed your fate,
'Transform'd to statues you must dwell,
'Curs'd with the single power, to feel-
'Unless by penitence and prayer-
'But this will ask long years of care,
'Of promise and performance too,
'A change of mind from false to true-
'A change I scarce can hope from you.'


Instant the Power stretch'd forth her wand,
Her sceptre of supreme command,
When lo! at her resistless call,
Gay crowds came thronging through the hall,
The blissful hour to celebrate
When Persia's Prince resum'd his state:
At once the dome with music rang,
And virgins danc'd, and minstrels sang;
It was the Jubilee of Youth,
Led on by Virtue and by Truth;
The pride of Persia fill'd the scene,
To hail Orasmyn and his Queen!


THE END

by Charles Lamb.

THE BROTHERS.

Than old George Fletcher, on the British coast
Dwelt not a seaman who had more to boast:
Kind, simple and sincere--he seldom spoke,
But sometimes sang and chorus'd--'Hearts of Oak:'
In dangers steady, with his lot content,
His days in labour and in love were spent.
He left a Son so like him, that the old
With joy exclaim'd, ''Tis Fletcher we behold;'
But to his Brother, when the kinsmen came
And view'd his form, they grudged the father's

name.
George was a bold, intrepid, careless lad,
With just the failings that his father had;
Isaac was weak, attentive, slow, exact,
With just the virtues that his father lack'd.
George lived at sea: upon the land a guest -
He sought for recreation, not for rest;
While, far unlike, his brother's feebler form
Shrank from the cold, and shudder'd at the storm;
Still with the Seaman's to connect his trade,
The boy was bound where blocks and ropes were made.
George, strong and sturdy, had a tender mind,
And was to Isaac pitiful and kind;
A very father, till his art was gain'd,
And then a friend unwearied he remain'd;
He saw his brother was of spirit low,
His temper peevish, and his motions slow;
Not fit to bustle in a world, or make
Friends to his fortune for his merit's sake;
But the kind sailor could not boast the art
Of looking deeply in the human heart;
Else had he seen that this weak brother knew
What men to court--what objects to pursue;
That he to distant gain the way discern'd,
And none so crooked but his genius learn'd.
Isaac was poor, and this the brother felt;
He hired a house, and there the Landman dwelt,
Wrought at his trade, and had an easy home,
For there would George with cash and comforts come;
And when they parted, Isaac look'd around
Where other friends and helpers might be found.
He wish'd for some port-place, and one might

fall,
He wisely thought, if he should try for all;
He had a vote--and were it well applied,
Might have its worth--and he had views beside;
Old Burgess Steel was able to promote
An humble man who served him with a vote;
For Isaac felt not what some tempers feel,
But bow'd and bent the neck to Burgess Steel;
And great attention to a lady gave,
His ancient friend, a maiden spare and grave;
One whom the visage long and look demure
Of Isaac pleased--he seem'd sedate and pure;
And his soft heart conceived a gentle flame
For her who waited on this virtuous dame.
Not an outrageous love, a scorching fire,
But friendly liking and chastised desire;
And thus he waited, patient in delay,
In present favour and in fortune's way.
George then was coasting--war was yet delay'd,
And what he gain'd was to his brother paid;
Nor ask'd the Seaman what he saved or spent,
But took his grog, wrought hard, and was content;
Till war awaked the land, and George began
To think what part became a useful man:
'Press'd, I must go: why, then, 'tis better far
At once to enter like a British tar,
Than a brave captain and the foe to shun,
As if I fear'd the music of a gun.'
'Go not!' said Isaac--'you shall wear disguise.'
'What!' said the Seaman, 'clothe myself with lies!'
'Oh! but there's danger.'--'Danger in the fleet?
You cannot mean, good brother, of defeat;
And other dangers I at land must share -
So now adieu! and trust a brother's care.'
Isaac awhile demurr'd--but, in his heart,
So might he share, he was disposed to part:
The better mind will sometimes feel the pain
Of benefactions--favour is a chain;
But they the feeling scorn, and what they wish,

disdain;
While beings form'd in coarser mould will hate
The helping hand they ought to venerate:
No wonder George should in this cause prevail,
With one contending who was glad to fail:
'Isaac, farewell! do wipe that doleful eye;
Crying we came, and groaning we may die;
Let us do something 'twixt the groan and cry:
And hear me, brother, whether pay or prize,
One half to thee I give and I devise;
Por thou hast oft occasion for the aid
Of learn'd physicians, and they will be paid;
Their wives and children men support at sea,
And thou, my lad, art wife and child to me:
Farewell! I go where hope and honour call,
Nor does it follow that who fights must fall,'
Isaac here made a poor attempt to speak,
And a huge tear moved slowly down his cheek;
Like Pluto's iron drop, hard sign of grace,
It slowly roll'd upon the rueful face,
Forced by the striving will alone its way to trace.
Years fled--war lasted--George at sea remain'd,
While the slow Landman still his profits gain'd:
An humble place was vacant--he besought
His patron's interest, and the office caught;
For still the Virgin was his faithful friend,
And one so sober could with truth commend,
Who of his own defects most humbly thought,
And their advice with zeal and reverence sought:
Whom thus the Mistress praised, the Maid approved,
And her he wedded whom he wisely loved.
No more he needs assistance--but, alas!
He fears the money will for liquor pass;
Or that the Seaman might to flatterers lend,
Or give support to some pretended friend:
Still he must write--he wrote, and he confess'd
That, till absolved, he should be sore distress'd;
But one so friendly would, he thought, forgive
The hasty deed--Heav'n knew how he should live;
'But you,' he added, 'as a man of sense,
Have well consider'd danger and expense:
I ran, alas! into the fatal snare,
And now for trouble must my mind prepare;
And how, with children, I shall pick my way
Through a hard world, is more than I can say:
Then change not, Brother, your more happy state,
Or on the hazard long deliberate.'
George answered gravely, 'It is right and fit,
In all our crosses, humbly to submit:
Your apprehensions are unwise, unjust;
Forbear repining, and expel distrust.'
He added, 'Marriage was the joy of life,'
And gave his service to his brother's wife;
Then vow'd to bear in all expense a part,
And thus concluded, 'Have a cheerful heart.'
Had the glad Isaac been his brother's guide,
In the same terms the Seaman had replied;
At such reproofs the crafty Landman smiled,
And softly said, 'This creature is a child.'
Twice had the gallant ship a capture made -
And when in port the happy crew were paid,
Home went the Sailor, with his pockets stored,
Ease to enjoy, and pleasure to afford;
His time was short, joy shone in every face,
Isaac half fainted in the fond embrace:
The wife resolved her honour'd guest to please,
The children clung upon their uncle's knees;
The grog went round, the neighbours drank his

health,
And George exclaimed, 'Ah! what to this is wealth?
Better,' said he, 'to bear a loving heart,
Than roll in riches--but we now must part!'
All yet is still--but hark! the winds o'ersweep
The rising waves, and howl upon the deep;
Ships late becalm'd on mountain-billows ride -
So life is threaten'd and so man is tried.
Ill were the tidings that arrived from sea,
The worthy George must now a cripple be:
His leg was lopp'd; and though his heart was sound,
Though his brave captain was with glory crown'd,
Yet much it vex'd him to repose on shore,
An idle log, and be of use no more:
True, he was sure that Isaac would receive
All of his Brother that the foe might leave;
To whom the Seaman his design had sent,
Ere from the port the wounded hero went:
His wealth and expectations told, he 'knew
Wherein they fail'd, what Isaac's love would do;
That he the grog and cabin would supply,
Where George at anchor during life would lie.'
The Landman read--and, reading, grew distress'd:

-
'Could he resolve t'admit so poor a guest?
Better at Greenwich might the Sailor stay,
Unless his purse could for his comforts pay.'
So Isaac judged, and to his wife appealed,
But yet acknowledged it was best to yield:
'Perhaps his pension, with what sums remain
Due or unsquander'd, may the man maintain;
Refuse we must not.'--With a heavy sigh
The lady heard, and made her kind reply: -
'Nor would I wish it, Isaac, were we sure
How long this crazy building will endure;
Like an old house, that every day appears
About to fall, he may be propp'd for years;
For a few months, indeed, we might comply,
But these old batter'd fellows never die.'
The hand of Isaac, George on entering took,
With love and resignation in his look;
Declared his comfort in the fortune past,
And joy to find his anchor safely cast:
'Call then my nephews, let the grog be brought,
And I will tell them how the ship was fought.'
Alas! our simple Seaman should have known
That all the care, the kindness, he had shown,
Were from his Brother's heart, if not his memory,

flown:
All swept away, to be perceived no more,
Like idle structures on the sandy shore,
The chance amusement of the playful boy,
That the rude billows in their rage destroy.
Poor George confess'd, though loth the truth to

find,
Slight was his knowledge of a Brother's mind:
The vulgar pipe was to the wife offence,
The frequent grog to Isaac an expense;
Would friends like hers, she question'd, 'choose to

come
Where clouds of poison'd fume defiled a room?
This could their Lady-friend, and Burgess Steel
(Teased with his worship's asthma), bear to feel?
Could they associate or converse with him -
A loud rough sailor with a timber limb?'
Cold as he grew, still Isaac strove to show,
By well-feign'd care, that cold he could not grow;
And when he saw his brother look distress'd,
He strove some petty comforts to suggest;
On his wife solely their neglect to lay,
And then t'excuse it, as a woman's way;
He too was chidden when her rules he broke,
And when she sicken'd at the scent of smoke.
George, though in doubt, was still consoled to

find
His Brother wishing to be reckoned kind:
That Isaac seem'd concern'd by his distress,
Gave to his injured feelings some redress;
But none he found disposed to lend an ear
To stories, all were once intent to hear:
Except his nephew, seated on his knee,
He found no creature cared about the sea;
But George indeed--for George they call'd the boy,
When his good uncle was their boast and joy -
Would listen long, and would contend with sleep,
To hear the woes and wonders of the deep;
Till the fond mother cried--'That man will teach
The foolish boy his rude and boisterous speech.'
So judged the father--and the boy was taught
To shun the uncle, whom his love had sought.
The mask of kindness now but seldom worn,
George felt each evil harder to be borne;
And cried (vexation growing day by day),
'Ah! brother Isaac! What! I'm in the way!'
'No! on my credit, look ye, No! but I
Am fond of peace, and my repose would buy
On any terms--in short, we must comply:
My spouse had money--she must have her will -
Ah! brother, marriage is a bitter pill.'
George tried the lady--'Sister, I offend.'
'Me?' she replied--'Oh no! you may depend
On my regard--but watch your brother's way,
Whom I, like you, must study and obey.'
'Ah!' thought the Seaman, 'what a head was mine,
That easy berth at Greenwich to resign!
I'll to the parish'--but a little pride,
And some affection, put the thought aside.
Now gross neglect and open scorn he bore
In silent sorrow--but he felt the more:
The odious pipe he to the kitchen took,
Or strove to profit by some pious book.
When the mind stoops to this degraded state,
New griefs will darken the dependant's fate;
'Brother!' said Isaac, 'you will sure excuse
The little freedom I'm compell'd to use:
My wife's relations--(curse the haughty crew!) -
Affect such niceness, and such dread of you:
You speak so loud--and they have natures soft -
Brother--I wish--do go upon the loft!'
Poor George obey'd, and to the garret fled,
Where not a being saw the tears he shed:
But more was yet required, for guests were come,
Who could not dine if he disgraced the room.
It shock'd his spirit to be esteem'd unfit
With an own brother and his wife to sit;
He grew rebellious--at the vestry spoke
For weekly aid--they heard it as a joke:
'So kind a brother, and so wealthy--you
Apply to us?--No! this will never do:
Good neighbour Fletcher,' said the Overseer,
'We are engaged--you can have nothing here!'
George mutter'd something in despairing tone,
Then sought his loft, to think and grieve alone;
Neglected, slighted, restless on his bed,
With heart half broken, and with scraps ill fed;
Yet was he pleased that hours for play design'd
Were given to ease his ever-troubled mind;
The child still listen'd with increasing joy,
And he was sooth'd by the attentive boy.
At length he sicken'd, and this duteous child
Watch'd o'er his sickness, and his pains beguiled;
The mother bade him from the loft refrain,
But, though with caution, yet he went again;
And now his tales the Sailor feebly told,
His heart was heavy, and his limbs were cold:
The tender boy came often to entreat
His good kind friend would of his presents eat;
Purloin'd or purchased, for he saw, with shame,
The food untouch'd that to his uncle came;
Who, sick in body and in mind, received
The boy's indulgence, gratified and grieved.
'Uncle will die!' said George: --the piteous

wife
Exclaim'd, 'she saw no value in his life;
But, sick or well, to my commands attend,
And go no more to your complaining friend.'
The boy was vex'd, he felt his heart reprove
The stern decree.--What! punish'd for his love!
No! he would go, but softly, to the room,
Stealing in silence--for he knew his doom.
Once in a week the father came to say,
'George, are you ill?' and hurried him away;
Yet to his wife would on their duties dwell,
And often cry, 'Do use my brother well:'
And something kind, no question, Isaac meant,
Who took vast credit for the vague intent.
But, truly kind, the gentle boy essay'd
To cheer his uncle, firm, although afraid;
But now the father caught him at the door,
And, swearing--yes, the man in office swore,
And cried, 'Away! How! Brother, I'm surprised
That one so old can be so ill advised:
Let him not dare to visit you again,
Your cursed stories will disturb his brain;
Is it not vile to court a foolish boy,
Your own absurd narrations to enjoy?
What! sullen!--ha, George Fletcher! you shall see,
Proud as you are, your bread depends on me!'
He spoke, and, frowning, to his dinner went,
Then cool'd and felt some qualms of discontent:
And thought on times when he compell'd his son
To hear these stories, nay, to beg for one;
But the wife's wrath o'ercame the brother's pain,
And shame was felt, and conscience rose, in vain.
George yet stole up; he saw his Uncle lie
Sick on the bed, and heard his heavy sigh;
So he resolved, before he went to rest,
To comfort one so dear and so distressed;
Then watch'd his time, but, with a child-like art,
Betray'd a something treasured at his heart:
Th' observant wife remark'd, 'The boy is grown
So like your brother, that he seems his own:
So close and sullen! and I still suspect
They often meet: --do watch them and detect.'
George now remark'd that all was still as night,
And hasten'd up with terror and delight;
'Uncle!' he cried, and softly tapp'd the door,
Do let me in'--but he could add no more;
The careful father caught him in the fact,
And cried,--'You serpent! is it thus you act?
'Back to your mother!'--and, with hasty blow,
He sent th' indignant boy to grieve below;
Then at the door an angry speech began -
'Is this your conduct?--Is it thus you plan?
Seduce my child, and make my house a scene
Of vile dispute--What is it that you mean?
George, are you dumb? do learn to know your

friends,
And think a while on whom your bread depends.
What! not a word? be thankful I am cool -
But, sir, beware, nor longer play the fool.
Come! brother, come! what is it that you seek
By this rebellion?--Speak, you villain, speak!
Weeping! I warrant--sorrow makes you dumb:
I'll ope your mouth, impostor! if I come:
Let me approach--I'll shake you from the bed,
You stubborn dog--Oh God! my Brother's dead!'
Timid was Isaac, and in all the past
He felt a purpose to be kind at last:
Nor did he mean his brother to depart,
Till he had shown this kindness of his heart;
But day by day he put the cause aside,
Induced by av'rice, peevishness, or pride.
But now awaken'd, from this fatal time
His conscience Isaac felt, and found his crime:
He raised to George a monumental stone,
And there retired to sigh and think alone;
An ague seized him, he grew pale, and shook -
'So,' said his son, 'would my poor Uncle look.'
'And so, my child, shall I like him expire.'
'No! you have physic and a cheerful fire.'
'Unhappy sinner! yes, I'm well supplied
With every comfort my cold heart denied.'
He view'd his Brother now, but not as one
Who vex'd his wife by fondness for her son;
Not as with wooden limb, and seaman's tale,
The odious pipe, vile grog, or humbler ale:
He now the worth and grief alone can view
Of one so mild, so generous, and so true;
'The frank, kind Brother, with such open heart, -
And I to break it--'twas a demon's part!'
So Isaac now, as led by conscience, feels,
Nor his unkindness palliates or conceals;
'This is your folly,' said his heartless wife:
'Alas! my folly cost my Brother's life;
It suffer'd him to languish and decay -
My gentle Brother, whom I could not pay,
And therefore left to pine, and fret his life away

!'
He takes his Son, and bids the boy unfold
All the good Uncle of his feelings told,
All he lamented--and the ready tear
Falls as he listens, soothed, and grieved to hear.
'Did he not curse me, child?'--'He never cursed,
But could not breathe, and said his heart would

burst.'
'And so will mine:'--'Then, father, you must pray:
My uncle said it took his pains away.'
Repeating thus his sorrows, Isaac shows
That he, repenting, feels the debt he owes,
And from this source alone his every comfort flows.
He takes no joy in office, honours, gain;
They make him humble, nay, they give him pain:
'These from my heart,' he cries, 'all feeling

drove;
They made me cold to nature, dead to love.'
He takes no joy in home, but sighing, sees
A son in sorrow, and a wife at ease;
He takes no joy in office--see him now,
And Burgess Steel has but a passing bow;
Of one sad train of gloomy thoughts possess'd,
He takes no joy in friends, in food, in rest -
Dark are the evil days, and void of peace the best.
And thus he lives, if living be to sigh,
And from all comforts of the world to fly,
Without a hope in life--without a wish to die.