YE pamper'd favourites of base mankind,
Whether with riches poor, or learning blind,
From your distracted views oh pause awhile,
And hear a brother's tale without a smile;
And let contrition note how much is due
To all the generous cares I owe to you.
Whilst fatt'ning pomp secure in cumb'rous state
His scanty crumbs withheld, and barr'd his gate,
Nor sullen deign'd with scorn's averted eye
The cheaper tribute of a selfish sigh,
The neediest suppliant of sorrow's train
For bread I hungering sought, and sought in vain;
Each petty solace thus by you deny'd,
With sleepless watch Fidelio supplied;
When Winter wet with rain my trembling beard,
My falling tear he felt, my groan he heard,
When my grey locks at night the wild wind rent,
Like wither'd moss upon a monument,
What could he more, against the pitiless storm
He lent his little aid to keep me warm?
Even now as parting with his latest breath,
He feels the thrilling grasp of coming death,
With all that fond fidelity of face,
That marks the features of his honest race,
His half-uplifed eye in vain he moves,
And gasps to lick the helpless hand he loves.
YE unendearing tribes of care and strife,
Who haunt the 'wildering paths of crowded life;
Ye dazzling phantoms of delusive state;
Ah! fly these limits lone, and seek the great.
Alas! your guilty forms but ill agree
With the soft features of simplicity!
Here Harriet dwells-full studious to be blest
With the mild sunshine of a mind at rest,
From all the world this spot remote has chose
Well pleas'd to meet the mansion of repose;
And, as of scenes to which she has bade adieu,
With lingering glance she takes a backward view;
Oft sighs to find the gentler virtues dwell
Beneath the straw-built roof and mossy cell.
Spirits of bliss, whose ever-guardian care,
With wakeful watch unseen protects the fair;
Your happier thoughts of heavenly hue impart,
They'll find a kindred soil in Harriet's heart,
Of her warm soul refine each pure intent,
And touch the tender chords of sentiment,
Where feelingly alive those charms we trace
That beauty first had promised in her face.
SONNET TO MISS AIKIN,
(NOW MRS. BARBAULD),
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT'S
GONDIBERT.
THE luckless leaf of this most dainty flower,
That Time's inclement cloud from early day,
(Gathering with wizard stealth its silent power)
Would fain in wintry grave have hid for aye,
Much good befal thy care, kind maid! resumes
Its youthful pride and summer hues at last,
By thy soft hand attired again it blooms,
And sweet again shall smell uninjur'd by the past,
Far from the Muse's bay-enwoven bower,
Like a lone vulture at her mangled spoil.
May time o'er evil works for ever cower,
Nor know the limits of so sweet a soil,
Or e'en, when thou art dead, obscure thy tomb,
Fate has deny'd him touch thy laurel's living bloom.
WRITTEN UNDER THE PROFILE OF DR. URI.
AST te facetiarum mille Senex quam libenter agnosco! tuâ nempe in consuetudine soles sepissime inter dicendum condidi; te quoties in memoriam revocamus, lepore quodam eximio, risus omnium temerè elicientem, irrequieta subit profecto et frequens lacryma; tum demum illam in lo
quendo tam propriam jucunditatem, teque tam agrestè et inconcinnè peregrinitatis, et (ut ita dicam) 78 8 quodammodo sapientem, vere desideramus. Virum, ubi, o ubi inveniemus, cordis adeo simplicis et meri; proinde ut de re, magis quam de verbo, semper laborabas, in literis humanioribus et penitus ferè reconditis, versatum te aspicio, nescio quam bene, sed ita accurate scilicet versatum, ut nihil possit supra.
A PARODY ON GRAY'S ELEGY,
WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD, THE
AUTHOR LEAVING COLLEGE.
Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. VIRG.
THE sullen Tom proclaims the parting day,
In bullying tone congenial to his place,
The Christ Church misses homeward trip to pray,
And High-street leave to solitude and space;
O'er the dim scene in stillness steals the night,
Save where the whistling 'prentice bars the shutter,
Or rapid mail-coach wheels its droning flight,
Or tinkling plates forebode th' approach of supper;
Save near yon tower, where now she sits and sighs,
Curses some miscreant Raph, that Luckless Lass,
And as his sixpence by the moon she tries,
Shakes her despairing head and finds it brass.
Beneath those domes in gothic grandeur grey
Where rears that spire its old fantastic crest,
Snug in their mouldy cells from day to day
Like bottled wasps the Sons of Science rest;
Th' unwelcome call of business-bringing morn,
The dull ox lowing from his neighbouring shed,
The tythe pig's clarion, or sow-gelder's horn,
Ne'er 'wake these fatt'ning sleepers from their bed;
Their bile no smoking chimneys e'er provoke,
No busy breeding dame disturbs their nap,
Their double chins no squalling bantlings stroke,
Climbing their knees for rattles, or for pap;
Let not pert Folly mock their lecture's toil,
Their annual Gaudy's joys, and meetings mellow,
Nor Quin's ghost hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple commons of a Fellow;
The boast of cooks, the lordly venison,
The rich ragou, and liver-tickling jelly,
Down the red lane inevitably run,
And at the best can only fill the belly.
Nor you, ye spinsters, these poor men abuse,
("Tis want of money rather than of wit)
If thus their backward threepence they refuse,
To your inviting charms and Billy Pitt * ;
Can Madan's voice provoke the dull cold clay,
Or Price's system that implies a wife †,
Or aught the rosy goddess has to say,
When once a man is bent on single life?
* Mr. Pitt's tax upon births.
+ Dr. Price on population.
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