Then Barbarossa's fiery chin,
And Blue Beards, so renown'd in sin,
Had been as sinooth as satin
And odes that only now are sung,
To praise thee in thy mother-tongue,
Had then been made in Latin.
No more shall love-lorn Damon seek,
The dimples of his Chloe's cheek,
With beard like Neb'chadnezzar-
Since once he's had the lucky hap,
On PACKWOOD's wond'rous chemic strap,
To whet his dullest razor.
No more shall he with anguish grin ;
No more shall smart his mangled chin;
Thanks to thy strap so famous!
A strap that gives the face such ease,
Might e'en a mighty monarch please,
When shaved by Billy Ramus !
Could'st thou in France thy razors grind,
Thy talents there would surely find
'Mong'st lawgivers a station.
Smooth as thy strap their chins would feel-
Thou'dst sharpen for the public weal
The razor of the nation!
Oh! could'st thou by a lucky hit,
Find out a strap to sharpen wit!
(Tho' high thy present state is)
Then would'st thou make a monarch smile,
The ruler of a sea-girt isle,
And get a patent gratis.
Thus would the spreading voice of fame,
With Paracelsus rank thy name,
And other great gold finders-
The long-sought philosophic stone,
Become without dispute thy own,
Thou Prince of Razor Grinders !
THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON,
Addressed to CHARLES LAMB, of the India-House, London.
In the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit to the Author's Cottage; and on the morning of their arrival he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines, in the Garden Bower.
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Such beauties and such feelings, as had been
Most sweet to have remember'd, even when age
Had dimm'd my eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
My friends, whom I may never meet again,
On springy heath along the hill-top edge
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the Ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; that branchless Ash
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still
Fann'd by the water-fall! And there my friends,
Behold the dark-green file of long * lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the dim clay-stone.
Now my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven, and view again
The many-steepled track magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea
With some fair bark perhaps which lightly touches
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad
Of long lank weeds.-The Asplenium scolopendrium, called insome countries the Adder's tongue, in others the Hart's tongue: but Withering gives the Adder's tongue, as the trivial name of the Ophioalossum only.
My gentle-hearted CHARLES! for thou had'st pin'd
And hunger'd after nature many a year
In the great city pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, thro' evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue ocean!-So my Friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily, a living thing
Which acts upon the mind-and with such hues
As cloath the Almighty Spirit, when he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
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