The jocund loves in Hymen's band,

With torches ever bright,

And generous friendship, hand in hand
With pity's wat❜ry sight.

The gentler virtues too are join'd
In youth immortal warm;
The soft relations, which, combined,
Give life her every charm.

The arts come smiling in the close,
And lend celestial fire;

The marble breathes, the canvass glows,
The muses sweep the lyre.

"Still may my melting bosom cleave
To sufferings not my own,
And still the sigh responsive heave
Where'er is heard a groan.

"So pity shall take virtue's part,
Her natural ally,

And fashioning my soften'd heart,

Prepare it for the sky."

This artless vow may Heaven receive,

And fond maid,

you,

approve:

So may your guiding angel give!

Whate'er you wish or love!

So may the rosy-finger'd hours

Lead on the various year,

And every joy, which now is yours,
Extend a larger sphere!

And suns to come, as round they wheel,

Your golden moments bless

With all a tender heart can feel,
Or lively fancy guess!

1762.

FROM A LETTER TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

LATE RECTOR OF ST. MARY WOOLNOTH.

SAYS the pipe to the snuff-box, I can't understand
What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,
That you are in fashion all over the land,
And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

Do but see what a pretty contemplative air

I give to the company - pray do but note 'emYou would think that the wise men of Greece were

all there,

Or, at least, would suppose them the wise men of Gotham.

My breath is as sweet as the breath of blown roses, While you are a nuisance where'er you appear; There is nothing but snivelling and blowing of noses, Such a noise as turns any man's stomach to

hear.

Then, lifting his lid in a delicate way,

[ing, And opening his mouth with a smile quite engagThe box in reply was heard plainly to say,

If

What a silly dispute is this we are waging!

you

[weed,

have a little of merit to claim, You may thank the sweet-smelling Virginian And I, if I seem to deserve any blame,

The beforemention'd drug in apology plead.

Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own, No room for a sneer, much less a cachinnus, We are vehicles, not of tobacco alone,

But of any thing else they may choose to put in us.

THE FLATTING MILL.

AN ILLUSTRATION.

WHEN a bar of pure silver or ingot of gold
Is sent to be flatted or wrought into length,
It is pass'd between cylinders often, and roll'd
In an engine of utmost mechanical strength.

Thus tortured and squeezed, at last it appears
Like a loose heap of ribbon, a glittering show,
Like music it tinkles and rings in your ears,
And, warm'd by the pressure, is all in a glow.

This process achieved, it is doom'd to sustain
The thump after thump of a gold-beater's mallet,
And at last is of service in sickness or pain

To cover a pill for a delicate palate.

Alas for the poet! who dares undertake

Το

urge reformation of national ill

His head and his heart are both likely to ache With the double employment of mallet and mill.

If he wish to instruct, he must learn to delight, Smooth, ductile, and even his fancy must flow, Must tinkle and glitter like gold to the sight, And catch in its progress a sensible glow.

After all he must beat it as thin and as fine
As the leaf that enfolds what an invalid swallows;
For truth is unwelcome, however divine,

And unless you adorn it, a nausea follows.

EPITAPH ON A FREE BUT TAME REDBREAST,

A FAVOURITE OF MISS SALLY HURDIS.

THESE are not dewdrops, these are tears,
And tears by Sally shed

For absent Robin, who she fears,

With too much cause, is dead.

One morn he came not to her hand
As he was wont to come,

And, on her finger perch'd, to stand
Picking his breakfast-crumb.

Alarm'd, she call'd him, and perplex'd She sought him, but in vain— That day he came not, nor the next, Nor ever came again.

She therefore raised him here a tomb, Though where he fell, or how, None knows, so secret was his doom, Nor where he moulders now.

Had half a score of coxcombs died
In social Robin's stead,

Poor Sally's tears had soon been dried,
Or haply never shed.

But Bob was neither rudely bold
Nor spiritlessly tame;

Nor was, like theirs, his bosom cold,
But always in a flame.

March, 1792.