The jocund loves in Hymen's band, With torches ever bright, And generous friendship, hand in hand The gentler virtues too are join'd The arts come smiling in the close, The marble breathes, the canvass glows, "Still may my melting bosom cleave "So pity shall take virtue's part, 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, And suns to come, as round they wheel, Your golden moments bless With all a tender heart can feel, 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 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 Thus tortured and squeezed, at last it appears This process achieved, it is doom'd to sustain 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 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, For absent Robin, who she fears, With too much cause, is dead. One morn he came not to her hand And, on her finger perch'd, to stand 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 Poor Sally's tears had soon been dried, But Bob was neither rudely bold Nor was, like theirs, his bosom cold, March, 1792. |