Bring back with joy :
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces-
The same fond faces

As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors

Of your sweet errors,

Reflect but rapture-not least though last.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;

What desperations

From such have risen!

But yet remaining,

What is't but chaining
Hearts which, once waning,

Beat 'gainst their prison?

Time can but cloy love
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys-
You'll find it torture
Though sharper, shorter,

To wean, and not wear out your joys.

1819.

ON MY WEDDING-DAY.

HERE'S a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say-

Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day.

Tanuary 2, 1820.

IN digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will. Cobbett has done well:

You visit him on earth again,
He'll visit you in hell.95

January, 1820.96

STANZAS.

WHEN a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock'd on the head for his labours.

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.

November, 1820

EPIGRAM.

THE world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull;
Each tugs it a different way,

And the greatest of all is John Bull.

THE CHARITY BALL.

WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronises her "charity ball!"

What matters-a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal-
That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the saint keeps her charity back for "the ball! " 97

EPIGRAM.

ON THE BRAZIERS' COMPANY HAVING RESOLVED TO PRESENT AN
ADDRESS TO QUEEN CAROLINE.

THE braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass

An address, and present it themselves all in brass ;-
A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry!

They'll find where they're going much more than they carry,95

EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY.

TO PENELOPE.

THIS day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you :-

'Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.

January 2, 1921.

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY.

JANUARY 22, 1821.99

THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing-except thirty-three.

MARTIAL, LIB. I., EPIG. I.

"Hic est, quem legis, ille, quem requiris,
Tota notus in orbe Martialis," &c.

HE, unto whom thou art so partial,
Oh, reader! is the well-known Martial,
The Epigrammatist: while living,
Give him the fame thou would'st be giving;
So shall he hear, and feel, and know it-
Post-obits rarely reach a poet.

BOWLES AND CAMPBELL.

To the tune of "Why, how now, saucy jade?'

WHY, how now, saucy Tom?

If you thus must ramble,

I will publish some

Remarks on Mister Campbell.

ANSWER.

WHY, how now, Billy Bowles?

Sure the priest is maudlin!

(To the public) How can you, d-n your souls!

Listen to his twaddling?

February 22, 1821.

EPIGRAMS.

OH, Castlereagh ! thou art a patriot now;
Cato died for his country, so didst thou:
He perish'd rather than see Rome enslaved,

Thou cutt'st thy throat that Britain may be saved!

So Castlereagh has cut his throat !-The worst
Of this is, that his own was not the first.

So He has cut his throat at last!-He! Who?
The man who cut his country's long ago.

EPITAPH.

POSTERITY will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh :
Stop, traveller-

JOHN KEATS.100

WHо kill'd John Keats?
"I," says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
""Twas one of my feats."

Who shot the arrow?
"The poet-priest Milman

(So ready to kill man),
"Or Southey, or Barrow."

July, 1821.

THE CONQUEST.101

March 8-9, 1823.

THE Son of Love and Lord of War I sing;
Him who bade England bow to Normandy,
And left the name of conqueror more than king
To his unconquerable dynasty.

Not fann'd alone by Victory's fleeting wing,

He rear'd his bold and brilliant throne on high: The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast, And Britain's bravest victor was the last.

TO MR. MURRAY.

FOR Orford 102 and for Waldegrave 103
You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,

My Murray.