Oh! let the modest Muse some pity claim,
And meet indulgence, though she find not fame.
Still, not for her alone we wish respect,
Others appear more conscious of defect:
To-night no veteran Roscii you behold,
In all the arts of scenic action old;
No Cooke, no Kemble, can salute you here,
No Siddons draw the sympathetic tear;
To-night you throng to witness the début
Of embryo actors, to the Drama new:
Here, then, our almost unfledged wings we try;
Clip not our pinions ere the birds can fly:
Failing in this our first attempt to soar,
Drooping, alas! we fall to rise no more.
Not one poor trembler only fear betrays,
Who hopes, yet almost dreads, to meet your praise;
But all our dramatis personæ wait
In fond suspense this crisis of their fate.
No venal views our progress can retard,
Your generous plaudits are our sole reward.
For these, each Hero all his power displays,
Each timid Heroine shrinks before your gaze.
Surely the last will some protection find;
None to the softer sex can prove unkind:
While Youth and Beauty form the female shield,
The sternest censor to the fair must yield.
Yet, should our feeble efforts nought avail,
Should, after all, our best endeavors fail,
Still let some mercy in your bosoms live,
And, if you can't applaud, at least forgive.
THE FOLLOWING ILLIBERAL IMPROMPTU APPEARED IN A MORNING PAPER.
"OUR nation's foes lament on Fox's death,
But bless the hour when PITT resigned his breath :
These feelings wide, let sense and truth unclue,
We give the palm where Justice points its due."
TO WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THESE PIECES SENT THE
FOLLOWING REPLY.
Oн factious viper! whose envenomed tooth
Would mangle still the dead, perverting truth;
What though our "nation's foes "lament the fate,
With generous feeling, of the good and great,
Shall dastard tongues essay to blast the name
Of him whose meed exists in endless fame?
When PITT expired in plenitude of power,
Though ill success obscured his dying hour,
Pity her dewy wings before him spread,
For noble spirits "war not with the dead:"
His friends, in tears, a last sad requiem gave,
As all his errors slumbered in the grave;
He sunk, an Atlas bending 'neath the weight
Of cares o'erwhelming our conflicting state:
When, lo! a Hercules in Fox appeared,
Who for a time the ruined fabric reared:
He, too, is fallen, who Britain's loss supplied,
With him our fast-reviving hopes have died;
Not one great people only raise his urn,
All Europe's far-extended regions mourn.
"These feelings wide, let sense and truth unclue,
To give the palm where Justice points its due;"
Yet let not cankered Calumny assail,
Or round our statesmen wind her gloomy veil.
Fox! o'er whose corse a mourning world must weep,
Whose dear remains in honored marble sleep;
For whom, at last, e'en hostile nations groan,
While friends and foes alike his talents own;
Fox shall in Britain's future annals shine,
Nor e'en to PITT the patriot's palm resign;
Which Envy, wearing Candor's sacred mask,
For PITT, and PITT alone, has dared to ask.*
"O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo! quater
Felix, in imo qui scatentem
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."— Gray.
WHEN Friendship or Love our sympathies move,
When Truth in a glance should appear,
The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear.
*[The "illiberal impromptu" appeared in the Morning Post, and Byron's "reply" in the Morning Chronicle.]
Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation or fear;
Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soul-telling eye
Is dimmed for a time with a Tear.
Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear.
The man doomed to sail with the blast of the gale, Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear.
The soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath
In Glory's romantic career;
But he raises the foe when in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.
If with high-bounding pride he return to his bride, Renouncing the gore-crimsoned spear,
All his toils are repaid when, embracing the maid, From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.
Sweet scene of my youth!* seat of Friendship and Truth,
Where love chased each fast-fleeting year,
Loth to leave thee, I mourned, for a last look I turned, But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear.
Though my vows I can pour to my Mary no more,
My Mary to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bower I remember the hour
She rewarded those vows with a Tear.
By another possest, may she live ever blest!
Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.
Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart,
This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet in this rural retreat,
May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.
When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night, And my corse shall recline on its bier,
As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume, Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.
May no marble bestow the splendor of woe
Which the children of vanity rear;
No fiction of fame shall blazon my name,
All I ask all I wish is a Tear.
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