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The titled and the rich alone
Are honour'd, while meek Merit pines,
On Penury's wretched couch reclines,
Unheeded in his dying moan, ⠀

[known.

As, overwhelm'd with want and woe, he sinks un

III. 1.- 'Yet was the muse not always seen

In Poverty's dejected mien,

Not always did repining rue,
And misery her steps pursue.

Time was, when nobles thought their titles graced,
By the sweet honours of poetic bays,

When Sidney sung his melting song,

When Sheffield joined th' harmonious throng,
And Lyttleton attuned to love his lays.
Those days are gone-alas, for ever gone!
No more our nobles love to grace
Their brows with anadems, by genius won,
But arrogantly deem the muse as base;
How different thought the sires of this degenerate race!'

I. 2. Thus sang the minstrel :—still at eve
The upland's woody shades among

In broken measures did he grieve,

With solitary song.

And still his shame was aye the same,
Neglect had stung him to the core;
And he with pensive joy did love
To seek the still congenial grove,

And muse on all his sorrows o'er,

And vow that he would join the abjured world no more.
II. 2.—But human vows, how frail they be!&i
Fame brought Carlisle unto his view,

And all amazed, he thought to see

The Augustan age anew.

Fill'd with wild rapture, up he rose,
No more he ponders on the woes,
Which erst he felt that forward goes,
Regrets he'd sunk in impotence,

And hails the ideal day of virtuous eminence.
III. 2.-Ah! silly man, yet smarting sore
With ills which in the world he bore,
Again on futile hope to rest,

An unsubstantial prop at best,

And not to know one swallow makes no summer!
Ah! soon he'll find the brilliant gleam,
Which flashed across the hemisphere,

Illumining the darkness there,

Was but a single solitary beam,
While all around remain'd in custom'd night.
Still leaden Ignorance reigns serene

In the false court's delusive height,

And only one Carlisle is seen,

To illume the heavy gloom with pure and steady light.

DESCRIPTION OF A SUMMER'S EVE.

Down the sultry arc of day

The burning wheels have urged their way,
And eve along the western skies
Spreads her intermingling dyes.
Down the deep, the miry lane,
Creaking comes the empty wain,
And driver on the shaft-horse sits,
Whistling now and then by fits;
And oft with his accustomed call,
Urging on the sluggish Ball.
The barn is still, the master's gone,
And thresher puts his jacket on;

While Dick, upon the ladder tall,
Nails the dead kite to the wall.
Here comes shepherd Jack at last,
He has penn'd the sheep-cote fast,
For 'twas but two nights before
A lamb was eaten on the moor:
His empty wallet Rover carries,

Now for Jack, when near home, tarries;
With lolling tongue he runs to try

If the horse-trough be not dry.

The milk is settled in the

pans,

And supper messes in the cans;

In the hovel carts are wheel'd,

And both the colts are drove a-field;

The horses are all bedded

up,
And the ewe is with the tup;
The snare for Mister Fox is set,
The leaven laid, the thatching wet;
And Bess has slink'd away to talk
With Roger in the holly-walk.

Now on the settle, all but Bess
Are set to eat their supper mess;
And little Tom, and roguish Kate,
Are swinging on the meadow gate.
Now they chat of various things,
Of taxes, ministers, and kings;
Or else tell all the village news,
How madam did the squire refuse;
How parson on his tithes was bent,
And landlord oft distrain'd for rent.
Thus do they talk, till in the sky
The pale-eyed moon is mounted high,
And from the alehouse drunken Ned
Had reel'd-then hasten all to bed.

The mistress sees that lazy Kate
The happing coal on kitchen grate
Has laid--while master goes throughout,
Sees shutters fast, the mastiff out,
The candles safe, the hearths all clear,
And nought from thieves or fire to fear;
Then both to bed together creep,
And join the general troop of sleep.

TO CONTEMPLATION.

COME, pensive sage, who lov'st to dwell
In some retired Lapponian cell,
Where, far from noise and riot rude,

Resides sequester'd Solitude.
Come, and o'er my longing soul

Throw thy dark and russet stole,

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The volume of thy mysteries.

I will meet thee on the hill, Where with printless footsteps still The morning in her buskin gray, Springs upon her eastern way; While the frolic zephyrs stir, Playing with the gossamer, And, on ruder pinions borne, Shake the dew-drops from the thorn. There, as o'er the fields we pass, Brushing with hasty feet the grass, We will startle from her nest The lively lark with speckled breast, And hear the floating clouds among Her gale-transported matin song;

Or on the upland stile embower'd,

With fragrant hawthorn snowy flower'd,
Will sauntering sit, and listen still
To the herdsman's oaten quill,
Wafted from the plain below;
Or the heifer's frequent low;
Or the milkmaid in the grove,
Singing of one that died for love.
Or when the noontide heats oppress,
We will seek the dark recess,

Where, in th' embower'd translucent stream,
The cattle shun the sultry beam,

And o'er us on the marge reclined,

The drowsy fly her horn shall wind,
While Echo, from her ancient oak,
Shall answer to the woodman's stroke;
Or the little peasant's song,
Wandering lone the glens among,
His artless lip with berries dyed,
And feet through ragged shoes descried.
But oh! when evening's virgin queen
Sits on her fringed throne serene,
And mingling whispers rising near
Still on the still reposing ear:

While distant brooks decaying round,
Augment the mix'd dissolving sound,
And the zephyr flitting by,
Whispers mystic harmony,
We will seek the woody lane,
By the hamlet, on the plain,
Where the weary rustic nigh,
Shall whistle his wild melody,
And the croaking wicket oft

Shall echo from the neighbouring croft;

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