If even her face he has spared,
Much less could he alter her mind.
Thus compassed about with the goods
And chattels of leisure and ease,
I indulge my poetical moods
In many such fancies as these;
And fancies I fear they will seem-
Poets' goods are not often so fine;
The poets will swear that I dream,
When I sing of the splendour of mine.
WHEN a bar of pure silver, or Ingot of gold,
Is sent to be flatted, or wrought into length,
It is passed between cylinders often and rolled
``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, warmed by the pressure, is all in a glow.
This process achieved, it is doomed 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
To 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 unfolds what an invalid swakows, For truth is unwelcome, however divine, And unless you adorn it a nausea follows.
ON HER BEAUTIFUL TRANSCRIPT OF HORACE'S ODE, AD LIERUM
MARIA, Could Horace have guessed
What honour awaited his ode,
To his own little volume addressed,
The honour which you have bestowed,
Who have traced it in characters here
So elegant, even and neat,
He had laughed at the critical sneer,
Which he seems to have trembled to meet.
And sneer if you please he had said,
A nymph shall hereafter arise,
Who shall give me, when you are all dead,
The glory your malice denies.
Shall dignity give to my lay,
Although but a mere bagatelle; And even a poet shall say,
Nothing ever was written so well.
On the late indecent liberties taken with the remains of the great Milton
'ME too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb
And sleep securely there."*
So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordained to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.
Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest
Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?
Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones
Where Milton's ashes lay,
That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!
O ill-requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And blind idolatrous respect
As much affronts thee dead.
On her kind Present to the Author, a Patch-work Counterpane of her own making.
THE Bard, if e'er he feel at all,
Must sure be quickened by a call
Both on his heart and head,
Το pay with tuneful thanks the care
And kindness of a lady fair
Who deigns to deck his bed.
A bed like this, in ancient time,
On Ida's barren top sublime,
* Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus
Necteus aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri
Fronde comas-At ego secura pace quiesquam.
Milton in Mansa.
(As Homer's Epic shows)
Composed of sweetest vernal flowers,
Without the aid of sun and showers,
For Jove and Juno rose.
Less beautiful, however gay,
Is that which in the scorching day
Receives the weary swain
Who, laying his long scythe aside,
Sleeps on some bank with daisies pied,
Till roused to toil again.
What labours of the loom I see!
Looms lumberless have groaned for me!
Should every maiden come
To scramble for the patch that bears
The impress of the robe she wears,
The bell would toll for some.
And oh, what havoc would ensue !
This bright display of every hue
All in a moment fled!
As if a storm should strip the bowers
Of all their tendrils, leaves, and flowers
Each pocketing a shred.
Thanks, then, to every gentle fair
Who will not come to peck me bare,
As bird of borrowed feather,
And thanks, to One, above them all,
The gentle Fair of Pertenhall,
Who put the whole together.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE POETS.
Two nymphs, both nearly of an age,
Of numerous charms possessed,
A warm dispute once chanced to wage,
Whose temper was the best.
The worth of each had been complete,
Had both alike been mild:
But one, although her smile was sweet,
Frowned oftener than she smiled.
And in her humour, when she frowned,
Would raise her voice and roar,
And shake with fury to the ground
The garland that she wore.
The other was of gentler cast,
From all such frenzy clear,
Her frowns were seldom known to last,
And never proved severe.
The poets of renown in song
The nymphs referred the cause,
Who, strange to tell, all judged it wrong,
And gave misplaced applause.
They gentle called, and kind and soft,
The flippant and the scold,
And though she changed her mood so oft,
That failing left untold.
No judges, sure, were e'er so mad,
Or so resolved to err--
In short, the charms her sister had
They lavished all on her.
Then thus the god whom fondly they
Their great inspirer call,
Was heard, one genial summer's day
To reprimand them all :
"Since thus ye have combined," he said, "My favourite nymph to slight,
Adorning May, that peevish maid,
With June's undoubted right,
"The minx shall, for your folly's sake,
Still prove herself a shrew,
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