For back of royal elephant to bear!
O for permission from the skies to share,
Much to my own, though little to thy good,
With thee (not subject to the jealous mood!
A partnership of literary ware!
But I am bankrupt now; and doomed hencefo th
To drudge, in descant dry, on others' lays;
Bards, I acknowledge, of unequalled worth!
But what is commentator's happiest praise ?
That he has furnished lights for other eyes
Which they, who need them use, and then lespire.
ON A SPANIEL, CALLED BEAU,
KILLING A YOUNG BIRD.
A SPANIEL, Beau, that fares like you,
Well-fed, and at his ease,
Should wiser be than to pursue
Each trifle that he sees.
But you have killed a tiny bird,
Which flew not till to-day,
Against my orders, whom you heard
Forbidding you the prey.
Nor did you kill that you might eat,
And ease a doggish pain,
For him, though chased with furious heat,
You left where he was slain.
Nor was he of the thievish sort,
Or one whom blood allures,
But innocent was all his sport
Whom you have torn for yours.
My dog! what remedy remains,
Since, teach you all I can,
I see you, after all my pains,
So much resemble man?
BEAU'S REPLY.
SIR, when I flew to seize the bird
In spite of your command,
A louder voice than yours I heard,
And harder to withstand.
You cried-forbear-but in my breast
A mightier cried-proceed--
"Twas Nature, sir, whose strong behest
Impelled me to the deed.
Yet much as nature I respect,
I ventured once to break,
(As you perhaps may recollect)
Her precept for your sake;
And when your linnet on a day,
Passing his prison door,
Had fluttered all his strength away,
And panting pressed the floor,
Well knowing him a sacred thing,
Not destined to my tooth,
I only kissed his ruffled wing,
And licked the feathers smooth.
Let my obedience then excuse
My disobedience now,
Nor some reproof yourselves refuse
From your aggrieved bow-wow;
If killing birds be such a crime,
(Which I can hardly see,)
What think you, sir, of killing Time With verse addressed to me?
THE twentieth year is well nigh past,
Since our first sky was overcast,
Ah would that this might be the last!
Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see them daily weaker grow
"Twas my distress that brought thee low
Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,
For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!
But well thou playd'st the housewife's part,
And all thy threads with magic art,
Have wound themselves about this heart,
Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language uttered in a dream;
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
My Mary!
Thy silver locks once auburn bright,
Are still more lovely in my sight
Than golden beams of orient light,
My Mary;
For could I view nor them nor thee,
What sight worth seeing could I see?
The sun would rise in vain for me,
Partakers of thy sad decline,
Thy hands their little force resign;
Yet gently prest, press gently mine,
Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st,
That now at every step thou mov'st,
Upheld by two, yet still thou lov'st,
My Mary!
And still to love, though prest with ill,
In wintry age to feel no chill,
With me is to be lovely still,
But ah! by constant heed I know,
How oft the sadness that I show,
Transforms thy smiles to looks of wo,
And should my future lot be cast
With much resemblance of the past,
Thy worn-out heart will break at last,
SEEN FLOATING IN THE GERMAN OCEAN.
WHAT portents, from that distant region, ride,
Unseen till now in ours, the astonished tide?
In ages past, old Proteus, with his droves
Of seacalves, sought the mountains and the groves
But now, descending whence of late they stood,
Themselves the mountains seem to rove the flood.
Dire times were they, full-charged with human woes;
And these, scarce less calamitous than those.
What view we now? More wondrous still? Be
hold!
Like burnished brass they shine, or beaten gold;
And all around the pearl's pure splendour show,
And all around the ruby's fiery glow.
Come they from India, where the burning earth,
All bounteous, gives her richest treasures birth;
And where the costly gems, that beam around
The brows of mightiest potentates, are found?
No. Never such a countless dazzling store
Had left, unseen, the Ganges' peopled shore.
Rapacious hands, and ever-watchful eyes,
Should sooner far have marked and seized the prize.
Whence sprang they then? Ejected have they come
From Ves'vius', or from Ætna's burning womb?
Thus shine they self-illumed, or but display
The borrowed splendours of a cloudless day?
With borrowed beams they shine. The gales, that
breathe
Now landward, and the current's force beneath,
Have borne them nearer: and the nearer sight,
Advantaged more, contemplates them aright.
Their lofty summits crested high, they show,
With mingled sleet, and long-incumbent snow.
The rest is ice. Far hence, where most severe,
Bleak winter well-nigh saddens all the year,
Their infant growth began. He bade arise
Their uncouth forms, portentous in our eyes.
Oft as dissolved by transient suns, the snow
Left the tall cliff, to join the flood below;
He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast
The current, ere it reached the boundless waste.
By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile,
And long successive ages rolled the while;
Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claimed to stand,
Tall as its rival mountains on the land.
'Thus stood, and unremoveable by skill,
Or force of man, had stood the structure still;
But that, though firmly fixed, supplanted yet
By pressure of its own enormous weight,
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