When ripening youth with down o'ershades his chin, And every female eye incites to sin; The milk-maid (thoughtless of her future shame,) With smacking lip shall raise his guilty flame; crime. How wilt thou tremble when thy nipple's prest, To see the white drops bathe thy swelling breast! Nine moons shall publicly divulge thy shame, And the young squire forestall a father's name. When twice twelve times the reaper's sweep ing hand With levell'd harvests has bestrown the land; On famed St. Hubert's feast, his winding horn Shall cheer the joyful hound, and wake the morn: This memorable day his eager speed Shall urge with bloody heel the rising steed. The time shall come when his more solid sense With nod important shall the laws dispense; Assist me, Bacchus, and ye drunken powers, To sing his friendships and his midnight hours! Why dost thou glory in thy strength of beer, Firm cork'd and mellow'd till the twentieth year: Brew'd, or when Phoebus warms the fleecy sign, It arms with curses dire the wrathful tongue; Hear then the dictates of prophetic song. 'Midst mugs and glasses shatter'd o'er the floor, SWEET WILLIAM'S FAREWELL TO BLACK-EYED ALL in the Downs the fleet was moor'd, William, who high upon the yard Rock'd with the billow to and fro, Soon as her well-known voice he heard, He sigh'd and cast his eyes below: The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands, And (quick as lightning) on the deck he stands. So the sweet lark, high poised in air, Shuts close his pinions to his breast, (If chance his mate's shrill call he hear,) And drops at once into her nest. The noblest captain in the British fleet Might envy William's lip those kisses sweet. O Susan, Susan, lovely dear, My vows shall ever true remain; Let me kiss off that falling tear; We only part to meet again. Change, as ye list, ye winds! my heart shall be The faithful compass that still points to thee. Believe not what the landmen say, Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind; They'll tell thee, sailors, when away, In every port a mistress find: Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so, For thou art present wheresoe'er I go. If to fair India's coast we sail, Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright, Thy breath is Afric's spicy gale, Thy skin is ivory so white. Thus every beauteous object that I view Wakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue. Though battle call me from thy arms, Let not my pretty Susan mourn; Though cannons roar, yet, safe from harms, William shall to his, dear return. Love turns aside the bass that round me fly, Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye. The boatswain gave the dreadful word, The sails their swelling bosom spread; No longer must she stay aboard: They kiss'd, she sigh'd, he hung his head. Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land: Adieu! she cries; and waved her lily hand. THE COURT OF DEATH. A FABLE. DEATH, on a solemn night of state, With hollow tone, This night our minister we name, All, at the word, stretch'd forth their hand. Next Gout appears with limping pace, A haggard spectre from the crew Stone urged his over-growing force; Plague represents his rapid power, Who thinn'd a nation in an hour. All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand, Now expectation hush'd the band; When thus the monarch from the throne: "Merit was ever modest known. He shares their mirth, their social joys, A BALLAD. FROM THE "WHAT-D'YE-CALL-IT." "TWAS when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploring, All on a rock reclined. Wide o'er the foaming billows She cast a wistful look; Her head was crown'd with willows, Why didst thou trust the seas? But none that loves you so. How can they say that nature Has nothing made in vain; Why then beneath the water Should hideous rocks remain? No eyes the rocks discover That lurk beneath the deep, To wreck the wandering lover, And leave the maid to weep. All melancholy lying, Thus wail'd she for her dear; Repay'd each blast with sighing, Each billow with a tear; When o'er the white wave stooping, His floating corpse she spied; Then like a lily drooping, She bow'd her head and died.* [* What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or rathei Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the "What-d'ye call-it,"-""Twas when the seas were roaring." I have been well informed that they all contributed.-CowPER to Unwin, Aug. 4, 1783.] SWEET are the charms of her I love, Gentle as air when Zephyr blows; To sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains. True as the needle to the pole, Or as the dial to the sun; Whose swelling tides obey the moon; The lamb the flowery thyme devours, Of verdant spring her notes renew; Nature must change her beauteous face, As winter to the spring gives place, Summer th' approach of autumn flies: Makes lofty oaks and cedars bow; Death only, with his cruel dart, The gentle godhead can remove; To mingle with the bless'd above, When dying seasons lose their name; MATTHEW GREEN. [Born, 1696. Died, 1737.] MATTHEW GREEN was educated among the known to be a Quaker without his clothes. Green Dissenters; but left them in disgust at their pre-replied, "By your swimming against the stream." cision, probably without reverting to the mother church. All that we are told of him, is, that he had a post at the Custom House, which he discharged with great fidelity, and died at a lodging in Nag's-head court, Gracechurch-street, aged forty-one. His strong powers of mind had received little advantage from education, and were occasionally subject to depression from hypochondria; but his conversation is said to have abounded in wit and shrewdness. One day his friend Sylvanus Bevan complained to him that while he was bathing in the river he had been saluted by a waterman with the cry of "Quaker Quirl," and wondered how he should have been FROM "THE SPLEEN." CONTENTMENT, parent of delight, [* He was a clerk in the Custom House, on, it is thought, a small salary; but the writer of this note has hunted over official books in vain for a notice of his appointment, and of obituaries for the time of his death.] His poem, "The Spleen," was never published during his lifetime. Glover, his warm friend, presented it to the world after his death; and it is much to be regretted, did not prefix any account of its interesting author. It was originally a very short copy of verses, and was gradually and piecemeal increased. Pope speedily noticed its merit, Melmoth praised its strong originality in Fitzosborne's Letters, and Gray duly commended it in his correspondence with Walpole, when it appeared in Dodsley's collection. In that walk of poetry, where Fancy aspires no further than to go hand in hand with common sense, its merit is certainly unrivalled.† Thy gracious auspices impart, And for thy temple choose my heart. They turn to pleasure all they find; [† There is a profusion of wit everywhere in Green; reading would have formed his judgment and harmonized his verse, for even his wood-notes often break out into strains of real poetry and music.-GRAY.] They both disdain in outward mien Forced by soft violence of pray'r, And thus she models my desire. farm some twenty miles from town, And drive, while t'other holds the plough; Where cows may cool, and geese may swim; Here stillness, height, and solemn shade In measured motions frisk about, Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep, Thus shelter'd, free from care and strife, May I enjoy a calm through life; See faction, safe in low degree, As men at land see storms at sea, And laugh at miserable elves, Not kind, so much as to themselves, Cursed with such souls of base alloy, As can possess, but not enjoy; Debarr'd the pleasure to impart By avarice, sphincter of the heart; Who wealth, hard earn'd by guilty cares, Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs. May I, with look ungloom'd by guile, And wearing virtue's liv'ry-smile, Prone the distressed to relieve, And little trespasses forgive, With income not in fortune's power, And skill to make a busy hour, With trips to town life to amuse, To purchase books, and hear the news, To see old friends, brush off the clown, And quicken taste at coming down, Unhurt by sickness' blasting rage, And slowly mellowing in age. When Fate extends its gathering gripe, Fall off like fruit grown fully ripe, Quit a worn being without pain, Perhaps to blossom soon again. But now more serious see me grow, And what I think, my Memmius, know. Th' enthusiast's hope, and raptures wild, Have never yet my reason foil'd. His springy soul dilates like air, When free from weight of ambient care, And, hush'd in meditation deep, Slides into dreams, as when asleep; Then, fond of new discoveries grown, Proves a Columbus of her own, Disdains the narrow bounds of place, And through the wilds of endless space, Borne up on metaphysic wings, Chases light forms and shadowy things, And, in the vague excursion caught, Brings home some rare exotic thought. The melancholy man such dreams, As brightest evidence, esteems; Fain would he see some distant scene Suggested by his restless Spleen, And Fancy's telescope applies With tinctured glass to cheat his eyes. Such thoughts, as love the gloom of night, For who, though bribed by gain to lie, That superstition mayn't create, And club its ills with those of fate, I many a notion take to task, Made dreadful by its visor-mask. Thus scruple, spasm of the mind, Is cured, and certainty I find; Since optic reason shows me plain, I dreaded spectres of the brain; And legendary fears are gone, Though in tenacious childhood sown. Thus in opinions I commence Freeholder in the proper sense, And neither suit nor service do, Nor homage to pretenders show, Who boast themselves by spurious roll Lords of the manor of the soul; Preferring sense from chin that's bare, To nonsense throned in whisker'd hair. To thee, Creator uncreate, O Entium Ens! divinely great!- To him my past and present state And with sweet ease the wearied crown If doom'd to dance th' eternal round Like sponge, wipes out life's present sum, Then, if hard dealt with here by fate, If dark and blust'ring prove some nights, I make (may heaven propitious send |