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ODE.

"I'll give him dash for dash."

J****N farewell! farewell to all
Whoever prais d me, great or small;
Your poet's course is run!
A weekly, no, an every day
Reviewer takes my fame away,
And I am all undone!

I cannot live an Author long!
When I did write, O I did wrong
To aim at being great;
A Diamond Poet in a pin
May twinkle on in peace and win
No diamond critic's hate!

No small inditer of reviews
Will analyze his tiny muse,

Or lay his sonnets waste;
Who strives to prove that Richardson,
That calls himself a diamond one,
Is but a bard of paste?

The smallest bird that wings the sky,
May tempt some sparrow-shot and die;
But midges still go free!

The peace which shuns may board and bed
May settle on a lowlier head,

And dwell, "St. John, with thee!"

I aimed at higher growth; and now
My leaves are withered on the bough,
I'm choked by bitter shrubs!
Oh, Mr. F. C. W.!

What can I christen thy review
But one of "Wormwood Scrubs ?"

The very man that sought me once-
Can I so soon be grown a dunce?—
He now derides my verse;

But who, save me, will fret to find
The Editor has changed his mind,-
He can't have got a worse.

EPIGRAM.

As human fashions change about,
The reign of fools should now begin;
For when the Wigs are going out,

The Naturals are coming in!

* "Mr. Hood bestows his tediousness on that most sage and chaste of periodicals, the Literary Gazette, where he celebrates David Laing, or any other blacksmith that may happen to die."-Public note of the London Weekly Review."

'The Editor would be sorry indeed to part with Mr. Hood's occasional contributions, if he could possibly secure them."-Private note of the London Weekly Review.

"This is very like the ancient fable of the Fox and the Sour Grapes; but it is surely not rigidly impartial to quarrel with an Author because he refuses to hide his light under your tub, and prefers writing where he must be generally read, to where he has no chance of being read at all."— London Literary Gazette, Aug. 25th, 1827.

SONG FOR THE NINETEENTH.*

THE morning sky is hung with mist,

The rolling drum the street alarms,
The host is paid, his daughter kiss'd

So now to arms! to arms! to arms!

Our evening bowl was strong and stiff,
And may we get such quarters oft,
I ne'er was better lodged,-for if

The straw was hard, the maid was soft.

So now to arms! to arms! to arms!
And fare thee well, my little dear;

And if they ask who won your charms,
Why say "'t was in your nineteenth year!”

FRAGMENT.

PROBABLY WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.

I'm sick of gruel, and the dietetics,
I'm sick of pills, and sicker of emetics,
I'm sick of pulses' tardiness or quickness,
I'm sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness,-

In short, within a word, I'm sick of sickness!

* "I forgot to say I composed a song for the 19th, which made them all laugh. I send it for you."-Potsdam, Oct., 1836.

MIDNIGHT.

UNFATHOMABLE Night! how dost thou sweep
Over the flooded earth, and darkly hide
The mighty city under thy full tide;
Making a silent palace for old Sleep,
Like his own temple under the hush'd deep,
Where all the busy day he doth abide,

And forth at the late dark, outspreadeth wide His dusky wings, whence the cold waters weep! How peacefully the living millions lie!

Lull'd unto death beneath his poppy spells; There is no breath-no living stir-no cryNo tread of foot-no song-no music-callOnly the sound of melancholy bellsThe voice of Time-survivor of them all!

BIRTHDAY VERSES.
HDAY

GOOD morrow to the golden morning,
Good morrow to the world's delight—
I've come to bless thy life's beginning,
Since it makes my own so bright!

I have brought no roses, sweetest,
I could find no flowers, dear,-

It was when all sweets were over

Thou wert born to bless the year.

But I've brought thee jewels, dearest,
In thy bonny locks to shine,—
And if love shows in their glances,

They have learn'd that look of mine!

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ADDRESS.*

HUSH! not a sound! no whisper: no demur!
No restless motion-no intrusive stir!
But with staid presence and a quiet breath,
One solemn moment dedicate to Death! (4 pause.)
For now no fancied miseries bespeak
The panting bosom, and the wetted cheek;
No fabled Tempest, or dramatic wreck,
No Royal Sire washed from the mimic deck,
And dirged by Sea Nymphs to his briny grave!
Alas! deep, deep beneath the sullen wave,
His heart, once warm and throbbing as your own,
Now cold and senseless as the shingle stone;
His lips, so eloquent, choked up with sand;
The bright eye glazed, and the impressive hand,
Idly entangled with the ocean weed,—

Full fathom five, a FATHER lies indeed!

Yes! where the foaming billows rave the while
Around the rocky Ferns and Holy Isle,
Deaf to their roar, as to the dear applause
That greets deserving in the Drama's cause,
Blind to the horrors that appal the bold,

To all he hoped, or feared, or loved, of old—
To love, and love's deep agony, a-cold;

He, who could move the passions, moved by none,
Drifts an unconscious corse.-Poor Elton's race is run!

* The address was written by my father at the request of Mr. Dickens. It was delivered by the late Mrs. Warner, at a theatrical benefit night, at the Haymarket Theatre. The proceeds went to the fund raised for the children of poor Elton, the actor, who was wrecked off the Fern Islands.Memorials.

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