Unknown and silent will depart my breath,
Nor Nature e'er take notice of my death.
Yet some there are (ere spent my vital days)
Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise.
Lov'd in my life, lamented in my end,
Their praise would crown me as their precepts mend:
To them may these fond lines my name endear,
Not from the Poet but the Friend sincere.
JAMES EYRE WEEKES.
FROM POEMS PRINTED AT CORK, 1743.
THERE's not a sense but still betrays,
Like bosom-snakes, their master;
Where'er my various fancy strays,
It still brings some disaster;
For all my different senses move
To the same centre-fatal love!
My rebel eyes betray my heart,
And ruin me by gazing,
Like burning glasses flames impart,
And set me all a blazing:
These treach'rous twins, which should protect,
Like fatal stars my peace have wreck'd.
My simple ears my soul betray,
By list'ning to the syren;
They who should guard th' important way,
With sounds my heart environ; Brib'd they admit such potent foes As rob me of my sweet repose.
My smell, too, plays a traitor's part,
Her fragrant breath admitting;
Her perfum'd sighs sharp stings impart,
My simple soul outwitting :
Poor I am led thus by the nose,
And find the nettle in the rose.
My taste the dangerous nectar sips,-
Such nectar Gods ne'er tasted;
And sucks ambrosia from her lips;
With ruin thus I'm feasted:
My palate, which should be my cook,
Destroys me with the poison'd hook.
My touch-oh, there contagion lies!
Whene'er I touch I tremble;
Through all my frame th' enchantment flies,
An aspin I resemble ;
My lips, deluding me with bliss,
Betray their master with a kiss.
Whate'er I see, or hear, or smell,
Or taste, or touch, delighted,
By all together, like a spell,
Am I to love invited:
All other things their ruin shun,
But I am by myself undone.
RICHARD SAVAGE,
SON of the unnatural Anne Countess of Macclesfield, by Earl Rivers, was born in 1697-8, and died in a jail at Bristol, 1743.
IN gayer hours, when high my fancy ran, The Muse, exulting, thus her lay began. "Blest be the Bastard's birth! through wondrous
He shines eccentric like a comet's blaze!
No sickly fruit of faint compliance he !
He! stampt in nature's mint of ecstacy!
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race:
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face:
His daring hope no sire's example bounds;
His first-born lights no prejudice confounds.
He, kindling from within, requires no flame;
He glories in a Bastard's glowing name.
"Born to himself, by no possession led, In freedom foster'd, and by fortune fed;
Nor guides, nor rules, his sovereign choice control,
His body independent as his soul;
Loos'd to the world's wide range-enjoy'd no aim,
Prescrib'd no duty, and assign'd no name:
Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone,
His heart unbiass'd, and his mind his own.
"O mother, yet no mother! 'tis to you
My thanks for such distinguish'd claims are due;
You, unenslav'd to Nature's narrow laws,
Warm championess for freedom's sacred cause,
From all the dry devoirs of blood and line,
From ties maternal, moral and divine,
Discharg'd my grasping soul; push'd me from shore,
And launch'd me into life without an oar.
"What had I lost, if, conjugally kind,
By nature hating, yet by vows confin'd,
Untaught the matrimonial bounds to slight,
And coldly conscious of a husband's right,
You had faint-drawn me with a form alone,
A lawful lump of life by force your own!
Then, while your backward will retrench'd desire,
And unconcurring spirits lent no fire,
I had been born your dull, domestic heir,
Load of your life, and motive of your care;
Perhaps been poorly rich, and meanly great,
The slave of pomp, a cypher in the state;
Lordly neglectful of a worth unknown,
And slumbering in a seat by chance my own.
"Far nobler blessings wait the bastard's lot;
Conceiv'd in rapture, and with fire begot!
Strong as necessity, he starts away,
Climbs against wrongs, and brightens into day."
Thus unprophetic, lately misinspir'd,
I sung: gay fluttering hope my fancy fir'd:
Inly secure, through conscious scorn of ill,
Nor taught by wisdom how to balance will,
Rashly deceiv'd, I saw no pits to shun,
But thought to purpose and to act were one;
Heedless what pointed cares pervert his way,
Whom caution arms not, and whom woes betray;
But now expos'd, and shrinking from distress,
I fly to shelter while the tempests press;
My Muse to grief resigns the varying tone,
The raptures languish, and the numbers groan.
O Memory! thou soul of joy and pain!
Thou actor of our passions o'er again!
Why didst thou aggravate the wretch's woe?
Why add continuous smart to every blow?
Few are my joys; alas! how soon forgot!
On that kind quarter thou invad'st me not;
While sharp and numberless my sorrows fall,
Yet thou repeat'st and multiply'st them all.
Is chance a guilt? that my disasterous heart,
For mischief never meant, must ever smart?
Can self-defence be sin ?—Ah, plead no more!
What though no purpos'd malice stain'd thee o'er ?
Had Heaven befriended thy unhappy side,
Thou hadst not been provok'd-or thou hadst died.
Far be the guilt of homeshed blood from all
On whom, unsought, embroiling dangers fall!
Still the pale dead revives, and lives to me,
To me! through Pity's eye condemn'd to see.
Remembrance veils his rage, but swells his fate;
Griev'd I forgive, and am grown cool too late.
Young, and unthoughtful then; who knows, one day,
What ripening virtues might have made their way?
He might have liv'd till folly died in shame,
Till kindling wisdom felt a thirst for fame.
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