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 numberless 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.

STANZAS

ON THE LATE INDECENT LIBERTIES TAKEN WITH THE REMAINS OF THE GREAT MILTON, ANNO 1790

* Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus
Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri
Fronde comas-At ego securâ pace quiescam.
MILTON in Manso.

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.

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE JOHN THORNTON, ESQ.

POETS attempt the noblest task they can,
Praising the Author of all good in man,
And, next, commemorating worthies lost,
The dead in whom that good abounded most.
Thee, therefore, of commercial fame, but more
Famed for thy probity from shore to shore;
Thee, THORNTON! worthy in some page to shine
As honest and more eloquent than mine,
I mourn; or, since thrice happy thou must be,
The world no longer thy abode, not thee.
Thee to deplore were grief misspent indeed;
It were to weep that goodness has its meed,
That there is bliss prepared in yonder sky,
And glory, for the virtuous when they die.
What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard
Or spendthrift's prodigal excess afford
Sweet as the privilege of healing woe
By virtue suffered combating below?

That privilege was thine; Heaven gave thee means
To illumine with delight the saddest scenes,

Till thy appearance chased the gloom, forlorn
As midnight and despairing of a morn.
Thou hadst an industry in doing good,

Restless as his who toils and sweats for food;

Avarice in thee was the desire of wealth
By rust unperishable or by stealth;
And if the genuine worth of gold depend
On application to its noblest end,

Thine had a value in the scales of Heaven
Surpassing all that mine or mint had given.
And, though God made thee of a nature prone
To distribution boundless of thy own,
And still by motives of religious force
Impelled thee more to that heroic course,
Yet was thy liberality discreet,

Nice in its choice, and of a tempered heat,
And, though in act unwearied, secret still,
As in some solitude the summer rill
Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,
And cheers the drooping flowers, unheard, unseen.
Such was thy charity; no sudden start,
After long sleep, of passion in the heart,
But steadfast principle, and, in its kind,
Of close relation to the Eternal Mind,
Traced easily to its true source above,

To Him whose works bespeak his nature Love.
Thy bounties all were Christian, and I make
This record of thee for the Gospel's sake:
That the incredulous themselves may see
Its use and power exemplified in thee.

"I COULD be well content, allowed the use

Of past experience, and the wisdom gleaned
From worn-out follies, now acknowledged such,
To recommence life's trial, in the hope

Of fewer errors, on a second proof!

Thus, while grey evening lulled the wind, and called Fresh odours from the shrubbery at my side,

Taking my lonely winding walk, I mused,

And held accustomed conference with my heart;

When from within it thus a voice replied:

"Couldst thou in truth? and art thou taught at length

This wisdom, and but this, from all the past?

Is not the pardon of thy long arrear,

Time wasted, violated laws, abuse

Of talents, judgments, mercies, better far
Than opportunity vouchsafed to err
With less excuse, and, haply, worse effect?"

I heard, and acquiesced: then to and fro
Oft pacing, as the mariner his deck,
My gravelly bounds, from self to human kind
I passed, and next considered, What is man?
Knows he his origin? can he ascend
By reminiscence to his earliest date?
Slept he in Adam? and in those from him
Through numerous generations, till he found
At length his destined moment to be born?
Or was he not, till fashioned in the womb?

Deep mysteries both! which schoolmen much have toiled
To unriddle, and have left them mysteries still.

It is an evil incident to man,

And of the worst, that unexplored he leaves
Truths useful and attainable with ease,
To search forbidden deeps, where mystery lies
Not to be solved, and useless if it might.
Mysteries are food for angels; they digest
With ease, and find them nutriment; but man,
While yet he dwells below, must stoop to glean
His manna from the ground, or starve, and die.

*

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.

To 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,

"Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,
"And pinch your noses blue.'

YARDLEY OAK

SURVIVOR Sole, and hardly such, of all

That once lived here, thy brethren!-at my birth (Since which I number threescore winters past) A shattered veteran, hollow-trunked perhaps,