TO MISS BUSH, OF BRISTOL.*
BEFORE I seek the dreary shore,
Where Gambia's rapid billows roar,
And foaming pour along,
To you I urge the plaintive strain,
And though a lover sings in vain,
Yet you shall hear the song.
Ungrateful, cruel, lovely maid,
Since all my torments were repaid
With frowns or languid sneers ;
With assiduities no more
Your captive will your health implore,
Or tease you with his tears.
Now to the regions where the sun
Does his hot course of glory run,
And parches up the ground;
Where o'er the burning cleaving plains,
A long eternal dog-star reigns,
And splendour flames around:
'Written," says Dr. Gregory," in the style of Cowley-that is, with too much affectation of wit for real feeling." He had now in contemplation "the miserable hope of securing the very ineligible appointment of a surgeon's mate to Africa."
There will I go, yet not to find
A fire intenser than my mind,
Which burns a constant flame :
There will I lose thy heavenly form,
Nor shall remembrance, raptured, warm,
Draw shadows of thy frame.
In the rough element the sea,
I'll drown the softer subject, thee,
And sink each lovely charm:
No more my bosom shall be torn,
No more by wild ideas borne,
I'll cherish the alarm.
Yet, Polly, could thy heart be kind,
Soon would my feeble purpose find
Thy sway within my breast:
But hence, soft scenes of painted woe,
Spite of the dear delight I'll go,
Forget her, and be blest.
FAR from the reach of critics and reviews,
Brush up thy pinions and ascend, my muse!
Of conversation sing an ample theme,
And drink the tea of Heliconian stream.
Hail, matchless linguist! prating Delia, hail!
When scandal's best materials, hacknied, fail,
Thy quick invention lends a quick supply,
And all thy talk is one continued lie.
Know, thou eternal babbler, that my song
Could shew a line as venom'd as thy tongue.
In pity to thy sex I cease to write
Of London journeys and the marriage-night.
The conversation with which taverns ring
Descends below my satire's soaring sting.
Upon his elbow throne great Maro sits,
Revered at Forster's by the would-be wits;
Delib'rately the studied jest he breaks,
And long and loud the polish'd table shakes;
Retail'd in every brothel-house in town,
Each dancing booby vends it as his own.
Upon the emptied jelly-glass reclined,
The laughing Maro gathers up his wind;
The tail-bud 'prentice rubs his hands and grins,
Ready to laugh before the tale begins:
To talk of freedom, politics, and Bute,
And knotty arguments in law confute,
I leave to blockheads, for such things design'd,
Be it my task divine to ease the mind.
To-morrow," says a Church-of-England Priest, "Is of good St. Epiphany the feast.
"It nothing matters whether he or she,
"But be all servants from their labour free."
The laugh begins with Maro, and goes round,
And the dry jest is very witty found;
In every corner of the room are seen
Round altars covered with eternal green,
Piled high with offerings to the Goddess Fame,
Which mortals, chronicles, and journals name;
Where in strange jumble flesh and spirit lie,
And illustration sees a jest-book nigh:
Anti-venereal med'cine cheek-by-jowl
With Whitfield's famous physic for the soul;
The patriot Wilkes's ever-famed essay,
With Bute and justice in the self-same lay:
Which of the two deserved (ye casuists tell)
The conflagrations of a hangman's hell?
The clock strikes eight; the taper dully shines; Farewell, my muse, nor think of further lines : Nine leaves, and in two hours, or something odd, Shut up the book,—it is enough by G—d!
Sage Gloster's Bishop sits supine between
His fiery floggers, and a cure for spleen;
The son of flame, enthusiastic Law,
Displays his bigot blade and thunders raw,
Unconscious of his neighbours, some vile plays
Directing-posts to Beelzebub's highways;
Fools are philosophers in Jones's line,
And, bound in gold and scarlet, Dodsleys shine;
These are the various offerings Fame requires,
For ever rising to her shrines in spires;
Hence all Avaro's politics are drain'd,
And Evelina's general scandal's gain'd.
Where Satan's temple rears its lofty head,
And muddy torrents wash their shrinking bed;
Where the stupendous sons of commerce meet,
Sometimes to scold indeed, but oft to eat ;
Where frugal Cambria all her poultry gives,
And where th' insatiate Messalina lives,
A mighty fabric opens to the sight:
With four large columns, five large windows dight;
With four small portals,-'tis with much ado
A common-council lady can pass through:
Here HARE first teaches supple limbs to bend,
And faults of nature never fails to mend.
Here conversation takes a nobler flight,
For nature leads the theme, and all is right;
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