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Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires,

The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires !
Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain,
And tells you where ye have a right to reign,
A nation dwells, not envious of your throne,
Studious of peace, their neighbours' and their own.
Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue

Their only crime, vicinity to you!

The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad,
Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road;
At every step beneath their feet they tread
The life of multitudes-a nation's bread!
Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress
Before them, and behind a wilderness.
Famine, and Pestilence, her first-born son,
Attend to finish what the sword begun ;
And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn,
And Folly pays, resound at your return.
A calm succeeds-but Plenty, with her train
Of heart-felt joys, succeeds not soon again,
And years of pining indigence must show
What scourges are the gods that rule below.

Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees,
(Such is his thirst of opulence and ease,)
Plies all the sinews of industrious toil,
Gleans up the refuse of the general spoil,
Rebuilds the towers that smoked upon the plain,
And the sun gilds the shining spires again.

Increasing commerce and reviving art
Renew the quarrel on the conqueror's part;
And the sad lesson must be learn'd once more,
That wealth within is ruin at the door.
What are ye, monarchs, laurel'd heroes, say,
But Ætnas of the suffering world ye sway ?
Sweet Nature, stripp'd of her embroider'd robe,
Deplores the wasted regions of her globe;
And stands a witness at truth's awful bar,
To prove you there destroyers, as ye are.

Oh, place me in some Heaven-protected isle,
Where Peace, and Equity, and Freedom smile;

Where no volcano pours his fiery flood,
No crested warrior dips his plume in blood;
Where Power secures what Industry has won ;
Where to succeed is not to be undone;
A land, that distant tyrants hate in vain,
In Britain's isle, beneath a George's reign.

THE POET, THE OYSTER, AND THE
SENSITIVE PLANT.

AN Oyster, cast upon the shore,
Was heard, though never heard before,
Complaining in a speech well worded-
And worthy thus to be recorded:

"Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell For ever in my native shell;

Ordain'd to move when others please,

Not for my own content or ease;
But toss'd and buffeted about,
Now in the water and now out.
'Twere better to be born a stone,
Of ruder shape, and feeling none,
Than with a tenderness like mine,
And sensibilities so fine!
I envy that unfeeling Shrub,
Fast rooted against every rub."
The plant he meant grew not far off,
And felt the sneer with scorn enough;
Was hurt, disgusted, mortified,
And with asperity replied.

When, cry the botanists, and stare,
Did plants call'd sensitive grow there?
No matter when

a poet's muse is,

To make them grow just where she chooses.

"You shapeless nothing in a dish,
You that are but almost a fish,
I scorn your coarse insinuation,
And have most plentiful occasion
To wish myself the rock I view,
Or such another dolt as you:

For many a grave and learned clerk,
And many a gay unletter'd spark,
With curious touch examines me,
If I can feel as well as he;

And when I bend, retire, and shrink,

Says- Well, 'tis more than one would think!'
Thus life is spent (oh, fie upon 't!)

In being touch'd, and crying-Don't!"".
A Poet, in his evening walk,

O'erheard and check'd this idle talk.

"And your fine sense," he said, " and yours,

Whatever evil it endures,

Deserves not, if so soon offended,

Much to be pitied or commended.

Disputes, though short, are far too long,

Where both alike are in the wrong;
Your feelings in their full amount,
Are all upon your own account.

"You, in your grotto-work enclosed,
Complain of being thus exposed;
Yet nothing feel in that rough coat,
Save when the knife is at your throat,
Wherever driven by wind or tide,
Exempt from every ill beside.

"And as for you, my Lady Squeamish,
Who reckon every touch a blemish,
If all the plants that can be found
Embellishing the scene around,

Should droop and wither where they grow,
You would not feel at all-not you.
The noblest minds their virtue prove
By pity, sympathy, and love:
These, these are feelings truly fine,
And prove their owner half divine."

His censure reach'd them as he dealt it,
And each by shrinking shew'd he felt it.

TO THE

REV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN.

[With this poem Cowper closed his first volume. He wrote it in 1781, while engaged in correcting the proofs of the others, and appended it to the work as a tribute of affection.]

UNWIN, I should but ill repay

The kindness of a friend,

Whose worth deserves as warm a lay

As ever friendship penn❜d,

Thy name omitted in a page,

That would reclaim a vicious age.

A union form'd, as mine with thee,
Not rashly, nor in sport,
May be as fervent in degree,
And faithful in its sort,

And may as rich in comfort prove,
As that of true fraternal love.

The bud inserted in the rind,
The bud of peach or rose,
Adorns, though differing in its kind,
The stock whereon it grows,
With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair,
As if produced by Nature there.

Not rich, I render what I may,
I seize thy name in haste,
And place it in this first essay,
Lest it should prove the last.
'Tis where it should be—in a plan
That holds in view the good of man.

The poet's lyre, to fix his fame,
Should be the poet's heart;
Affection lights a brighter flame
Than ever blazed by art.
No muses on these lines attend,
I sink the poet in the friend.

CATHARINA.

ADDRESSED TO MISS STAPLETON,

AFTERWARDS MRS COURTNEY.

SHE Came

THE FIRST PART.

she is gone. we have met

And meet perhaps never again;
The sun of that moment is set,

And seems to have risen in vain.
Catharina has fled like a dream
(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)
But has left a regret and esteem,
That will not so suddenly pass.

The last evening ramble we made,
Catharina, Maria, and I,
Our progress was often delay'd

By the nightingale warbling nigh.

We paused under many a tree,

And much she was charm'd with a tone

Less sweet to Maria and me,

Who had witness'd so lately her own.

My numbers that day she had sung,
And gave them a grace so divine,

As only her musical tongue

Could infuse into numbers of mine.

The longer I heard, I esteem'd

The work of my fancy the more,

And even to myself never seem'd
So tuneful a poet before.

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