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TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

[“ A poetical effort of the predictive kind," as the poet sportively calls this piece, composed in the beginning of 1781. The allusions to the American Senate and United Provinces, and to the armed neutrality in Europe, are sufficiently obvious.]

DEAR president, whose art sublime

Gives perpetuity to time,

And bids transactions of a day,
That fleeting hours would waft away

To dark futurity, survive,

And in unfading beauty live,-
You cannot with a grace decline
A special mandate of the Nine —
Yourself, whatever task you choose,
So much indebted to the muse.

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Thus say the Sisterhood, - We come―
Fix well your palette on your thumb,
Prepare the pencil and the tints —
We come to furnish you with hints.
French disappointment, British glory,
Must be the subject of the story.

First strike a curve, a graceful bow,
Then slope it to a point below;
Your outline easy, airy, light,
Fill'd up becomes a paper kite.
Let independence, sanguine, horrid,
Blaze like a meteor in the forehead:
Beneath (but lay aside your graces).
Draw six-and-twenty rueful faces,
Each with a staring, steadfast eye,
Fix'd on his great and good ally.
France flies the kite-'tis on the wing-
Britannia's lightning cuts the string.
The wind that raised it, ere it ceases,
Just rends it into thirteen pieces,
Takes charge of every fluttering sheet,
And lays them all at George's feet.

Iberia, trembling from afar,
Renounces the confederate war.
Her efforts and her arts o'ercome,
France calls her shatter'd navies home:
Repenting Holland learns to mourn
The sacred treaties she has torn ;
Astonishment and awe profound
Are stamp'd upon the nations round;
Without one friend, above all foes,
Britannia gives the world repose.

TO MRS NEWTON.

September 16, 1781.

A NOBLE theme demands a noble verse,
In such I thank you for your fine oysters.
The barrel was magnificently large,
But being sent to Olney at free charge,
Was not inserted in the driver's list,
And therefore overlook'd, forgot, or miss'd;
For when the messenger whom we despatch'd
Inquired for oysters, Hob his noddle scratch'd;
Denying that his wagon or his wain
Did any such commodity contain.

In consequence of which, your welcome boon
Did not arrive till yesterday at noon;
In consequence of which some chanced to die,
And some, though very sweet, were very dry.
Now Madam says, (and what she says must still
Deserve attention, say she what she will,)
That what we call the Diligence, be-case
It goes to London with a swifter pace,
Would better suit the carriage of your gift,
Returning downward with a pace as swift;
And therefore recommends it with this aim -
To save at least three days, the price the same;
For though it will not carry or convey

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For less than twelve pence, send whate'er you may For oysters bred upon the salt sea shore,

Pack'd in a barrel, they will charge no more.

News have I none that I can deign to write,
Save that it rain'd prodigiously last night;
And that ourselves were, at the seventh hour,
Caught in the first beginning of the shower;
But walking, running, and with much ado,
Got home-just time enough to be wet through.
Yet both are well, and, wondrous to be told,
Soused as we were, we yet have caught no cold;
And wishing just the same good hap to you,
We say, good Madam, and good Sir, Adieu!

[Written "

THE FLATTING-MILL.

AN ILLUSTRATION.

on the shortest day," 1781; and originally intended for an introduction to one of the pieces in the poet's first publication, where, however, it did not appear.]

WHEN a bar of pure silver or ingot of gold
Is sent to be flatted or wrought into length,
It is pass'd between cylinders often, and roll'd
In an engine of utmost mechanical strength.

Thus tortured and squeezed, at last it appears
Like a loose heap of ribbon, a glittering show,
Like music it tinkles and rings in your ears,

And warm'd by the pressure is all in a glow.

This process achieved, it is doom'd to sustain
The thump-after-thump of a gold-beater's mallet,
And at last is of service in sickness or pain
To cover a pill from a delicate palate.

Alas for the Poet! who dares undertake
To urge reformation of national ill —

His head and his heart are both likely to ache
With the double employment of mallet and mill.

If he wish to instruct, he must learn to delight, Smooth, ductile, and even, his fancy must flow, Must tinkle and glitter like gold to the sight,

And catch in its progress a sensible glow.

After all he must beat it as thin and as fine

As the leaf that enfolds what an invalid swallows,

For truth is unwelcome, however divine,

And unless you adorn it, a nausea follows.

LOVE ABUSED.

WHAT is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,

When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;
And earth a second Eden shows,
Where'er the healing water flows:
But ah, if from the dykes and drains
Of sensual nature's feverish veins,
Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending fast on every side
Once mingles with the sacred tide,
Farewell the soul-enlivening scene!
The banks that wore a smiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flowery beauties dead.
The stream polluted, dark, and dull,
Diffused into a Stygian pool,
Through life's last melancholy years
Is fed with ever-flowing tears:
Complaints supply the zephyr's part,
And sighs that heave a breaking heart.

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY AUSTEN.

December 17, 1781.

[These verses, in which ease, grace, and tenderness are so delightfully blended, were addressed to Lady Austen, while residing in London, during the interval between her first and second visit to Olney. The original is dated December 17, 1781.]

DEAR ANNA,

between friend and friend

Prose answers every common end;

Serves, in a plain and homely way,
To express the occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news ;
What walks we take, what books we choose;
And all the floating thoughts we find
Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb,
Derived from Nature's noblest part,
The centre of a glowing heart:
And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more sublime vagaries slighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme
To catch the triflers of the time,
And tell them truths divine and clear,

Which, couch'd in prose, they will not hear;

Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching, and that tingling,

With all my purpose intermingling,

To your intrinsic merit true,

When call'd to address myself to you.

Mysterious are His ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more:
It is the allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connections:
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.
Thus we were settled when you found us,
Peasants and children all around us,

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