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A SIMILE LATINISED.

SORS adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas. Pungit api similis, sed velut ista fugit.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time
I feel a wish by cheerful rhyme
To soothe my friend, and, had I power,
To cheat him of an anxious hour;
Not meaning (for I must confess,
What 'twere but folly to suppress)
His pleasure or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeservèd praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,—
I seem no brighter in my wits
For all the radiance he emits

Than if I saw, through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh for a succedaneum, then,

To accelerate a creeping pen!

Oh for a ready succedaneum
Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium
Pondere liberet exoso,

Et morbo jam caliginoso!

'Tis here; this oval box, well filled

With best tobacco finely milled,
Beats all Anticyra's pretences
To disengage the encumbered senses.
O Nymph of transatlantic fame,
Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name,
Whether reposing on the side
Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide,
Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,

'Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether pulverised, it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touched with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine-
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe
That symbol of thy power, the pipe;
So may no blight infest thy plains
And no unseasonable rains,

And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore;

And thou, secure from all alarms

Of thundering drums and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade

Thy wide expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,

And fumigation never cease.
May Newton with renewed delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.

TO LADY AUSTEN

ON A FLOOD AT OLNEY

To watch the storms, and hear the sky
Give all our almanacks the lie;
To shake with cold, and see the plains
In autumn drowned with wintry rains;

'Tis thus I spend my moments here,
And wish myself a Dutch Mynheer;
I then should have no need of wit,
For lumpish Hollander unfit!
Nor should I then repine at mud,
Or meadows deluged with a flood;
But in a bog live well content,
And find it just my element:
Should be a clod, and not a man;
Nor wish in vain for Sister Ann,
With charitable aid to drag
My mind out of its proper quag;
Should have the genius of a boor,
And no ambition to have more.

THE COLUBRIAD

CLOSE by the threshold of a door nailed fast
Three kittens sat; each kitten looked aghast.
I, passing swift and inattentive by,

At the three kittens cast a careless eye;

Not much concerned to know what they did there; Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care.

But presently a loud and furious hiss

Caused me to stop, and to exclaim, "What's this?"
When lo! upon the threshold met my view,
With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue,

A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue.

Forth from his head his forkèd tongue he throws,
Darting it full against a kitten's nose;

Who, having never seen in field or house
The like, sat still and silent as a mouse;

Only projecting, with attention due,

Her whiskered face, she asked him, "Who are you?”
On to the hall went I, with pace not slow,
But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe:
With which well armed I hastened to the spot,
To find the viper, but I found him not.
And turning up the leaves and shrubs around,
Found only that he was not to be found.
But still the kittens, sitting as before,
Sat watching close the bottom of the door.
"I hope," said I, "the villain I would kill
Has slipped between the door and the door's sill;
And if I make despatch, and follow hard,

No doubt but I shall find him in the yard:"
For long ere now it should have been rehearsed,
'Twas in the garden that I found him first.
E'en there I found him, there the full-grown cat
His head, with velvet paw, did gently pat;
As curious as the kittens erst had been
To learn what this phenomenon might mean.
Filled with heroic ardour at the sight,
And fearing every moment he would bite,
And rob our household of our only cat
That was of age to combat with a rat,
With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door,
And taught him NEVER TO COME there no more.

TO A YOUNG LADY

WITH A PRESENT OF TWO COCKSCOMBS

Two powdered Cockscombs wait at your command,
And, what is strange, both dressed by Nature's hand;
Like other fops they dread a sudden shower,
And seek a shelter in your closest bower;
Showy like them, like them they yield no fruit,
But then, to make amends, they both are mute.

EPITAPH ON A HARE

HERE lies whom hound did ne'er pursue
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's halloo;

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,

Who, nursed with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confined,
Was still a wild Jack hare.

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,

He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of wheaten bread,
And milk, and oats, and straw;

Thistles, or lettuces instead,
With sand to scour his maw.

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
On pippins' russet peel,
And, when his juicy salads failed,
Sliced carrot pleased him well.

A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he loved to bound,
To skip and gambol like a fawn,
And swing his rump around.

His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear,

But most before approaching showers,
Or when a storm drew near.

Eight years and five round-rolling moons
He thus saw steal away,
Dozing out all his idle noons,

And every night at play.

I kept him for his humour's sake,
For he would oft beguile

My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile.

But now beneath this walnut shade
He finds his long last home,
And waits, in snug concealment laid,
Till gentler Puss shall come.

He, still more agèd, feels the shocks
From which no care can save,
And, partner once of Tiney's box,
Must soon partake his grave.

ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE

WRITTEN BY DESIRE OF LADY AUSTEN, WHO WANTED WORDS TO THE MARCH IN "SCIPIO."

TOLL for the brave!

The brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave,

Fast by their native shore !

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