STANZAS

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

"ME too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall shew,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.

"But I, or ere that season come,
Escaped from every care,
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there."*

So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain'd 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.

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

TO MRS KING,

ON HER KIND PRESENT TO THE AUTHOR, A PATCH-WORK COUNTERPANE OF HER OWN MAKING.

August 14, 1790.

[The lady here mentioned was the wife of the Rev. Dr King, rector of Kimbolten, a woman of great piety and goodness of heart, with whom Cowper long corresponded by letter, though they never met.]

THE Bard, if e'er he feel at all,
Must sure be quicken'd by a call
Both on his heart and head,
To pay with tuneful thanks the care
And kindness of a lady fair

Who deigns to deck his bed.

A bed like this, in ancient time,
On Ida's barren top sublime,
(As Homer's Epic shows,)
Composed of sweetest vernal flowers,
Without the aid of sun or showers,
For Jove and Juno rose.

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 groan'd 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 havock 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 borrow'd feather,

And thanks to one above them all,
The gentle fair of Pertenhall,
Who put the whole together.

IN MEMORY

OF THE LATE

JOHN THORNTON, ESQ.

[NOVEMBER, 1790.]

[The gentleman so often mentioned in the Letters as the undeclared benefactor to the poor of Olney.]

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 mispent 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 wo

By virtue suffer'd 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 imperishable 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,
Impell'd thee more to that heroic course,
Yet was thy liberality discreet,

Nice in its choice, and of a temper'd 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.

MORTUARY STANZAS FOR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.

Despise not my good counsel.

BUCHANAN.

He who sits from day to day,
Where the prison'd lark is hung,

Heedless of his loudest lay,

Hardly knows that he has sung.

Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustom'd to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry.

So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my voice proclaim
Death at hand-yourselves his mark
And the foe's unerring aim.

Duly at my time I come,

Publishing to all aloud,

Soon the grave must be your home,
And your only suit a shroud.

But the monitory strain,

Oft repeated in your ears, Seems to sound too much in vain, Wins no notice, wakes no fears.

Can a truth, by all confess'd,

Of such magnitude and weight, Grow, by being oft express'd, Trivial as a parrot's prate?

Pleasure's call attention wins,
Hear it often as we may;
New as ever seem our sins,
Though committed every day.

Death and judgment, heaven and hell— These alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell

When some stranger is interr'd.

Oh, then, ere the turf or tomb

Cover us from every eye,

Spirit of instruction, come,

Make us learn that we must die.