Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
Whose verse may claim-grave, masculine, and strong,
Superior praise to the mere poet's song;
Who many a noble gift from Heaven possessed,
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest.
O man, immortal by a double prize,
By fame on earth-by glory in the skies!
TO MISS C, ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
How many between east and west,
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!
Not so when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more.
ADDRESSED TO LADY HESKETH.
THIS cap, that so stately appears,
With ribbon-bound tassel on high,
Which seems by the crest that it rears
Ambitious of brushing the sky:
This cap to my cousin I owe,
She gave it, and gave me beside,
Wreathed into an elegant bow,
The ribbon with which it is tied.
This wheel-footed studying chair,
Contrived both for toil and repose,
Wide elbowed and wadded with hair,
In which I both scribble and doze,
Bright studded to dazzle the eyes,
And rival in lustre of that
In which, or astronomy lies,
Fair Cassiopeia sat:
These carpets, so soft to the foot,
Caledonia's traffic and pride,
O spare them ye knights of the boot,
Escaped from a cross-country-ride.
This table and mirror within,
Secure from collision and dust,
At which I oft shave cheek and chin,
And periwig nicely adjust:
This moveable structure of shelves,
For its beauty admired and its use,
And charged with octavos and twelves,
The gayest I had to produce;
Where, flaming in scarlet and gold,
My poems enchanted I view,
And hope, in due time, to behold
My Iliad and Odyssey too;
This china, that decks the alcove,
Which here people call a buffet,
But what the gods call it above,
Has ne'er been revealed to us yet;
These curtains, that keep the room warm
Or cool, as the season demands,
These stoves that for pattern and form,
Seem the labour of Mulciber's hands:
All these are not half that I owe
To one from her earliest youth
To me ever ready to show
Benignity, friendship, and truth:
For time the destroyer declared
And foe of our perishing kind,
If even her face he has spared,
Much less could he alter her mind.
Thus compassed about with the goods
And chattels of leisure and ease,
I indulge my poetical moods
In many such fancies as these;
And fancies I fear they will seem—
Poets' goods are not often so fine;
The poets will swear that I dream,
When I sing of the splendour of mine.
WHEN a bar of pure silver, or Ingot of gold,
Is sent to be flatted, or wrought into length,
It is passed between cylinders often and rolled
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, warmed by the pressure, is all in a glow.
This process achieved, it is doomed 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 for 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 unfolds what an invalid swallows,
For truth is unwelcome, however divine,
And unless you adorn it a nausea follows.
ON HER BEAUTIFUL TRANSCRIPT OF HORACE'S ODE, AD LIBRUM
MARIA, Could Horace have guessed
What honour awaited his ode,
To his own little volume addressed,
The honour which you have bestowed,
Who have traced it in characters here
So elegant, even and neat,
He had laughed at the critical sneer,
Which he seems to have trembled to meet.
And sneer if you please he had said,
A nymph shall hereafter arise,
Who shall give me, when you are all dead,
The glory your malice denies.
Shall dignity give to my lay,
Although but a mere bagatelle;
And even a poet shall say,
Nothing ever was written so well.
On the late indecent liberties taken with the remains of the great MiloD
'ME too, perchance, in future days, The sculptured stone shall show 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
Ordained 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.
On her kind Present to the Author, a Patch-work Counterpane of her own making.
THE Bard, if e'er he feel at all,
Must sure be quickened 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 ike this, in ancient time,
On Ida's barren top sublime,
Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus
Necteus aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri
Fronde comas-At ego secura pace quiesquam.
Millon in Mansa.
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