He chides the tardiness of every post, SUBURBAN RESIDENCES SATIRIZED. Suburban villas, highway-side retreats, Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air. The man of business and his friends, compressed, THE EDUCATED ALONE REQUIRE, OR CAN COMMAND, ELEGANT A sense of elegance we rarely find The portion of a mean or vulgar mind; FASHIONABLE MIGRATION TO THE SEA-SHORE. Your prudent grandmammas, ye modern belles, Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge-wells, When health required it would consent to roam, Else more attached to pleasures found at home. But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife, Ingenious to diversify dull life, In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys, THE OCEAN.ITS SMILES AND ITS TERRORS. Ocean exhibits, fathomless and broad, He swathes about the swelling of the deep, The breathings of the lightest air that blows; (A poet fond of nature, and your friend) CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE RECOMMENDED TO THE FRIVO LOUS. Would ye, when rambling in your morning ride, With some unmeaning coxcomb at your side, Condemn the prattler for his idle pains, To waste unheard the music of his strains, In gathering plenty yet to be enjoyed, Graced with such wisdom, how would beauty shine! THE SPENDTHRIFT'S DISGUST IN THE COUNTRY HE IS OBLIGED TO SEEK EXCEPT IN BOOKS. Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid, Force many a shining youth into the shade, Not to redeem his time, but his estate, And play the fool, but at a cheaper rate. There, hid in loathed obscurity, removed From pleasures left, but never more beloved, He just endures, and with a sickly spleen Sighs o'er the beauties of the charming scene. Nature indeed looks prettily in rhyme ; Streams tinkle sweetly in poetic chime : The warblings of the blackbird, clear and strong, Are musical enough in Thomson's song; And Cobham's groves, and Windsor's green retreats, When Pope describes them, have a thousand sweets; He likes the country, but in truth must own, Most likes it, when he studies it in town. GOOD-NATURED WILD JACK IMPOVERISHED. Poor Jack -no matter who- for when I blame I pity, and must therefore sink the name, Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kissed his horse. Th' estate, his sires had owned in ancient years, Was quickly distanced, matched against a peer's. Jack vanished, was regretted and forgot; 'Tis wild good-nature's never-failing lot. At length, when all had long supposed him dead, By cold submersion, razor, rope, or lead, My lord, alighting at his usual place, The Crown, took notice of an ostler's face. "T was he, the same, the very Jack he knew; MOTIVES FOR RETIREMENT. Thus some retire to nourish hopeless woe; For want of powers proportioned to the post: LEISURE DIFFICULT TO MANAGE. THOUGHT AND REVERY. "T is easy to resign a toilsome place, Thought, to the man that never thinks, may seem Those flimsy webs, that break as soon as wrought, Nor such as useless conversation breeds, Or lust engenders, and indulgence feeds. THOUGHTS OF THE FUTURE. Whence, and what are we? to what end ordained? Is duty a mere sport, or an employ? Is there, as reason, conscience, Scripture, say, THE LABORS OF THE LEARNED WEIGHED. Pardon me, ye that give the midnight oil WHAT LITERATURE LEISURE NEEDS. A mind unnerved, or indisposed to bear The weight of subjects worthiest of her care, Whatever hopes a change of scene inspires, Must change her nature, or in vain retires. An idler is a watch, that wants both hands; As useless if it goes, as when it stands. Books therefore, not the scandal of the shelves, In which lewd sensualists print out themselves; Nor those in which the stage gives vice a blow, With what success let modern manners show; Nor his, who, for the bane of thousands born, Built God a church, and laughed his Word to scorn, Skilful alike to seem devout and just, And stab religion with a sly side-thrust; Nor those of learned philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space, Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark; But such as learning without false pretence, The friend of truth, the associate of sound sense, And such as, in the zeal of good design, Strong judgment laboring in the Scripture mine, All such as manly and great souls produce, LUXURY AND LITERATURE. CHOICE OF BOOKS. Luxury gives the mind a childish cast, And while she polishes, perverts the taste; Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry, Tickle and entertain us, or we die. The loud demand, from year to year the same, Beggars invention, and makes fancy lame; Till farce itself, most mournfully jejune, Calls for the kind assistance of a tune; And novels (witness every month's review) Belie their name, and offer nothing new. The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. FRIENDSHIP IN RETIREMENT; SOLITUDE A GRAVE WITHOUT IT. Friends (for I cannot stint, as some have done, Too rigid in my view, that name to one; Though one, I grant it, in the generous breast Will stand advanced a step above the rest : Flowers by that name promiscuously we call, But one, the rose, the regent of them all) — Friends, not adopted with a school-boy's haste, But chosen with a nice-discerning taste, Well-born, well-disciplined, who, placed apart From vulgar minds, have honor much at heart, And, though the world may think the ingredients The love of virtue, and the fear of God! Such friends prevent what else would soon succeed, A temper rustic as the life we lead, And keep the polish of the manners clean, As theirs who bustle in the busiest scene. For solitude, however some may rave, Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave, A sepulchre, in which the living lie, Where all good qualities grow sick and die. [odd, I praise the Frenchman,' his remark was shrewd DIVINE COMMUNION A BALM. DAVID'S FAITH AND STAY. 1 Bruyère. These, and a thousand plagues, that haunt the Drives to their dens the obedient beasts of prey. See Judah's promised king, bereft of all, RELIGION THE CONSTANT HANDMAID OF JOY AND THE HARMLESS PLEASURES OF RURAL LIFE. Religion does not censure or exclude Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued ; To sturdy culture, and with artful toil To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil; To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands; To cherish virtue in an humble state, And share the joys your bounty may create ; In color these, and those delight the smell, THE POET'S AIM. Me poetry (or rather notes that aim Feebly and vainly at poetic fame) Employs, shut out from more important views, Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse; Content if thus sequestered I may raise A monitor's, though not a poet's praise, And while I teach an art too little known, To close life wisely, may not waste my own. Pastorals for November. BURNS'S" COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT." My loved, my honored, much respected friend! The lowly train in life's sequestered scene, ween. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The short'ning winter day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh, The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view, The expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through, His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. Belyve the elder bairns come drappin in, At service out amang the farmers roun'; Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown, Or deposit her sair-won penny fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. Wi' joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view; The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; The father mixes a' wi admonition due. Their master's an' their mistress's command An' mind your duty, duly, morn and night, But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door- To do some errands and convoy her hame. Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek, Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben : The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye: The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy : But blate an' laithfu', scarce can weel behave : The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave, Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. O happy love! where love like this is found! 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair ing gale. Is there, in human form, that bears a heart- Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Points to the parents fondling o'er their child, Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild? But now the supper crowns the simple board: The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food: The soup their only hawkie does afford, That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell, And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid. The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How thus a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, The big Ha' Bible, ance his father's pride; His lyart haffets wearin thin an' bare. Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And, let us worship God! he says, with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise, They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name, Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays; Compared with these Italian trills are tame; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise : Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire, Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Then kneeling down, to heaven's eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays; Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing,' That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays; No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear, While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. Then homeward all take off their several way, And proffer up to Heaven their warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide, But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. GLOSSARY. Sugh, sigh; pleugh, plough; craws, crows; moil, labor; wee, little; toddlin, tottering; stacher, stagger; flichterin, fluttering; ingle, fire; blinkin, glimmering; carking, corroding; belyve, by and by; bairns, children; drapping, dropping; roun, round; ca, drive; tentie, careful; rin, run; cannie, dextrous; e'e, eye; braw, handsome; spiers, inquires; uncos, strange things; gars, makes; eydent, diligent; jauk, joke; gang, go; wha kens, who knows; hafflins, half, partly; ben, into the room; strappan. strapping; ta'en, taken; cracks, talks; kye, cows; blate, bashful; laithfu', sheepish; lave, rest; parritch, porridge; hawkie, cow; cood, cud; 'yont the hallant, beyond the partition wall; hained, saved; kebbuck, cheese; fell, evenly cut; towmond, twelvemonth; lint in the bell, flax in blossom; ha', hall; lyart, gray; haffets, temples; wales, selects; beets, adds fuel to; Dundee and Elgin, well-known psalm tunes. See also glossaries, pp. 186, 336. FLETCHER'S "SHEPHERD'S EVE.” And let your dogs lie loose without, Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers, |