Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

HEALTH.

AN ECLOGUE.

Now early shepherds o'er the meadow pass,
And print long footsteps in the glittering grass;
The cows neglectful of their pasture stand,
By turns obsequious to the milker's hand.

When Damon softly trod the shaven lawn, Damon a youth from city cares withdrawn; Long was the pleasing walk he wander'd through, A cover'd arbour clos'd the distant view;

There rests the youth, and, while the feather'd throng

66

Raise their wild music, thus contrives a song.
"Here, wafted o'er by mild Etesian air,
Thou country goddess, beauteous Health! repair;
Here let my breast through quivering trees inhale
Thy rosy blessings with the morning gale.
What are the fields, or flowers, or all I see?
Ah! tasteless all, if not enjoy'd with thee.
Joy to my soul! I feel the goddess nigh,
The face of Nature cheers as well as I;
O'er the flat green refreshing breezes run,
The smiling daisies blow beneath the Sun,
The brooks run purling down with silver waves,
The planted lanes rejoice with dancing leaves,
The chirping birds from all the compass rove
To tempt the tuneful echoes of the grove:
High sunny summits, deeply shaded dales,
Thick mossy banks, and flowery winding vales,
With various prospect gratify the sight,
And scatter fix'd attention in delight.
"Come, country goddess, come; nor thou suf-
But bring thy mountain-sister, Exercise.
Call'd by thy lovely voice, she turns her pace,
Her winding horn proclaims the finish'd chase;
She mounts the rocks, she skims the level plain,
Dogs, hawks, and horses, crowd her early train.
Her hardy face repels the tanning wind,
And lines and meshes loosely float behind.
All these as means of toil the feeble see,
But these are helps to pleasure join'd with thee.
"Let Sloth lie softening till high noon in down,
Or lolling fan her in the sultry town,
Unnerv'd with rest; and turn her own disease,
Or foster others in luxurious ease:

[fice,

I mount the courser, call the deep-mouth'd hounds,
The fox unkennell'd flies to covert grounds;
I lead where stags through tangled thickets tread,
And shake the saplings with their branching head;
I make the faulcons wing their airy way,
And soar to seize, or stooping strike their prey;
To snare the fish, I fix the luring bait;
To wound the fowl, I load the gun with fate.
'Tis thus through change of exercise I range,
And strength and pleasure rise from every change.
Here, beauteous Health, for all the year remain;
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus
Oh come, thou goddess of my rural song, [again.
And bring thy daughter, calm Content along,
Dame of the ruddy cheek and laughing eye,
From whose bright presence clouds of sorrow fly:
For her I mow my walks, I plant my bowers,
Clip my low hedges, and support my flowers;
To welcome her, this summer-seat I drest,
And here I court her when she comes to rest;
When she from exercise to learned ease
Shall change again, and teach the change to please.
Now friends conversing my soft hours refine,
And Tully's Tusculum revives in mine:

Now to grave books I bid the mind retreat,
And such as make me rather good than great.
Or o'er the works of easy fancy rove,
Where flutes and innocence amuse the grove:
The native bard, that on Sicilian plains
First sung the lowly manuers of the swains;
Or Maro's Muse, that in the fairest light
Paints rural prospects and the charms of sight;
These soft amusements bring Content along,
And fancy, void of sorrow, turns to song.

Here, beauteous Health, for all the year remain;
When the next comes, I'll charın thee thus again."

THE FLIES.

AN ECLOGUE.

WHEN in the river cows for coolness stand,
And sheep for breczes seek the lofty land,
A youth, whom Esop taught that every tree,
Each bird and insect, spoke as well as he;
Walk'd calmly musing in a shady way,
Where flowering hawthorns broke the sunny ray,
And thus instructs his moral pen to draw
A scene that obvious in the field he saw.

Near a low ditch, where shallow waters meet,
Which never learn'd to glide with liquid feet;
Whose Naiads never prattle as they play,
But screen'd with hedges slumber out the day.
There stands a slender fern's aspiring shade,
Whose answering branches regularly laid
Put forth their answering boughs, and proudly rise
Three stories upward, in the nether skies.

For shelter here, to shun the noon-day heat, An airy nation of the flies retreat; Some in soft airs their silken pinions ply, And some from bough to bough delighted fly, Some rise, and circling light to perch again; A pleasing murmur hums along the plain.. So, when a stage invites to pageant shows, (If great and small are like) appear the beaux; in boxes some with spruce pretension sit, Some change from seat to seat within the pit, Some roam the scenes, or turning cease to roam; Preluding music fills the lofty dome.

When thus a fly (if what a fly can say Deserves attention) rais'd the rural lay.

"Where late Amintor made a nymph a bride, Joyful I flew by young Favonia's side, Who, mindless of the feasting, went to sip The balmy pleasure of the shepherd's lip, I saw the wanton, where I stoop'd to sup, And half resolv'd to drown me in a cup; Till, brush'd by careless hands, she soar'd above: Cease, beauty, cease to vex a tender love." Thus ends the youth, the buzzing meadow rung, And thus the rival of his music sung.

"When suns by thousands shone on orbs of dew, I wafted soft with Zephyretta flew; Saw the clean pail, and sought the milky cheer, While little Daphne seiz'd my roving dear. Wretch that I was! I might have warn'd the dame, Yet sate indulging as the danger came. But the kind huntress left her free to soar: Ah! guard, ye lovers, guard a mistress more."

Thus from the fern, whose high projecting arms The fleeting nation bent with dusky swarms, The swains their love in easy music breathe, When tongues and tumult stun the field beneath:

PARNELL'S POEMS.

Black ants in teams come darkening all the road,
Some call to march, and some to lift the load;
They strain, they labour with incessant pains,
Press'd by the cumbrous weight of single grains.
The flies struck silent gaze with wonder down:
The busy burghers reach their earthy town;
Where lay the burthens of a wintery store,
And thence unwearied part in search of more.
Yet one grave sage a moment's space attends,
And the small city's loftiest point ascends,
Wipes the salt dew that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the gravest grace.
"Ye foolish nurslings of the summer air,
These gentle tunes and whining songs forbear;
Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and
love,

Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove;
Let bards to business bend their vigorous wing,
And sing but seldom, if they love so sing:
Else, when the flowerets of the season fail,
And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale,
Though one would save you, not one grain of wheat,
Should pay such songsters idling at my gate."

He ceas'd: the flies, incorrigibly vain,
Heard the mayor's speech, and fell to sing again.

AN ELEGY, TO AN OLD BEAUTY.
IN vair, poor nymph, to please our youthful sight
You sleep in cream and froutlets all the night,
Your face with patches soil, with paint repair,
Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair.
If truth, in spite of manners, must be told,
Why really fifty-five is something old.

[long

Once you were young; or one, whose life's so
She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong.
And once, since Envy's dead before you die,
The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye,
Taught the light foot a modish little trip,
And pouted with the prettiest purple lip.

To some new charmer are the roses fled,
Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red;
Youth calls the Graces there to fix their reign,
And airs by thousands fill their easy train.
So parting Summer bids her flowery prime
Attend the Sun to dress some foreign clime,
While withering seasons in succession, here,
Strip the gay gardens, and deform the year.

But thou, since Nature bids, the world resign,
'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine.
With more address, or such as pleases more,
She runs her female exercises o'er,
Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan,
And smiles, or blushes at the creature man.
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass,
In sideling courtesy she drops the glass.
With better strength, on visit-days she bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.
Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes, and tongue,
Are sure to conquer-for the rogue is young:
And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,
We call it only pretty Fanny's way.

Let time, that makes you homely, make you sage,
The sphere of wisdom, is the sphere of age.
'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire,
And hears the flattering tongues of soft desire,
If not from virtue, from its gravest ways
The soul with pleasing avocation strays.

But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise; As harpers better by the loss of eyes. Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs, Haunt less the plays, and more the public prayers, Reject the Mechliu head, and gold brocade, Go pray, in sober Norwich crape array'd. Thy pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take (Their trembling lustre shows how much you shake); Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl, You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl. So for the rest, with less encumbrance hung, You walk through life, unmingled with the young, And view the shade and substance, as you pass, With joint endeavour trifling at the glass, Or Folly drest, and rambling all her days, To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise: Yet still sedate yourseif, and gravely plain, You neither fret, nor envy at the vain. 'Twas thus, if man with woman we compare, The wise Athenian crost a glittering fair, Through tape, toys, tinsel, gimp, perfume, and lace; Unmov'd by tongue and sights, he walk'd the place, Then bends from Mars's hill his awful eyes, But cries unheard: for Folly will be free. And-"What a world I never want?" he cries: So parts the buzzing gawdy crowd and he: As careless he for them, as they for him: He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirl'd by whim.

THE BOOK-WORM.

COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day,
The book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As Fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage cat:
We 'It rouse him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!

From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse-
(Nay never offer to deny,

I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,

[ocr errors]

They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For ail, for every single deed,
Relentless Justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,

To pile a sacred altar here;

Hold, boy, thy hand out-runs thy wit, You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ; You reach'd me Philips' rustic strain; Pray take your mortal bards again.

Come, bind the victim,-there he lies, And here between his numerous eyes This venerable dust I lay, From manuscripts just swept away. The goblet in my hand I take, (For the libation's yet to make) A health to poets! all their days May they have bread, as well as praise; Sense may they seek, and less engage In papers fill'd with party-rage. But if their riches spoil their vein, Ye Muses, make them poor again.

Now bring the weapon, yonder blade, With which my tuneful pens are made. 1 strike the scales that arm thee round, And twice and thrice I print the wound; The sacred altar floats with red, And now he dies, and now he's dead.

How like the son of Jove I stand, This Hydra stretch'd beneath my hand! Lay bare the monster's entrails here, To see what dangers threat the year: Ye gods! what sonnets on a wench! What lean translations out of French! 'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound,

S

prints, before the months go round. But hold, before I close the scene, The sacred altar should be clean. Oh had I Shadwell's second bays, Or, Tate! thy pert and humble lays! (Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow I never miss'd your works till now) I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine, (That only way you please the Nine) But since I chance to want these two, I'll make the songs of Durfey do.

Rent from the corps, on yonder pin,
I hang the scales that brac'd it in;
I hang my studious morning-gown,
Aud write my own inscription down.

"This trophy from the Python won,
This robe, in which the deed was done,
These, Parnell, glorying in the feat,
Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat.
Here Ignorance and Hunger found
Large realms of Wit to ravage round:
Here Ignorance and Hunger fell?
Two foes in one I sent to Hell.
Ye poets, who my labours see,
Come share the triumph all with me!
Ye critics! born to vex the Muse,
Go mourn the grand ally you lose."

AN ALLEGORY, ON MAN. A THOUGHTFUL being, long and spare, Our race of mortals call him Care

(Were Homer living, well he knew

What name the gods have call'd him too)
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, though no one bought.
This being, by a model bred

In Jove's eternal sable head,
Contriv'd a shape impower'd to breathe,
And be the worldling here beneath.

The man rose staring, like a stake;
Wondering to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The business he was made to do;
That, pleas'd to see with what a grace
He gravely show'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-something of the sky.

But ere he gave the mighty nod, Which ever binds a poet's god, (For which his curls ambrosial shake, And mother Earth's oblig'd to quake) He saw old mother Earth arise, She stood confess'd before his eyes; But not with what we read she wore, A castle for a crown before, Nor with long streets and longer roads Dangling behind her, like commodes: As yet with wreaths alone she drest, And trail'd a landskip-painted vest.. Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said, And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honours made, “Great Jove," she cry'd, "This thing was fashion'd from my side: His hands, his heart, his head, are mine; Then what hast thou to call him thine?"

[ocr errors]

Nay rather ask," the monarch said,

"What boots his hand, his beart, his head, Were what I gave remov'd away?

Thy part's an idle shape of clay."

[Care,

"Halves, more than halves!" cry'd honest
"Your pleas would make your titles fair,
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole."
Thus with the gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause, as man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age?

As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as 1,
For what the fabling ancients sung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honours on his head;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old sire, Eternity.
A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth, before;
By which our almanacs are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carry'd, where on high
A glass was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.
His vest, for day and night, was py'd;
A bending sickle arm'd his side;
And Spring's new months his train adorn!
The other seasons were unborn.

Known by the gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause.
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where since his hours a dial made;

PARNELL'S POEMS.

Then leaning heard the nice debate, And thus pronounc'd the words of Fate: Since body from the parent Earth, And soul from Jove receiv'd a birth, Return they where they first began; But since their union makes the man, Till Jove and Earth shall part these two, To Care who join'd them, man is due."

He said, and sprung with swift career To trace a circle for the year; Where ever since the seasons wheel, And tread on one another's heel."

"'Tis well," said Jove, and for consent Thundering he shook the firmament. "Our umpire Time shall have his way, With Care I let the creature stay: Let business vex him, avarice blind, Let doubt and knowledge rack his mind, Let errour act, opinion speak, And want afflict, and sickness break, And anger burn, dejection chill, And joy distract, and sorrow kill, Till, arm'd by Care, and taught to mow, Time draws the long destructive blow; And wasted man, whose quick decay Comes hurrying on before his day, Shall only find by this decree, The soul flies sooner back to me."

I pass'd the glories which adorn
The splendid courts of kings,
And while the persons mov'd my scorn,
I rose to scorn the things.

My manhood felt a vigorous fire
By love increas'd the more;
But years with coming years conspire
To break the chains I wore.

In weakness safe, the sex I see
With idle lustre shine;

For what are all their joys to me,
Which cannot now be mine?

But hold-I feel my gout decrease,

My troubles laid to rest,

And truths which would disturb my peace
Are painful truths at best.

Vainly the time I have to roll
In sad reflection flies;

Ye fondling passions of my soul!
Ye sweet deceits! arise.

I wisely change the scene within,
To things that us'd to please;
In pain, philosophy is spleen,
In health, 'tis only ease.

AN

IMITATION OF SOME FRENCH VERSES.

RELENTLESS Time! destroying power,
Whom stone and brass obey,
Who giv'st to every flying hour
To work some new decay;

Unheard, unheeded, and unseen,
Thy secret saps prevail,
And ruin man, a nice machine,
By Nature form'd to fail,

My change arrives; the change I meet,
Before I thought it nigh.

My spring, my years of pleasure fleet,
And all their beauties die.

In

age I search, and only find
A poor unfruitful gain,

Grave wisdom stalking slow behind,
Oppress'd with loads of pain.

My ignorance could once beguile,
And fancy'd joys inspire;
My errours cherish'd hope to smile
On newly-born desire.

But now experience shows the bliss,
For which I fondly sought,
Not worth the long impatient wish,
And ardour of the thought.

My youth met Fortune fair array'd,
In all her pomp she shone,
And might perhaps have well essay'd,
To make her gifts my own:

But when I saw the blessings shower
On some unworthy mind,

I left the chase, and own'd the power
Was justly painted blind,

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH.
By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er:
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
P'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below,

How deep yon azure dyes the sky!
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide.
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds, which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight
Among the livid gleams of night,
There pass with melancholy state
By all the solemn heaps of Fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,

Time was, like thee, they life possest,
And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.

Those with bending osier bound,
That nameless heave the crumbled ground,
Quick to the glancing thought disclose,
Where toil and poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chisel's slender help to fame,
(Which ere our set of friends decay
Their frequent steps may wear away)
A middle race of mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whose pillars swell with sculptur'd stones,
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones,
These, all the poor remains of state,
Adorn the rich, or praise the great;
Who, while on Earth in fame they live,
Are senseless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,
The bursting earth unveils the shades!
All slow, and wan, and wrap'd with shrouds,
They rise in visionary crowds,
And all with sober accent cry,
"Think, mortal, what it is to die."

Now from yon black and funeral yew,
That bathes the charuel-house with dew,
Methinks, I hear a voice begin;
(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din,
Ye tolling clocks, no time resound
O'er the long lake and midnight ground!)
It sends a peal of hollow groans,
Thus speaking from among the bones.

"When men my scythe and darts supply,

How great a king of fears am 1!

They view me like the last of things;

They make, and then they draw, my strings.
Fools! if you less provok'd your fears,
No more my spectre-form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God:
A port of calms, a state to ease
From the rough rage of swelling seas."

Why then thy flowing sable stoles,
Deep pendant cypress, mourning poles,
Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds,
And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
Nod o'er the escutcheons of the dead?

Nor can the parted body know,
Nor wants the soul these forms of woe;
As men who long in prison dwell,
With lamps that glimmer round the cell,
Whene'er their suffering years are run,
Spring forth to greet the glittering Sun:
Such joy, though far transcending sense,
Have pious souls at parting hence.
On Earth, and in the body plac'd,
A few, and evil years, they waste:
But when their chains are cast aside,
See the glad scene unfolding wide,
Clap the glad wing, and tower away,
And mingle with the blaze of day.

HYMN TO CONTENTMENT, LOVELY, lasting peace of mind! Sweet delight of human kind! Heavenly born, and bred on high, To crown the favourites of the sky With more of happiness below, Than victors in a triumph know! Whither, O whither art thou fled, To lay thy meek contented head; What happy region dost thou please To make the seat of calms and ease! Ambition searches all its sphere

Of pomp and state, to meet thee there. Encreasing Avarice would find

Thy presence in its gold enshrin'd.

The bold adventurer ploughs his way,
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea,
To gain thy love; and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves.
The silent heart, which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,
Sees daisies open, rivers run,
And seeks (as I have vainly done)
Amusing thought; but learns to know
That solitude's the nurse of woe.
No real happiness is found
In trailing purple o'er the ground;
Or in a soul exalted high,

To range the circuit of the sky,
Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below:
The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,
And doubts at last, for knowledge, rise.
Lovely, lasting peace, appear!
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blest,
And man contains it in his breast.

'Twas thus, as under shade I stood,
I sung my wishes to the wood,
And, lost in thought, no more perceiv'd
The branches whisper as they wav'd:
It seem'd as all the quiet place
Confess'd the presence of his grace.
When thus she spoke-" Go rule thy will,
Bid thy wild passions all be still,
Know God and bring thy heart to know
The joys which from religion flow:
Then every grace shall prove its guest,
And I'll be there to crown the rest."

Oh! by yonder mossy seat,
In my hours of sweet retreat,
Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy:
Rais'd as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer;
Pleasing all men, hurting none,

Pleas'd and bless'd with God alone:
Then while the gardens take my sight,
With all the colours of delight;
While silver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my song:
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great source of nature, sing.
The Sun that walks his airy way,
To light the world, and give the day;
The Moon that shines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumber'd waves;
The wood that spreads its shady leaves;
The field whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;
All of these, and all I see,
Should be sung, and sung by me:
They speak their maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go search among your idle dreams,
Your busy or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal bliss,
Or own the next begun in this.

THE HERMIT.

FAR in a wild, unknown to public view, From youth to pge aseverend hermit grew;

« AnteriorContinuar »