She left the cares of life behind,
And slept as she would sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclin'd,
The chambermaid, and shut it fast,
By no malignity impell'd,

But all unconscious whom it held.

Awaken'd by the shock, (cried puss)
"Was ever cat attended thus!
The open draw was left 1 see,

Merely to prove a nest for me,
For soon as I was well compos'd,

Then came the maid, and it was clos'd.

flow smooth these 'kerchiefs and how sweet!

Oh what a delicate retreat!

I will resign myself to rest

Till Sol declining in the west,

Shall call to supper, when no doubt,

Susan will come and let me out."

The evening came, the sun descended, And Puss remain'd still unattended.

The night roll'd tardily away,

(With her indeed 'twas never day,)

The sprightly morn her course renew'd,

The evening gray again ensu'd,

And Puss came into mind no more,

Than if entomb'd the day before.

With hunger pinch'd, and pinch'd for room,

She now presag`d approaching doom,
Nor slept a single wink, or purr'd,

Conscious of jeopardy incurr'd!

That night, by chance, the poet watching, Heard an inexplicable scratching ;

His noble heart went pit-a-pat,

And to himself he said-"what's that ?"

He drew the curtain at his side,
And forth he peep'd, but nothing spied.
Yet, by his ear directed, guess'd
Something imprison'd in the chest,
And, doubtful what, with prudent care
Resolv'd it should continue there.

At length a voice which well he knew,
A long and melancholy mew,
Saluting his poetick ears,

Consol'd him, and dispell'd his fears;
He left his bed, he trod the floor,

He 'gan in haste the draw'rs t' explore,
The lowest first, and without stop
The rest in order to the top.

For 'tis a truth well known to most,

That whatsoever thing is lost,

We seek it, ere it come to light,

In ev'ry cranny but the right.

Forth skipp'd the cat, not now replete
As erst with airy self-conceit,
Nor in her own fond apprehension
A theme for all the world's attention,
But modest, sober, cur'd of all
Her notions hyperbolical,
And wishing for a place of rest,
Any thing rather than a chest.
Then stepp'd the poet into bed
With this reflection in his head.

MORAL.

Beware of too sublime a sense

Of your own worth and consequence,
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around in all that's done
Must move and act for Him alone,
We learn in school of tribulation
The folly of his expectation.

YARDLEY OAK.

[1791]

SURVIVOR Sole, and hardly such, of all,
That once liv'd here, thy brethren, at my birth,
(Since which I number threescore winters past,)
A shatter'd vet'ran, hollow-trunk'd perhaps,
As now, and with excoriate forks deform,
Relicks of Ages! Could a mind, imbued

With truth from Heaven, created thing adore,
I might with rev'rence kreel, and worship thee.

It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagin'd sanctity. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentick act

Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
Lov'd not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscrib'd, as to a refuge, fled.

Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,

Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay,
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd
The Auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs,
And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp.

But Fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains
Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the soil
Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar'd
The soft receptacle, in which, secure,

Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through
VOL. III.

10

So Fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, Ye reas'ners broad awake, whose busy search Of argument, employ'd too oft amiss,

Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!

Thou fell'st mature and in the loany clod
Swelling with vegetative force instinct

Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins,
Now stars; two lobes, protruding, pair'd exact;
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,

And, all the elements thy puny growth

Fost'ring propitious, thou becam`st a twig.

Who liv'd when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou

speak,

As in Dodona once thy kindred trees

Oracular, I would not curious, ask

The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past.

By thee I might correct, erroneous oft,
The clock of history, facts and events
Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts
Recov`ring, and misstated setting right--
Desp'rate attempt till trees shall speak again!

Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods And Time hath made thee what thou art-a cave For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign; and the num'rous flocks That graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe-shelter'd from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outliv'd Thy popularity, and art become

(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.

While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd
Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass;
Then twig; then sapling; and, as cent`ry roll'd
Slow after century, a giant-bulk

Of girth enormous, with moss cushion'd root
Upheav'd above the soil, and sides emboss'd
With prominent wens globose-till at the last
The rottenness, which time is charg'd to inflict
On other mighty ones, found also thec.

What exhibitions va.1ous hath the worid Witness'd of mutability

all

That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. Skies uncertain now the heat
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds---
Calm and alternate storin, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life

In all that live, plant, animal, and man,

And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads,
Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,
Delight in agitation, yet sustain

The force, that agitates, not unimpair'd ;
But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their best tone their dissolution owe.

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth
From almost nullity into a state

Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence,
Slow, into such magnificent decay.

Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly

Could shake thee to the root-and time has been

When tempests could not. At thy firmest age

Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents,

That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the deck