Nor under guidance of the polar fire,
Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,
Grazing at large in meadows submarine,
Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps
Above the brine,-where Caledonia's rocks
Beat back the surge,-and where Hibernia shoots
Her wondrous causeway far into the main.
Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,
And I not more, that I should feed on thee.
Peace, therefore, and good health, and much good fish,
To him who sent thee! and success, as oft
As it descends into the billowy gulf,
To the same drag that caught thee !-Fare thee well! Thy lot thy brethren of the slimy fin
Would envy, could they know that thou wast doomed To feel a bard, and to be praised in verse.
THE poplars are felled; farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew;
And now in the grass behold they are laid
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade!
The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.
My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead,
'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man ;
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.
POPULEE cecidit gratissima copia silvæ,
Conticuêre susurri, omnisque evanuit umbra.
Nullæ jam levibus se miscent frondibus auræ,
Et nulla in fluvio ramorum ludit imago.
Hei mihi! bis senos dum luctu torqueor annos,
His cogor silvis suetoque carere recessu,
Cum sero rediens, stratasque in gramine cernens,
Insedi arboribus sub queîs errare solebam.
Ah ubi nunc merulæ cantus ? Felicior illum
Silva tegit, duræ nondum permissa bipenni;
Scilicet exustos colles camposque patentes
Odit et indignans et non rediturus abivit.
Sed qui succisas doleo succidar et ipse,
Et prius huic parilis quam creverit altera silva
Flebor, et, exequiis parvis donatus, habebo
Defixum lapidem tumulique cubantis acervum.
Tam subito periisse videns tam digna manere,
Agnosco humanas sortes et tristia fata—
Sit licet ipse brevis volucrique simillimus umbræ
Est homini brevior citiusque obitura voluptas.
WRITTEN ON A PAGE OF "THE MONThly Review"
WHICH HAD SPOKEN OF MR. NEWTON'S OPINIONS AS CANT
THESE critics, who to faith no quarter grant,
But call it mere hypocrisy and cant
To make a just acknowledgment of praise
And thanks to God for governing our ways,
Approve Confucius more, and Zoroaster,
Than Christ's own servant, or that servant's Master.
HERE Johnson lies, a sage by all allowed,
Whom to have bred may well make England proud;
Whose prose was eloquence by wisdom taught,
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY H. ROBINSON AFTER A DRAWING BY W. HARVEY OF THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY F. COTES
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!
ON THE AUTHOR OF "LETTERS ON LITERATURE
THE genius of the Augustan age
His head among Rome's ruins reared,
And bursting with heroic rage
When literary Heron appeared,
"Thou hast," he cried, "like him of old
Who set the Ephesian dome on fire,
By being scandalously bold
Attained the mark of thy desire;
"And for traducing Virgil's name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame
That rots, and stinks and is abhorred."
To MISS CREUZÉ, ON HER BIRTHDAY
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 that so stately appears,
With ribbon-bound tassel on high,
Which seems by the crest that it rears
Ambitious of brushing the sky:
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