FULL thirty frosts since thou wert young
Have chilled the withered grove,
Thou wretch! and hast thou lived so long,
Nor yet forgot to love!
Ye Sages! spite of your pretences
To wisdom, you must own
Your folly frequently commences
When you acknowledge none.
Not that I deem it weak to love,
Or folly to admire ;
But ah! the pangs we lovers prove
Far other years require.
Unheeded on the youthful brow The beams of Phoebus play; But unsupported Age stoops low Beneath the sultry ray.
For once, then, if untutored youth,
Youth unapproved by years,
May chance to deviate into truth,
When your experience errs;
For once attempt not to despise
What I esteem a rule:
Who early loves, though young, is wise,-
Who old, though grey, a fool.
ON READING MR. RICHARDSON'S HISTORY OF SIR CHARLES GRANDISON.
IN A LETTER TO C. P., ESQ.
GRANT me the Muse, ye gods! whose humble flight
Seeks not the mountain-top's pernicious height;
Who can the tall Parnassian cliff forsake,
To visit oft the still Lethean lake;
Now her slow pinions brush the silent shore,
Now gently skim the unwrinkled waters o'er,
There dips her downy plumes, thence upward flies,
And sheds soft slumbers on her votary's eyes.
IN IMITATION OF SHAKESPEARE.
TRUST me, the meed of praise, dealt thriftily
From the nice scale of judgment, honours more
Than does the lavish and o'erbearing tide
Of profuse courtesy. Not all the gems
Of India's richest soil at random spread
O'er the gay vesture of some glittering dame,
Give such alluring vantage to the person,
As the scant lustre of a few, with choice
And comely guise of ornament disposed.
THIS evening, Delia, you and I
Have managed most delightfully,
For with a frown we parted;
Having contrived some trifle that
We both may be much troubled at,
And sadly disconcerted.
Yet well as each performed their part,
We might perceive it was but art;
And that we both intended
To sacrifice a little ease;
For all such petty flaws as these
Are made but to be mended.
You knew, dissembler! all the while,
How sweet it was to reconcile
After this heavy pelt;
That we should gain by this allay
When next we met, and laugh away
The care we never felt.
Happy! when we but seek to endure
A little pain, then find a cure
By double joy requited;
For friendship, like a severed bone,
Improves and gains a stronger tone
When aptly reunited.
(THE DELIVERY OF IT PREVENTED BY A RECONCILIATION.)
THINK, Delia, with what cruel haste
Our fleeting pleasures move,
Nor heedless thus in sorrow waste
The moments due to love;
Be wise, my fair, and gently treat
These few that are our friends;
Think, thus abused, what sad regret
Their speedy flight attends !
Sure in those eyes I love so well, And wished so long to see, Anger I thought could never dwell, Or anger aimed at me.
No bold offence of mine I knew
Should e'er provoke your hate; And, early taught to think you true, Still hoped a gentler fate.
SEE where the Thames, the purest
That wavers to the noon-day beam,
Divides the vale below;
While like a vein of liquid ore
His waves enrich the happy shore,
Still shining as they flow!
Nor yet, my Delia, to the main
Runs the sweet tide without a stain,
Unsullied as it seems;
The nymphs of many a sable flood
Deform with streaks of oozy mud
The bosom of the Thames. Some idle rivulets, that feed And suckle every noisome weed, A sandy bottom boast; For ever bright, for ever clear, The trifling shallow rills appear In their own channel lost. Thus fares it with the human soul, Where copious floods of passion roll, By genuine love supplied;
How blest the youth whom Fate ordains A kind relief from all his pains,
In some admired fair;
Whose tenderest wishes find expressed
Their own resemblance in her breast,
Exactly copied there!
What good soe'er the gods dispense,
The enjoyment of its influence
Still on her love depends;
Her love, the shield that guards his heart,
Or wards the blow, or blunts the dart
That peevish Fortune sends.
Thus, Delia, while thy love endures,
The flame my happy breast secures
From Fortune's fickle power;
With kindness bless the present hour,
Or oh! we meet in vain!
What can we do in absence more
Than suffer and complain?
Fated to ills beyond redress,
We must endure our woe; The days allowed us to possess, 'Tis madness to forego.
Fair in itself the current shows,
But ah! a thousand anxious woes
Pollute the noble tide.
These are emotions known to few
;
For where at most a vapoury dew
Surrounds the tranquil heart,
There as the triflers never prove
The glad excess of real love,
They never prove the smart.
Oh then, my life, at last relent!
Though cruel the reproach I sent,
My sorrow was unfeigned:
Your passion, had I loved you not,
You might have scorned, renounced,
forgot,
And I had ne'er complained. While you indulge a groundless fear, The imaginary woes you bear
Are real woes to me :
But thou art kind, and good thou art, Nor wilt, by wronging thine own heart, Unjustly punish me.
Change as she list, she may increase,
But not abate my happiness,
Confirmed by thee before.
Thus while I share her smiles with thee,
Welcome, my love, shall ever be
The favours she bestows;
Yet not on those I found my bliss,
But in the noble ecstasies
The faithful bosom knows.
And when she prunes her wings for flight,
And flutters nimbly from my sight,
Contented I resign
Whate'er she gave; thy love alone
I can securely call my own,
Happy while that is mine.
AN EPISTLE TO ROBERT LLOYD, ESQ.
'Tis not that I design to rob
Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,
For thou art born sole heir and single
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;
Nor that I mean, while thus I knit
My threadbare sentiments together,
To show my genius or my wit,
When God and you know I have neither;
Or such, as might be better shown
By letting poetry alone.
'Tis not with either of these views
That I presume to address the Muse:
But to divert a fierce banditti
(Sworn foes to every thing that's witty),
That, with a black infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense:
The fierce banditti which I mean,
Are gloomy thoughts led on by Spleen.
Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit
The debt which justly became due
The moment when I heard from you:
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin;
Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows,
(I would say twenty sheets of prose,)
Can ne'er be deemed worth half so much
As one of gold, and yours was such.
Thus the preliminaries settled,
I fairly find myself pitch-kettled;
And cannot see, though few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.
First, for a thought-since all agree-
A thought-I have it-let me see-
'Tis gone again-plague on't! I thought
I had it but I have it not.
Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone,
Rake well the cinders, sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And Gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw she sees.
This simile were apt enough,
But I've another, critic-proof.
The virtuoso thus at noon,
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded butterfly pursues
O'er hedge and ditch, through gaps and
And after many a vain essay
To captivate the tempting prey,
Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe beneath his hat:
Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But ah! 'tis lost as soon as found;
Culprit his liberty regains;
Flits out of sight and mocks his pains.
The sense was dark, 'twas therefore fit
With simile to illustrate it;
But as too much obscures the sight,
As often as too little light,
We have our similes cut short,
For matters of more grave import.
That Matthew's numbers run with ease
Each man of common sense agrees;
All men of common sense allow,
That Robert's lines are easy too;
Where then the preference shall we
place,
Or how do justice in this case?
"Matthew," says Fame, "with endless
pains
Smoothed and refined the meanest strains,
Nor suffered one ill-chosen rhyme
To escape him at the idlest time;
And thus o'er all a lustre cast,
That while the language lives shall
last."
"An't please your ladyship," quoth I,
(For 'tis my business to reply,)
"Sure so much labour, so much toil,
Bespeak at least a stubborn soil.
Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,
Who both write well and write full speed;
Who throw their Helicon about
As freely as a conduit spout!
Friend Robert, thus like chien sçavant,
Lets fall a poem en passant,
Nor needs his genuine ore refine;
'Tis ready polished from the mine."
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