Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

THE POET'S NEW YEAR'S GIFT,

TO LADY THROCKMORTON.

MARIA! I have every good

For thee wished many a time, Both sad, and in a cheerful mood, But never yet in rhime.

To wish thee fairer is no need,
More prudent, or more sprightly,
Or more ingenious, or more freed
From temper-flaws unsightly.

What favour then not yet possessed
Can I for thee require,

In wedded love already blest,

To thy whole heart's desire?

None here is happy but in part:

Full bliss is bliss divine;

There dwells some wish in every heart,

And doubtless one in thine.

That wish, on some fair future day,
Which fate shall brightly gild,

"Tis blameless, be it what it may)
I wish it all fulfilled.

ODE TO APOLLO.

ON AN INK GLASS ALMOST DRIED IN THE SUN.

PATRON of all those luckless brains,
That to the wrong side leaning
Indite much metre with much pains,
And little or no meaning.

Ah why, since oceans, rivers, streams,

1

That water all the nations,

Pay tribute to thy glorious beams,

In constant exhalations,

Why, stooping from the noon of day,

Too covetous of drink,

Apollo, hast thou stolen away

A poet's drop of ink?

Upborne into the viewless air,

It floats a vapour now,

Impelled through regions dense and rare,

By all the winds that blow.

Ordained perhaps ere summer flies,
Combined with millions more,

To form an Iris in the skies,

Though black and foul before.

Illustrious drop! and happy then
Beyond the happiest lot,

Of all that ever past my pen,
So soon to be forgot!

Phoebus, if such be thy design,

To place it in thy bow,

Give wit, that what is left may shine
With equal grace below.

[merged small][ocr errors]

PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED.

A FABLE.

I SHALL not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau*,
If birds confabulate or no;

'Tis clear that they were always able
To hold discourse, at least, in fable;

And e'en the child, who knows no better,
Than to interpret by the letter,

A story of a cock and bull,

Must have a most uncommon skull.

It chanced then on a winter's day,
But warm and bright, and calm as May,

* It was one of the whimsical speculations of this philosopher, that all fables which ascribe reason and speech to animals should be withheld from children, as being only vehicles of deception. But what child was ever deceived by them, or can be, against the evidence of his senses?

« ForrigeFortsett »