Forgive the bard, if bard he be, That symbol of thy power, the pipe; And so may smiling peace once more And thou, secure from all alarms, Of thundering drums and glittering arms, May Newton with renew'd delights While clouds of incense half divine EPITAPH ON MRS. M. HIGGINS, OF WESTON. LAURELS may flourish round the conqueror's tomb, But happiest they who win the world to come: Believers have a silent field to fight, And their exploits are veil'd from human sight. They in some nook, where little known they dwell, Kneel, pray in faith, and rout the hosts of hell; 1791. SONNET TO A YOUNG LADY ON HER BIRTH-DAY. DEEM not, sweet rose, that bloom'st 'midst many a thorn, Thy friend, tho' to a cloister's shade consign'd, ON A MISTAKE IN HIS TRANSLATION OF HOMER. COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse, If, bound in rhyming tethers, He had committed this abuse Of changing ewes for wethers;* * I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas, which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.-Letter to Joseph Hill, Esq., dated April 15, 1792. But, male for female is a trope, That would have startled even Pope, ON THE BENEFIT RECEIVED BY HIS MAJESTY, FROM SEA-BATHING IN THE YEAR 1789. O SOVEREIGN of an isle renown'd For undisputed sway, Wherever o'er yon gulf profound With juster claims she builds at length And well may boast the waves her strength, ADDRESSED TO MISS ON READING THE PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE.* AND dwells there in a female heart, By bounteous Heaven design'd, The choicest raptures to impart, To feel the most refined Dwells there a wish in such a breast Its nature to forego, To smother in ignoble rest At once both bliss and woe! Far be the thought, and far the strain, *For Mrs. Greville's Ode, see Annual Register, vol. v. p. 202. How sweet so'er the verse complain, Come, then, fair maid, (in nature wise,) In justice to the various powers With lenient balm my Oberon hence With every herb that blunts the sense Oh! if my sovereign Author please, To live unbless'd in torpid ease, "Each tender tie of life defied, Whence social pleasures spring, Some Alpine mountain, wrapt in snow, In vain warm suns their influence shed, He rears unchanged his barren head, What though in scaly armor dress'd, The shafts of wo-in such a breast 'Tis woven in the world's great plan, 'Tis nature bids, and whilst the laws Thus grief itself has comforts dear The sordid never know; And ecstacy attends the tear When virtue bids it flow. For, when it streams from that pure source, To check, or alter from its course, Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves, Let no low thought suggest the prayer, Sweet Sensibility! Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen, With lustre-beaming eye, |