The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heav'n that thou alone canst make,
And wilt thou quit the stream
That murmurs through the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequester'd shed,
To be a guest with them?
For thee I panted, thee I prized,
For thee I gladly sacrificed
Whate'er I loved before,
And shall I see thee start away,
And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say-
Farewell! we meet no more?
WEAK and irresolute is man;
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.
The bow well bent and smart the spring
Vice seems already slain,
But passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.
Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part,
Virtue engages his assent,
But pleasure wins his heart.
'Tis here the folly of the wise
Through all his art we view,
And while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.
Bound on a voyage of awful length,
And dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast,
The breath of heav'n must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost,
REBELLION is my theme all day,
I only wish 'twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may)
A little nearer home.
Yon roaring boys who rave and fight
On t'other side the Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so, when most frantic.
When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
But oh! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flow'rs she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about your ears.
Such civil broils are my delight,
Though some folks can't endure 'em,
Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure 'em.
A rope! I wish we patriots had
Such strings for all who need 'em-
What! hang a man for going mad?
Then farewell British freedom.
ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE RECORDED IN THE "BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA."
OH fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from fame's neglecting hand:
Lethean gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire,
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark,
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
OF AN ADJUDGED CASE NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY
OF THE BOOKS.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So the Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning,
While Chief Baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear,
And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find,
That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,
Which amounts to possession time out of mind.
Then, holding the spectacles up to the court--
Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle,
As wide as the ridge of the Nose is, in short,
Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
Again would your lordship a moment suppose
('Tis a case that has happen'd, and may be again)
That the visage, or countenance, had not a Nose,
Pray who would or who could wear spectacles then?
On the whole it appears, and my argument shows,
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.
Then, shifting his side as a lawyer knows how,
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes,
But what were his arguments few people know,
For the court did not think they were equally wise.
So his lordship decreed with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear without one if or but-
That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on
By daylight or candlelight-Eyes should be shut.
ON THE BURNING OF LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY,
TOGETHER WITH HIS MSS. BY THE MOB, IN THE MONTH
OF JUNE, 1780.
So then the Vandals of our isle.
Sworn foes to sense and law,
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
That ever Roman saw!
And Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift,
And many a treasure more,
The well-judged purchase and the gift
That graced his letter'd store.
Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,
The loss was his alone,
But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own.
WHEN wit and genius meet their doom
In all devouring flame,
They tell us of the fate of Rome,
And bid us fear the same.
O'er Murray's loss the muses wept,
They felt the rude alarm,
Yet bless'd the guardian care that kept
His sacred head from harm.
There mem'ry, like the bee that's fed
From Flora's balmy store,
The quintessence of all he read
Had treasured up before.
The lawless herd with fury blind
Have done him cruel wrong,
The flow'rs are gone-but still we find
The honey on his tongue.'
THE LOVE OF THE WORLD REPROVED;
THUS says the prophet of the Turk,
Good Mussulman abstain from pork;
There is a part in ev'ry swine,
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination,
On pain of excommunication.
Such Mahomet's mysterious charge,
And thus he left the point at large.
Had he the sinful part express'd
They might with safety eat the rest;
But for one piece they thought it hard
From the whole hog to be debarr'd,
And set their wit at work to find
What joint the prophet had in mind.
Much controversy straight arose,
These choose the back, the belly those;
By some 'tis confidently said
He meant not to forbid the head,
While others at that doctrine rail,
And piously prefer the tail.
Thus, conscience freed from ev'ry clog,
Mahometans eat up the hog.
You laugh-'tis well-the tale applied
May make you laugh on t'other side.
Renounce the world, the preacher cries-→
We do-a multitude replies;
While one as innocent regards
A snug and friendly game at cards;
'Cowper regarded Lord Mansfield with the warmest admiration. Writing of his monument to Hayley (August 27, 1793), he observed,-"I would give much to be able to communicate to Flaxman the perfect idea that I have of the subject, such as he was forty years ago. He was, at that time, wonderfully handsome, and would expound the inost mysterious intricacies of the law, or recapitulate both matter and evidence of a cause, as long as from hence to Eartham, with an intelligent smile on his features, that bespoke plainly the perfect ease with which he did it."
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