Sure thou wast never born

Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head,
Nor lectured night and morn

Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread,
Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire
To play with fire.

O didst thou never, in those days gone by,
Go carrying about-no schoolboy prouder-
Instead of waxen doll a little Guy;
Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein,
Up the parental pigtail lay a train,
To let off all his powder!

Full of the wildfire of thy youth,
Did'st never in plain truth,

Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother's pots,
Turning the garden into powder plots?
Or give the cook, to fright her,

Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre?
Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping
A lighted cracker by thy sister's Dear,
So that she could not hear

The question he was popping?

Go on, Madame! Go on-be bright and busy
While hoaxed Astronomers look up and stare
From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy,
To see a Squib in Cassiopeia's Chair!
A Serpent wriggling into Charles's Wain!
A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear!
A Rocket tangled in Diana's train,
And Crackers stuck in Berenice's Hair!

There is a King of Fire-Thou shouldst be Queen!
Methinks a good connection might come from it;
Could'st thou not make him, in the garden scene,
Set out per Rocket and return per Comet;
Then give him a hot treat

Of Pyrotechnicals to sit and sup,

Lord! how the world would throng to see him eat,
He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up!

One solitary night-true is the story,
Watching those forms that Fancy will create
Within the bright confusion of the grate,
I saw a dazzling countenance of glory!
Oh Dei gratias !

That fiery facias

'T was thine, Enchantress of the Surrey Grove; And ever since that night,

In dark and bright,

Thy face is registered within my stove!

Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays
May no untimely blow its doom forestall;
But when old age prepares the friendly pall,
When the last spark of all thy sparks decays,
Then die lamented by good people all,

Like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize!

ODE TO MR. MALTHUS.“

My dear, do pull the bell,

And pull it well,

And send those noisy children all up stairs,

Now playing here like bears—

You George, and William, go into the grounds,

Charles, James, and Bob are there-and take your string, Drive horses, or fly kites, or any thing,

You're quite enough to play at hare and hounds

You little May, and Caroline, and Poll,

Take each your doll,

And go, my dears, into the two-back pair,
Your sister Margaret's there-

Harriet and Grace, thank God, are both at school,
At far off Ponty Pool-

I want to read, but really can't go on-
Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John,
Go-to their nursery-go-I never can
Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan!

Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree

In every thing I read with thee!
The world's too full, there is no doubt,
And wants a deal of thinning out-
It's plain-as plain as Harrow's Steeple
And I agree with some thus far,
Who say the Queen's too popular,
That is-she has too many people,
There are too many of all trades,
Too many bakers,

Too many every-thing makers,
But not too many undertakers-

Too many boys

Too many hobby-de-hoys—

Too many girls, men, widows, wives, and maids

There is a dreadful surplus to demolish,

And yet some Wrongheads,

With thick not long heads,

Poor metaphysicians!
Sign petitions

Capital punishment to abolish;

And in the face of censuses, such vast ones,

New hospitals contrive,

For keeping life alive,

Laying first stones, the dolts! instead of last ones!Others, again, in the same contrariety,

Deem that of all Humane Society

They really deserve thanks,

Because the two banks of the Serpentine,
By their design,

Are Saving Banks.

Oh! were it given but to me to weed
The human breed,

And root out here and there some cumbering elf,
I think I could go through it,
And really do it

With profit to the world and to myself-
For instance, the unkind among the Editors,
My debtors, those I mean to say
Who cannot or who will not pay,

And all my creditors,

These, for my own sake, I'd destroy;
But for the world's, and every one's,
I'd hoe up Mrs. G—'s two sons,
And Mrs. B-'s big little boy,
Called only by herself an "only joy."
As Mr. Irving's chapel's not too full,
Himself alone I'd pull—

But for the peace of years that have to run,
I'd make the Lord Mayor's a perpetual station,
And put a period to rotation,

By rooting up all Aldermen but one

These are but hints what good might thus be done! But ah! I fear the public good

Is little by the public understood

For instance-if with flint, and steel, and tinder,
Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man,
Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan,
No doubt some busy fool would hinder
His burning all the Foundling to a cinder.

Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday,
That wine and bun-day,

Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats,
Before they died by bit or sup,

Some meddling Marplot would blow up,

Just at the moment critical,

The economy political

Of saving their fresh yellow plush and new coats.

Equally 't would be undone,
Suppose the Bishop of London,

On that great day

In June or May,

When all the large small family of charity,

Brown, black, or carrotty,

Walk in their dusty parish shoes,

In too, too many two-and-twos,

To sing together till they scare the walls
Of old St. Paul's,

Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white,

Some say a gratifying sight,

Tho' I think sad-but that's a schism

To witness so much pauperism—