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With what vermin else infest
Every dish, and spoil the best;
Frisking thus before the fire,
Thou hast all thine heart's desire.

Though in voice and shape they be
Formed as if akin to thee,
Thou surpassest, happier far,
Happiest grasshoppers that are ;
Theirs is but a summer's song,
Thine endures the winter long,
Unimpaired, and shrill, and clear,
Melody throughout the year.
Neither night, nor dawn of day,
Puts a period to thy play;
Sing then-and extend thy span
Far beyond the date of man;
Wretched man, whose years are spent
In repining discontent,
Lives not, aged though he be,
Half a span compared with thee.

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But 'tis her own important charge To qualify him more at large, And make him quite a wit.

"Sweet Poll!" his doting mistress cries, "Sweet Poll!" the mimic bird replies,

And calls aloud for sack. She next instructs him in the kiss ; 'Tis now a little one, like Miss,

And now a hearty smack.

At first he aims at what he hears;
And, listening close with both his ears,
Just catches at the sound;
But soon articulates aloud,
Much to the amusement of the crowd,
And stuns the neighbours round.

A querulous old woman's voice
His humorous talent next employs,
He scolds and gives the lie.
And now he sings, and now is sick,
"Here Sally, Susan, come, come quick,
Poor Poll is like to die!"
Belinda and her bird! 'tis rare
To meet with such a well-matched pair,
The language and the tone,
Each character in every part
Sustained with so much grace and art,
And both in unison.

When children first begin to spell,
And stammer out a syllable,

We think them tedious creatures;
But difficulties soon abate,
When birds are to be taught to prate,
And women are the teachers.

THE SHRUBBERY.

WRITTEN IN A TIME OF AFFLICTION.

HAPPY shades! to me unblest! Friendly to peace, but not to me! How ill the scene that offers rest,

And heart that cannot rest, agree!

This glassy stream, that spreading pine, Those alders quivering to the breeze, Might soothe a soul less hurt than mine, And please, if anything could please.

But fixed unalterable Care

Foregoes not what she feels within, Shows the same sadness everywhere,

And slights the season and the scene.

For all that pleased in wood or lawn, While Peace possessed these silent bowers,

Her animating smile withdrawn,

Has lost its beauties and its powers. The saint or moralist should tread

This moss-grown alley, musing, slow; They seek like me the secret shade,

But not, like me, to nourish woe! Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste Alike admonish not to roam; These tell me of enjoyments past,

And those of sorrows yet to come.

THE WINTER NOSEGAY.

WHAT Nature, alas! has denied
To the delicate growth of our isle,
Art has in a measure supplied,

And winter is decked with a smile.
See, Mary, what beauties I bring

From the shelter of that sunny shed, Where the flowers have the charms of the spring,

Though abroad they are frozen and dead.

"Tis a bower of Arcadian sweets,

Where Flora is still in her prime, A fortress to which she retreats From the cruel assaults of the clime.

While earth wears a mantle of snow, These pinks are as fresh and as

gay

As the fairest and sweetest that blow On the beautiful bosom of May.

See how they have safely survived

The frowns of a sky so severe; Such Mary's true love, that has lived Through many a turbulent year. The charms of the late-blowing rose

Seem graced with a livelier hue, And the winter of sorrow best shows The truth of a friend such as you.

MUTUAL FORBEARANCE.

NECESSARY TO THE HAPPINESS OF THE MARRIED STATE.

THE lady thus addressed her spouse— "What a mere dungeon is this house! By no means large enough, and was it, Yet this dull room and that dark closet, Those hangings with their worn-out graces,

Long beards, long noses, and pale
faces,

Are such an antiquated scene,
They overwhelm me with the spleen."

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Sir Humphrey, shooting in the dark, Makes answer quite beside the mark : No doubt, my dear, I bade him come, Engaged myself to be at home, And shall expect him at the door, Precisely when the clock strikes four."

"You are so deaf," the lady cried, (And raised her voice, and frowned beside)

"You are so sadly deaf, my dear, What shall I do to make you hear?" "Dismiss poor Harry!" he replies, "Some people are more nice than wise, For one slight trespass all this stir? What if he did ride whip and spur? 'Twas but a mile—your favourite horse Will never look one hair the worse." "Well, I protest 'tis past all bearing !""Child! I am rather hard of hearing.""Yes, truly; one must scream and bawl: I tell you you can't hear at all!" Then, with a voice exceeding low, o matter if you hear or no.'

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Alas! and is domestic strife,
That sorest ill of human life,
A plague so little to be feared,
As to be wantonly incurred,
To gratify a fretful passion,
On every trivial provocation?
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something, every day they live,
To pity and, perhaps, forgive.
But if infirmities, that fall
In common to the lot of all,
A blemish, or a sense impaired,
Are crimes so little to be spared,
Then farewell all that must create
The comfort of the wedded state;
Instead of harmony, 'tis jar,
And tumult and intestine war.

The love that cheers life's latest
stage,

Proof against sickness and old age,
Preserved by virtue from declension,
Becomes not weary of attention;
But lives when that exterior grace
Which first inspired the flame decays.
'Tis gentle, delicate, and kind,
To faults compassionate or blind,
And will with sympathy endure
Those evils it would gladly cure;
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression
Shows love to be a mere profession;
Proves that the heart is none of his,
Or soon expels him if it is.

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON.
AN INVITATION INTO THE COUNTRY.

THE swallows in their torpid state
Compose their useless wing,
And bees in hives as idly wait
The call of early spring.

The keenest frost that binds the stream,
The wildest wind that blows,
Are neither felt nor feared by them,
Secure of their repose:

But man, all feeling and awake,

The gloomy scene surveys;
With present ills his heart must ache,
And pant for brighter days.

Old Winter, halting o'er the mead,
Bids me and Mary mourn;
But lovely Spring peeps o'er his head,
And whispers your return.

Then April with her sister May

Shall chase him from the bowers, And weave fresh garlands every day, To crown the smiling hours.

And if a tear that speaks regret

Of happier times appear,

A glimpse of joy that we have met
Shall shine, and dry the tear.

TRANSLATION OF PRIOR'S CHLOE AND EUPHELIA.

MERCATOR, vigiles oculos ut fallere possit,
Nomine sub ficto trans mare mittit opes;
Lenè sonat liquidumque meis Euphelia chordis,
Sed solam exoptant te, mea vota, Chlöe.

Ad speculum ornabat nitidos Euphelia crines,
Cum dixit mea lux, heus, cane, sume lyram,
Namque lyram juxtà positam cum carmine vidit,
Suave quidem carmen dulcisonamque lyram.

Fila lyræ vocemque paro, suspiria surgunt,
Et miscent numeris murmura mosta meis,
Dumque tuæ memoro laudes, Euphelia, formæ,
Tota anima intereà pendet ab ore Chlöes

Subrubet illa pudore, et contrahit altera frontem,
Me torquet mea mens conscia, psallo, tremo;
Atque Cupidineâ dixit Dea cincta coronâ,
Heu fallendi artem quam didicere parum.

BOADICEA.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,

Sage beneath a spreading oak

Sat the Druid, hoary chief, Every burning word he spoke

Full of rage and full of grief:

AN ODE.

"Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
'Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

"Rome shall perish,-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

"Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground,—
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates.

"Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name, Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

"Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our land, Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command.

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Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride,

Felt them in her bosom glow, Rushed to battle, fought and died, Dying, hurled them at the foe.

"Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heaven awards the vengeance due;
Empire is on us bestowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you!"

HEROISM.

THERE was a time when Etna's silent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire ;
When, conscious of no danger from below,
She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of snow.
No thunders shook with deep intestine sound
The blooming groves that girdled her around;
Her unctuous olives and her purple vines,
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines)
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assured,
In peace upon her sloping sides matured.
When on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration labouring in her womb,
She teemed and heaved with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling seas and solid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rise,
And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies,
While through the Stygian veil that blots the day
In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what muse, and in what powers of song,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devastation in the van,

It marches o'er the prostrate works of man,
Vines, olives, herbage, forests disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.

Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninformed and idle mass,
Without a soil to invite the tiller's care,
Or blade that might redeem it from despair.
Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.

Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.

O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats!
O charming paradise of short-lived sweets!
The self-same gale that wafts the fragrance round
Brings to the distant ear a sullen sound:
Again the mountain feels the imprisoned foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below,

Ten thousand swains the wasted scene deplore,
That only future ages can restore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws,
Who write in blood the merits of your cause,
Who strike the blow, then plead your own defence,
Glory your aim, but Justice your pretence,
Behold in Etna's emblematic fires

The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires!

Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain,
And tells you where ye have a right to reign,
A nation dwells, not envious of your throne,
Studious of peace, their neighbours' and their own.
Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue
Their only crime, vicinity to you!

The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad,
Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road,
At every step beneath their feet they tread
The life of multitudes, a nation's bread!

Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress
Before them, and behind a wilderness;
Famine, and Pestilence her first-born son,
Attend to finish what the sword begun;
And echoing praises such as fiends might earn,
And folly pays, resound at your return.
A calm succeeds ;-but Plenty, with her train
Of heartfelt joys, succeeds not soon again,
And years of pining indigence must show
What scourges are the gods that rule below.

Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees,
(Such is his thirst of opulence and ease,)
Plies all the sinews of industrious toil,
Gleans up the refuse of the general spoil,
Rebuilds the towers that smoked upon the plain,
And the sun gilds the shining spires again.

Increasing commerce and reviving art
Renew the quarrel on the conqueror's part;
And the sad lesson must be learned once more,
That wealth within is ruin at the door.

What are ye, monarchs, laurelled heroes, say, But Ætnas of the suffering world ye sway? Sweet Nature, stripped of her embroidered robe, Deplores the wasted regions of her globe,

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