"Tis manly musick, such as martyrs make, 775 780 785 To give dissimilar, yet fruitful lands, The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands; And share the joys your bounty may create; 790 To mark the matchless workings of the pow'r, That shuts within its seed the future flow'r, In colour these, and those delight the smell Feebly and vainly at poetick fame,) 795 800 Employs, shut out from more important views, 805 A monitor's though not a poet's praise, To close life wisely, may not waste my own. 171 THE YEARLY DISTRESS, OR, TITHING TIME AT STOCK, IN ESSEX, Verses addressed to a country clergyman, complaining of the disagreeableness of the day annually appointed for receiving the dues at the parsonage. COME, ponder well, for 'tis no jest, To laugh it would be wrong, The priest he merry is and blithe, He then is full of frights and fears, For then the farmers come, jog, jog, Along the miry road, Each heart as heavy as a log, To make their payments good. In sooth, the sorrow of such days When he that takes, and he that pays, Now all unwelcome at his gates The clumsy swains alight, With rueful faces and bald patesHe trembles at the sight. And well he may, for well he knows So in they come-each makes his leg, And not to quit a score. "And how does miss and madam do, "The little boy, and all?" "All tight and well. And how do you, "Good Mr. What-d'ye-call?" The dinner comes, and down they sit : One wipes his nose upon his sleeve, One spits upon the floor, Yet not to give offence or grieve, Holds up the cloth before. The punch goes round, and they are dull And lumpish still as ever; Like barrels with their bellies full, They only weigh the heavier. At length the busy time begins, One talks of mildew and of frost, And one of storms of hail, And one of pigs, that he has lost By maggots at the tail. Quoth one, "A rarer man than you "In pulpit none shall hear : "But yet, methinks, to tell you true, O why are farmers made so coarse, A kick that scarce would move a horse, Then let the boobies stay at home; SONNET ADDRESSED TO HENRY COWPER, ESQ. On his emphatical and interesting delivery of the defence of Warren Hastings, Esq. in the House of Lords. "COWPER, whose silver voice, task'd sometimes hard Legends prolix delivers in the ears, (Attentive when thou read'st,) of England's peers, Let vorse at length yield thee thy just reward. Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard, Thou art not voice alone, but hast beside Both heart and head; and couldst with musick sweet Like thy renown'd forefathers, far and wide |