Few with more fire on every subject spoke,
But chief he loved the gay immoral joke;
The words most sacred, stole from holy writ,
He gave a newer form, and call'd them wit.

Vice never had a more sincere ally,
So bold no sinner, yet no saint so sly;

Learn'd, but not wise, and without virtue
brave,

A gay, deluding, philosophic knave.
When Bacchus' joys his airy fancy fire,
They stir a new, but still a false desire

And to the comfort of each untaught fool,
Horace in English vindicates the bowl.

The empty laugh, discretion's vainest foe,
From fool to fool re-echoed to and fro;
The sly indecency, that slowly springs
From barren wit, and halts on trembling
wings:

Enough of these, and all the charms of wine,
Be sober joys, and social evenings mine;
Where peace and reason, unsoil'd mirth im-
prove

The powers of friendship and the joys of love;
Where thought meets thought ere words its
form array,

And all is sacred, elegant, and gay:
Such pleasure leaves no sorrow on the mind,
Too great to pall, to sicken too refined;
Too soft for noise, and too sublime for art,

'The man,' says Timon, who is drunk is The social solace of the feeling heart,

blest,1

No fears disturb, no cares destroy his rest;
In thoughtless joy he reels away his life,
Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife.'

Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women

come,

And thunders worse than thine afflict the room,

Where one eternal nothing flutters round,
And senseless titt'ring sense of mirth con-
found;

Or lead me bound to garret, Babel-higi,
Where frantic poet rolls his crazy eye,
Tiring the ear with oft-repeated chimes,
And smiling at the never-ending rhymes:
E'en here, or there, I'll be as blest as Jove,
Give me tobacco, and the wine I love.'
Applause from hands the dying accents break,
Of stagg'ring sots who vainly try to speak;
From Milo, him who hangs upon each word,
And in loud praises splits the tortured board,
Collects each sentence, ere it's better known,
And makes the mutilated joke his own,
At weekly club to flourish, where he rules,
The glorious president of grosser fools.
But cease, my Muse! of those, or these
enough,

The fools who listen, and the knaves who
scoff;

The jest profane, that mocks th' offended

God,

Defies his power, and sets at nought his rod;

1 Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
Non eget,' &c., &c.--HORACE.

For sloth too rapid, and for wit too high,
'Tis VIRTUE'S pleasure, and can never die !

THE LEARNING OF LOVE
[1776 ?]

AH! blest be the days when with Mira I took
The learning of Love...

When we pluck'd the wild blossoms that
blush'd in the grass,

And I taught my dear maid of their species and class;

For Conway, the friend of mankind, had decreed

That Hudson should show us the wealth of the mead.

YE GENTLE GALES

Woodbridge, 1776.
YE gentle Gales, that softly move,
Go whisper to the Fair I love;
Tell her I languish and adore,
And pity in return implore.
But if she 's cold to my request,
Ye louder Winds, proclaim the rest-
My sighs, my tears, my griefs proclaim,
And speak in strongest notes my flame.
Still if she rests in mute disdain,
And thinks I feel a common pain-
Wing'd with my woes, ye Tempests, fly,
And tell the haughty Fair I die.

Aldborough, 1779.
THINK ye the joys that fill our early day,
Are the poor prelude to some full repast?
Think you they promise?-ah! believe they
pay;

The purest ever, they are oft the last.
The jovial swain that yokes the morning team,
And all the verdure of the field enjoys,
See him, how languid! when the noontide

beam

Plays on his brow, and all his force destroys.
So 'tis with us, when, love and pleasure fled,
We at the summit of our hill arrive :
Lo! the gay lights of Youth are past-are
dead,

But what still deepening clouds of Care
survive!

THE SACRAMENT

Vouchsafe to me that spirit, Lord!
Which points the sacred way,
And let thy creatures here below
Instruct me how to pray.

FRAGMENT WRITTEN AT

MIDNIGHT

Aldborough, 1779.

OH, great Apollo! by whose equal aid
The verse is written, and the med'cine made;
Shall thus a boaster, with his fourfold powers,
In triumph scorn this sacred art of ours?
Insulting quack! on thy sad business go,
And land the stranger on this world of woe.
Still I pass on, and now before me find
The restless ocean, emblem of my mind ;
There wave on wave, here thought on thought
succeeds,

Their produce idle works, and idle weeds :
Dark is the prospect o'er the rolling sea,

Aldborough, 1779. But not more dark than my sad views to me;
Yet from the rising moon the light beams

O! SACRED gift of God to man,
A faith that looks above,

And sees the deep amazing plan
Of sanctifying love.

Thou dear and yet tremendous God,
Whose glory pride reviles;
How did'st thou change thy awful rod
To pard'ning grace and smiles!
Shut up with sin, with shame, below,
I trust, this bondage past,
A great, a glorious change to know,
And to be bless'd at last.

I do believe, that, God of light!

Thou didst to earth descend,
With Satan and with Sin to fight-
Our great, our only friend.

I know thou did'st ordain for me,
Thy creature, bread and wine;
The depth of grace I cannot see,
But worship the design.

NIGHT

dance

In troubled splendour o'er the wide expanse;
So on my soul, whom cares and troubles fright,
The Muse pours comfort in a flood of light.—
Shine out, fair flood! until the day-star flings
His brighter rays on all sublunar things.

'Why in such haste? by all the powers of
wit,

I have against thee neither bond nor writ;
If thou'rt a poet, now indulge the flight
Of thy fine fancy in this dubious light;
Cold, gloom, and silence shall assist thy
rhyme,

And all things meet to form the true sub-
lime.'-

'Shall I, preserver deem'd around the place,
With abject rhymes a doctor's name disgrace?
Nor doctor solely, in the healing art
I'm all in all, and all in every part;
Wise Scotland's boast let that diploma be
Which gave me right to claim the golden fee:
Praise, then, I claim, to skilful surgeon due,
For mine th' advice and operation too;
And, fearing all the vile compounding tribe,
Aldborough, 1779. I make myself the med'cines I prescribe ;

THE sober stillness of the night

That fills the silent air,

And all that breathes along the shore
Invite to solemn prayer.

Mine, too, the chemic art; and not a drop
Goes to my patients from a vulgar shop.
But chief my fame and fortune I command
From the rare skill of this obstetric hand:

This our chaste dames and prudent wives

allow,

With her who calls me from thy wonder now.'

A FAREWELL
[1779]

THE hour arrived! I sigh'd and said,
How soon the happiest hours are fled!
On wings of down they lately flew,
But then their moments pass'd with you;
And still with you could I but be,
On downy wings they'd always flee.
Say, did you not, the way you went,
Feel the soft balm of gay content?
Say, did you not all pleasures find,
Of which you left so few behind ?
I think you did for well I know
My parting prayer would make it so!
May she, I said, life's choicest goods partake;
Those, late in life, for nobler still forsake-
The bliss of one, th' esteem'd of many live,
With all that Friendship would, and all that
Love can give !

TIME
[1780]

'THE clock struck one! we take no thought
of Time,'

Wrapt up in night, and meditating rhyme:
All big with vision, we despise the powers
That vulgar beings link to days and hours;
Those vile, mechanic things, that rule our
hearts,

And cut our lives in momentary parts.
'That speech of Time was Wisdom's gift,'
said Young:

Ah, Doctor! better Time would hold his
tongue :

Pluck gain (as Percy honour) from the moon ;
As soon grow rich by ministerial nods,
As soon divine by dreaming of the gods,
As soon succeed by telling ladies truth,
Or preaching moral documents to youth:
To as much purpose, mortal! thy desires,
As Tully's flourishes to country squires;
As simple truth within St. James's state,
Or the soft lute in shrill-tongued Billingsgate.
Gain by the Muse!' alas, preposterous hope!
Who ever gain'd by poetry-but Pope?
And what art thou? No St. John take thy
part;

No potent Dean commends thy head or heart!
What gain'st thou but the praises of the poor?

What serves the clock ? 'To warn the care- They bribe no milkman to thy lofty door,

less crew

How much in little space they have to do;
To bid the busy world resign their breath,
And beat each moment a soft call for death-
To give it, then, a tongue, was wise in man.'
Support the assertion, Doctor, if you can:
It tells the ruffian when his comrades wait;
It calls the duns to crowd my hapless gate;
It tells my heart the paralysing tale,
Of hours to come, when Misery must prevail.

They wipe no scrawl from thy increasing score.
What did the Muse, or Fame, for Dryden,
say?

What for poor Butler ? what for honest Gay?
For Thomson, what? or what to Savage give?
Or how did Johnson-how did Otway live?
Like thee! dependent on to-morrow's good,
Their thin revenue never understood;
Like thee, elate at what thou canst not know;
Like thee, repining at each puny blow;