All fears of famine for the passing day; THE CASTAWAY. March 20, 1799 OBSCUREST night involved the sky, He loved them both, but both in vain, Not long beneath the whelming brine, Nor soon he felt his strength decline, But waged with death a lasting strife, He shouted: nor his friends had failed They left their outcast mate behind, ; Some succour yet they could afford But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore, Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he Yet bitter felt it still to die He long survives, who lives an hour And so long he, with unspent power, His destiny repelled; And ever as the minutes flew, At length, his transient respite past, That tells his name, his worth, his age, And tears by bards or heroes shed I therefore purpose not, or dream, To give the melancholy theme But misery still delights to trace No voice divine the storm allayed, When, snatched from all effectual aid, We perished, each alone: But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he. MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION TO WILLIAM NORTHCOT. HIC sepultus est Inter suorum lacrymas Unicus, unicè dilectus, Qui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis, 1780, Æt. 10. Care, vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto! TRANSLATION. FAREWELL! "But not for ever," Hope replies, A RIDDLE. I AM just two and two, I am warm, I am cold, I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought; ANSWER. FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, VOL. LXXVI. P. 1224. A RIDDLE by Cowper Made me swear like a trooper; Of beauty's soft Kiss, I now long for such riddles again. J. T. IN SEDITIONEM HORRENDAM, CORRUPTELIS GALLICIS ut fertur, LONDINI NUPER EXORTAM. PERFIDA, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore, TRANSLATION. FALSE, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart, Bids the low street and lofty palace blaze. Her sons, too weak to vanquish us alone, She hires the worst and basest of our own. Kneel, France! a suppliant conquers us with ease, COWPER had sinned with some excuse, He had committed this abuse Of changing ewes for wethers; 1 It was a 1 I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirised myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.-Letter to Joseph Hill, April 15, 1792. But, male for female is a trope, Or rather bold misnomer, STANZAS SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON.1 Anno Domini 1787. Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Pale Death with equal foot strikes wide the door HORACE. WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run All these, life's rambling journey done, Was man (frail always) made more frail Did famine or did plague prevail, That so much death appears? No; these were vigorous as their sires, Like crowded forest-trees we stand, Green as the bay tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, -- Read, ye that run, the awful truth No present health can health insure And oh that humble as my lot, These truths, though known, too much forgot, 1 Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton. So prays your Clerk with all his heart, Begs you for once to take his part, Improve the present hour, for all beside COULD I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage And item down the victims of the past; How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet On which the press might stamp him next to die; And, reading here his sentence, how replete With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye! Time then would seem more precious than the joys In which he sports away the treasure now; And prayer more seasonable than the noise Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow. Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore, Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say Observe the dappled foresters, how light They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade; Had we their wisdom, should we, often warned, Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones ! |