My friends, by turns, my friends confound;
Betray, and are betray'd:
Poor Yrs sold for fifty pounds,
And B--ll is a jade.
Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?
Still idle, with a busy air,
Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake alive.
Solicitous for other ends,
Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For salads, tarts, and pease!
Adieu to all but Gay alone,
Whose soul, sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis (no, 'tisn t) like Miss Meadows.
'Tis a virgin hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful; would seem wise,
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
"Tis an ugly, envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell* and you.
SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.
FLUTTERING, spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions:
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
* See Note t, p. 499.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows;
Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy, smooth Mæander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela, drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping:
Melody resigns to fate.
WHAT are the falling rills, the pendent shades,
The morning bowers, the evening colonnades,
But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind
To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to die (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,
Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away.
A Prayer of Brutus, on the occasion of his going to a temple of Diana to offer sacrifice, and inquire of the goddess what country was destined to be his place of settlement. See Geoffrey of Monmouth's British History, Book I. chap. 11.
GODDESS of woods, tremendous in the chase, To mountain wolves, and all the savage race,
Wide o'er the aërial vault extend thy sway,
And o'er the infernal regions void of day.
On thy third reign look down; disclose our fate,
In what new station shall we fix our seat?
When shall we next thy hallow'd altars raise,
And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?
TRANSLATION FROM THE LATIN OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER,
THOU art my God, sole object of my love;
Not for the hope of endless joys above;
Not for the fear of endless pains below,
Which they who love thee not must undergo.
For me, and such as me, thou deign'st to bear
An ignominious cross, the nails, the spear:
A thorny crown transpierced thy sacred brow,
While bloody sweats from every member flow.
For me in tortures thou resign'st thy breath,
Embraced me on the cross, and saved me by thy
death.
10
And can these sufferings fail my heart to move?
What but thyself can now deserve my love?
Such as then was, and is, my love to thee-
To thee, Redeemer! mercy's sacred spring!
My God, my Father, Maker, and my King!
ON HOUGH, BISHOP OF WORCESTER.
A BISHOP by his neighbours hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated;
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem'd by all the nation?
Yet, if it be the old man's case,
I'll lay my life I know the place:
"Tis where God sent some that adore him,
And whither Enoch went before him.
OCCASIONED BY AN INVITATION TO
IN the lines that you sent are the Muses and Graces;
You've the nine in your wit, and the three in your faces.
ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL AND
BONONCINI.
STRANGE! all this difference should be
"Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!
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