VARIOUS POEMS.

A

SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE.

Honest-Honest Iago!

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee. »

SHAKESPEARE.

BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexprest,
And from its wages only to be guess'd—
Rais'd from the toilet to the table,-where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair,
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie―
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess-
An only infant's earliest governess !

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.

Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind, Which flattery fool'd not-baseness could not blind,

Deceit infect not-nor contagion soil—
Indulgence weaken-nor example spoil-
Nor master'd science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown—
Nor Genius swell-nor Beauty render vain-
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain—

Nor Fortune change-Pride raise-nor Passion bow,
Nor Virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,

But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive ;
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme :-now laid aside too long,
The baleful burthen of this honest song
Though all her fer functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers-none know why-before her quake;
If daughters dread her for the mother's sake ;
If early habits-those false links, which bind
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If, like a snake, she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If, like a viper, to the heart she wind,
And leave the venom there she did not find ;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?