It shall.

Adah.

Surely a father's blessing may avert

A reptile's subtlety.

Cain.

Of that I doubt;

But bless him ne'er the less.

IV.

SATIRIC.

FAME.

OH, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

'T is but as a dead-flower with May-dew besprinkled. Then away with all such from the head that is hoary! What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

Oh FAME! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'T was less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS.

IF, in the month of dark December,

Leander, who was nightly wont

(What maid will not the tale remember?)

To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

If, when the wintry tempest roar'd,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!

For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I 've done a feat to-day.

But since he cross'd the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo,

-and- Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

'T were hard to say who fared the best:

Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!

He lost his labor, I my jest:

For he was drown'd, and I 've the ague.

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY.

January 22, 1821.

THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,

I have dragg'd to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing except thirty-three.