Thus fares it oft with other than the feet
Of humble villager--the statesman thus,
Up the steep road where proud ambition leads,
Aspiring, first, uninterrupted winds
His prosperous way; nor fears miscarriage foul,
While policy prevails, and friends prove true:
But that support soon failing, by him left,
On whom he most depended, basely left,
Betray'd, deserted; from his airy height
Headlong he falls; and through the rest of life
Drags the dull load of disappointment on.
ON READING RICHARDSON'S HISTORY OF SIR CHARLES
Say, ye apostate and profane
Wretches, who blush not to disdain
Allegiance to your God,-
Did e'er your idly wasted love
Of virtue for her sake remove,
And lift you from the crowd?
Would you the race of glory run ;
Know, the devout and they alone,
Are equal to the task:
The labours of the illustrious course
Far other than the unaided force
Of human vigor ask.
To arm against reputed ill,
The patient heart too brave to feel
The tortures of despair:
Nor safer yet high-crested pride,
When wealth flows in with ev'ry tide
To gain admittance there.
To rescue from the tyrant's sword
The oppress'd;-unseen and unimplored,
To cheer the face of woe;
From lawless insult to defend
An orphan's right--a fallen friend,
And a forgiven foe;
These, these distinguish from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,
The guardians of mankind;
Whose bosoms with these virtues heave,
O, with what matchless speed they leave
The multitude behind!
Then ask ye, from what cause on earth
Virtues like these derive their birth :
Derived from Heaven alone;
Full on that favour'd breast they shine,
Where faith and resignation join
To call the blessing down.
Such is that heart:-but while the muse
Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues,
Her feeble spirits faint:
She cannot reach, and would not wrong,
That subject for an angel's song,
The hero, and the saint!
AN EPISTLE TO ROBERT LLOYD, ESQ.
'Tis not that I design to rob
Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,
For thou art born sole heir, and single,
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;
Not that I mean, while thus I knit
My threadbare sentiments together,
To show my genius or my wit,
When God and you know I have neither; Or such as might be better shown
By letting poetry alone.
'Tis not with either of these views
That I presumed to address the muse;
But to divert a fierce banditti,
(Sworn foes to every thing that's witty!)
That, with a black, infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense;
The fierce banditti which I mean
Are gloomy thoughts, led on by spleen.
Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit
The debt, which justly became due
The moment when I heard from you:
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin;
Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows,
(I would say twenty sheets of prose)
Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much
As one of gold, and your's was such.
Thus, the preliminaries settled,
I fairly find myself pitchkettled,
And cannot see, though few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.
First, for a thought-since all agree-
A thought-I have it-let me see-
'Tis gone again—plague on't! I thought
I had it--but I have it not.
Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone!
Rake well the cinders, sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw she sees.
This simile were apt enough;
But I've another, critic proof,
The virtuoso thus, at noon,
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded butterfly pursues,
O'er hedge and ditch, through gaps and mews :
And, after many a vain essay,
To captivate the tempting prey,
Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe beneath his hat:
Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But ah! 'tis lost as soon as found
Culprit his liberty regains,
Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.
The sense was dark; 'twas therefore fit
With simile to illustrate it;
But as too much obscures the sight,
As often as too little light,
We have our similes cut short,
For matters of more grave import.
That Matthew's numbers run with ease,
Each man of common sense agrees!
All men of common sense allow
That Robert's lines are easy too:
Where then the preference shall we place,
Or how do justice in this case?
Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains
Smooth'd and refined the meanest strains;
Nor suffer'd one ill chosen rhyme
To escape him at the idlest time;
And thus o'er all a lustre cast,
That, while the language lives, shall last.
An't please your ladyship (quoth I),
For 'tis my business to reply;
Sure so much labour, so much toil,
Bespeak at least a stubborn soil :
Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,
Who both write well, and write full speed;
Who throw their Helicon about
As freely as a conduit spout!
Friend Robert, thus like chien scavant,
Lets fall a poem en passant,
Nor needs his geniune ore refine!
'Tis ready polish'd from the mine.
A TALE FOUNDED ON A FACT,
WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY, 1799.
Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream, There dwelt a wretch, who breath'd but to blaspheme; In subterraneous caves his life he led,
Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread.
When on a day, emerging from the deep,
A sabbath-day, (such sabbaths, thousands keep!,
The wages of his weekly toil he bore
To buy a cock-whose blood might win him more;
As if the noblest of the feather'd kind
Were but for battle and for death design'd;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanced (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed
But now the savage temper was reclaim'd,
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;
For all plead well who plead the cause of grace.
His iron heart with scripture he assail'd,
Woo'd him to hear a sermon, and prevail'd.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew,
Swift as the light'ning-glimpse the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wonder'd he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.
Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd, by his alter'd speech, the change divine!
Laugh'd when they should have wept, and swore the day
Was nigh when he would swear as fast as they.
'No,' said the penitent, 'such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if Thou seest (thine eye the future sees)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these;
Now strike me to the ground on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel:
Now take me to that Heav'n I once defied,
Thy presence, thy embrace!'-He spoke, and died!
TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON, ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.
That ocean you have late survey'd,
Those rocks. I too have seen,
But I afflicted and dismay'd,
You tranquil and serene.
You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretch'd before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,
No longer such too you.
To me the waves, that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.
Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;
I, tempest-toss'd, and wreck'd at last,
Come home to port no more.
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