What child has she of promise fair, Who dare not call their words their own. When such as you revile my Name, Such, such as you will serve to show December 1, 1806. The Matron knows I love the Sex too well, Even unprovoked aggression to repel. What though from private pique her anger grew, And bade her blast a heart she never knew? 30 What though, she said, for one light heedless line, That Wilmot's1 verse was far more pure than mine! In wars like these, I neither fight nor fly, When dames accuse 'tis bootless to deny; Hers be the harvest of the martial field, I can't attack, where Beauty forms the shield. But when a pert Physician loudly cries, Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by lies, A walking register of daily news 4I When S condemns a book he never read, Declaring with a coxcomb's native air, The moral's shocking, though the rhymes are fair. Ah! must he rise unpunish'd from the feast, Nor lash'd by vengeance into truth at least? Such lenity were more than Man's indeed! Those who condemn, should surely deign to read. Yet must I spare degrade, nor thus my pen I quite forgot that scandal was his trade. For food and raiment thus the coxcomb rails, 51 For those who fear his physic, like his tales. And thus I fall, though meaner far than As in the field of combat, side by side, A Fabius and some noble Roman died. December, 1806. [First published, 1898.] 1[Robert Lloyd (1733-1764).] The Rev. Luke Milbourne (died 1720) published, in 1698, his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, containing a venomous attack on Dryden.] I 1[Lord Clare had written to Byron, “I thin by your last letter that you are very much pique with most of your friends, and, if I am not muc mistaken, you are a little piqued with me. one part you say, 'There is little or no doubt few years or months will render us as politely ir different to each other, as if we had never passe a portion of our time together.' Indeed. Byro you wrong me; and I have no doubt - at leas I hope, you wrong yourself."- Life, P. 25 12. Thou, who in wisdom plac'd me here, Who, when thou wilt, canst take me hence, Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere, Extend to me thy wide defence. 13. To Thee, my God, to Thee I call! 14. If, when this dust to dust's restor❜d, My soul shall float on airy wing, How shall thy glorious Name ador'd Inspire her feeble voice to sing! 15. But, if this fleeting spirit share With clay the Grave's eternal bed, While Life yet throbs I raise my prayer, Though doom'd no more to quit the dead. 16. To Thee I breathe my humble strain, TRANSLATION FROM ANACREON. Εἰς ῥόδον. ODE V. MINGLE with the genial bowl To wing our moments with Delight. Rose whose sweetest perfume given, Rose whom the Deities above, [First published, 1898.] |