SOLILOQUY OF A BARD IN THE COUNTRY.1 'Twas now the noon of night, and all was still, In vain he calls each Muse in order down, But yet this last my candid Muse admits, When Peers are Poets, Squires may well be Wits; And if a little parson joins the train, Parsons as well as other folks must live : I. [From an autograph MS. at Newstead, now for the first time printed.] From rage he rails not, rather say from dread, What though from private pique her anger grew, What though, she said, for one light heedless line, I can't attack, where Beauty forms the shield. Train'd to invent, and skilful to abuse For arts like these at bounteous tables fed, The moral's shocking, though the rhymes are fair. Such lenity were more than Man's indeed! 1. [John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680). His Poems were published in the year of his death.] Yet must I spare-nor thus my pen degrade, For food and raiment thus the coxcomb rails, And join the herd to Sense and Truth unknown, Have deign'd to praise the firstlings of my Muse If you your sanction to the theme refuse, If you your great protection still withdraw, Whose Praise is Glory, and whose Voice is law! Soon must I fall an unresisting foe, A hapless victim yielding to the blow. Thus Pope by Curl and Dennis was destroyed, A Fabius and some noble Roman died. Dec. 1806. L'AMITIÉ EST L'AMOUR SANS AILES.3 I. WHY should my anxious breast repine, Because my youth is fled? Days of delight may still be mine; Affection is not dead. In tracing back the years of youth, Where first my heart responsive beat, "Friendship is Love without his wings! 1. [Robert Lloyd (1733-1764). The following lines occur in the first of two odes to Obscurity and Oblivion-parodies of the odes of Gray and Mason : "Heard ye the din of modern rhymers bray? It was cool M-n and warm G- -y, 2. [The Rev. Luke Milbourne (died 1720) published, in 1698, his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, containing a venomous attack on Dryden. They are alluded to in The Dunciad, and also by Dr. Johnson, who wrote (Life of Dryden), “His outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite."] 3. [The MS. is preserved at Newstead.] 2. Through few, but deeply chequer'd years, What moments have been mine! Now half obscured by clouds of tears, Howe'er my future doom be cast, My soul, enraptured with the past, To one idea fondly clings; Friendship! that thought is all thine own, Worth worlds of bliss, that thought aloneFriendship is Love without his wings!" 3. Where yonder yew-trees lightly wave Their branches on the gale, Which tells the common tale; From yonder studious mansion rings; But here, whene'er my footsteps move, My silent tears too plainly prove, "Friendship is Love without his wings!" 4. Oh, Love! before thy glowing shrine, My early vows were paid; My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine, But these are now decay'd; |