HEALTH.

AN ECLOGUE.

Now early shepherds o'er the meadow pass,
And print long footsteps in the glittering grass;
The cows neglectful of their pasture stand,
By turns obsequious to the milker's hand.

When Damon softly trod the shaven lawn, Damon a youth from city cares withdrawn; Long was the pleasing walk he wander'd through, A cover'd arbour clos'd the distant view;

There rests the youth, and, while the feather'd throng

66

Raise their wild music, thus contrives a song.
"Here, wafted o'er by mild Etesian air,
Thou country goddess, beauteous Health! repair;
Here let my breast through quivering trees inhale
Thy rosy blessings with the morning gale.
What are the fields, or flowers, or all I see?
Ah! tasteless all, if not enjoy'd with thee.
Joy to my soul! I feel the goddess nigh,
The face of Nature cheers as well as 1;
O'er the flat green refreshing breezes run,
The smiling daisies blow beneath the Sun,
The brooks run purling down with silver waves,
The planted lanes rejoice with dancing leaves,
The chirping birds from all the compass rove
To tempt the tuneful echoes of the grove:
High sunny summits, deeply shaded dales,
Thick mossy banks, and flowery winding vales,
With various prospect gratify the sight,
And scatter fix'd attention' in delight. [fice,
"Come, country goddess, come; nor thou suf-
But bring thy mountain-sister, Exercise.
Call'd by thy lovely voice, she turns her pace,
Her winding horn proclaims the finish'd chase;
She mounts the rocks, she skims the level plain,
Dogs, hawks, and horses, crowd her early train.
Her hardy face repels the tanning wind,
And lines and meshes loosely float behind.
All these as means of toil the feeble see,
But these are helps to pleasure join'd with thee.
"Let Sloth lie softening till high noon in down,
Or lolling fan her in the sultry town,
Unnerv'd with rest; and turn her own disease,
Or foster others in luxurious ease:

I mount the courser, call the deep-mouth'd hounds,
The fox unkenuell'd flies to covert grounds;
I lead where stags through tangled thickets tread,
And shake the saplings with their branching head;
I make the faulcons wing their airy way,
And soar to seize, or stooping strike their prey;
To snare the fish, I fix the luring bait;
To wound the fowl, I load the gun with fate.
'Tis thus through change of exercise I range,
And strength and pleasure rise from every change.
Here, beauteous Health, for all the year remain;
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus
Oh come, thou goddess of my rural song, [again.
And bring thy daughter, calm Content along,
Dame of the ruddy cheek and laughing eye,
From whose bright presence clouds of sorrow fly:
For her I mow my walks, I plant my bowers,
Clip my low hedges, and support my flowers;
To welcome her, this summer-seat I drest,
And here I court her when she comes to rest;
When she from exercise to learned ease
Shall change again, and teach the change to please.
Now friends conversing my soft hours refine,
And Tully's Tusculum revives in mine:

THE FLIES.

AN ECLOGUE.

WHEN in the river cows for coolness stand,
And sheep for breezes seek the lofty land,
A youth, whom Æsop taught that every tree,
Each bird and insect, spoke as well as he;
Walk'd calmly musing in a shady way,
Where flowering hawthorns broke the sunny ray,
And thus instructs his moral pen to draw
A scene that obvious in the field he saw.

Near a low ditch, where shallow waters meet,
Which never learn'd to glide with liquid feet;
Whose Naiads never prattle as they play,
But screen'd with hedges slumber out the day.
There stands a slender fern's aspiring shade,
Whose answering branches regularly laid
Put forth their answering boughs, and proudly rise
Three stories upward, in the nether skies.

For shelter here, to shun the noon-day heat, An airy nation of the flies retreat; Some in soft airs their silken pinions ply, And some from bough to bough delighted fly, Some rise, and circling light to perch again; A pleasing murinur hums along the plain. So, when a stage invites to pageant shows, (If great and small are like) appear the beaux; In boxes some with spruce pretension sit, Some change from seat to seat within the pit, Some roam the scenes, or turning cease to roam; Preluding music fills the lofty dome.

When thus a fly (if what a fly can say Deserves attention) rais'd the rural lay.

"Where late Amintor made a nymph a bride, Joyful I flew by young Favonia's side, Who, mindless of the feasting, went to sip The balmy pleasure of the shepherd's lip, I saw the wanton, where I stoop'd to sup, And half resolv'd to drown me in a cup; Till, brush'd by careless hands, she soar'd above: Cease, beauty, cease to vex a tender love." Thus ends the youth, the buzzing meadow rung, And thus the rival of his music sung.

"When suns by thousands shone on orbs of dew, I wafted soft with Zephyretta flew; Saw the clean pail, and sought the milky cheer, While little Daphne seiz'd my roving dear. Wretch that I was! I might have warn'd the dame, Yet sate indulging as the danger came. But the kind huntress left her free to soar: Ah! guard, ye lovers, guard a mistress more."

Thus from the fern, whose bigh projecting arms The fleeting nation bent with dusky swans, The swains their love in easy music breathe, When tongues and tumuit stun the field beneath:

Black ants in teams come darkening all the road,
Some call to march, and some to lift the load;
They strain, they labour with incessant pains,
Press'd by the cumbrous weight of single grains.
The flies struck silent gaze with wonder down:
The busy burghers reach their earthy town;
Where lay the burthens of a wintery store,
And thence unwearied part in search of more.
Yet one grave sage a moment's space attends,
And the small city's loftiest point ascends,
Wipes the salt dew that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the gravest grace.
"Ye foolish nurslings of the summer air,
These gentle tunes and whining songs forbear;
Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and
love,

Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove;
Let bards to business bend their vigorous wing,
And sing but seldom, if they love so sing:
Else, when the flower ts of the season fail,
And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale,
Though one would save you, not one grain of wheat,
Should pay such songsters idling at my gate."

He ceas'd: the flies, incorrigibly vain,
Heard the mayor's speech, and fell to sing again.

Once you were young; or one, whose life's so She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong. And once, since Envy's dead before you die, The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye, Taught the light foot a modish little trip, And pouted with the prettiest purple lip.

To some new charmer are the roses fled, Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red; Youth calls the Graces there to fix their reign, And airs by thousands fill their easy train. So parting Summer bids her flowery prime Attend the Sun to dress some foreign clime, While withering seasons in succession, here, Strip the gay gardens, and deform the year.

But thou, since Nature bids, the world resign, 'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine. With more address, or such as pleases more, She runs her female exercises o'er, Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan, And smiles, or blushes at the creature man. With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass, In sideling courtesy she drops the glass. With better strength, on visit-days she bears To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs. Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes, and tongue, Are sure to conquer-for the rogue is young: And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay, We call it only pretty Fanny's way.

Let time, that makes you homely, make you sage, The sphere of wisdom, is the sphere of age.

"Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire, And bears the flattering tongues of soft desire, If not from virtue, from its gravest ways The soul with pleasing avocation strays.

| But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise;
As harpers better by the loss of eyes.
Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs,
Haunt less the plays, and more the public prayers,
Reject the Mechlin head, and gold brocade,
Go pray, in sober Norwich crape array'd.
Thy pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take
(Theirtrembling lustre shows how much you shake);
Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl,
You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl.
So for the rest, with less encumbrance hung,
You walk through life, unmingled with the young,
And view the shade and substance, as you pass,
With joint endeavour trifling at the glass,
Or Folly drest, and rambling all her days,
To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise:
Yet still sedate yourself, and gravely plain,
You neither fret, nor envy at the vain.
'Twas thus, if man with woman we compare,
The wise Athenian crost a glittering fair,
Unmov'd by tongue and sights, he walk'd the place,
Through tape, toys, tinsel, gimp, perfume, and lace;
Then bends from Mars's bill his awful eyes,
And-"What a world I never want?" he cries:
But cries unheard; for Folly will be free,
So parts the buzzing gawdy crowd and he:
As careless he for them, as they for him:
He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirl'd by whim.

THE BOOK-WORM.

COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day,
The book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As Fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat:
We'll rouse him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!

From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse-
(Nay never offer to deny,

I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,

They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless Justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred altar here;

Hold, boy, thy hand out-runs thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ;
You reach'd me Philips' rustic strain;
Pray take your mortal bards again.

Come, bind the victim,-there he lies,
And here between his numerous eyes
This venerable dust I lay,
From manuscripts just swept away.
The goblet in my hand 1 take,
(For the libation's yet to make)
A health to poets! all their days

May they have bread, as well as praise;
Sense may they seek, and less engage
In
fill'd with party-rage.
papers
But if their riches spoil their vein,
Ye Muses, make them poor again.

Now bring the weapon, yonder blade,
With which my tuneful pens are made.
I strike the scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the wound;
The sacred altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he's dead.

How like the son of Jove I stand,
This Hydra stretch'd beneath my hand!
Lay bare the monster's entrails here,
To see what dangers threat the year:
Ye gods! what sonnets on a wench!
What lean translations out of French!
'Tis plain, this lobe is so unsound,
Sprints, before the months go round.
But hold, before I close the scene,
The sacred altar should be clean.
Oh had I Shadwell's second bays,
Or, Tate! thy pert and humble lays!
(Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never miss'd your works till now)
I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine,
(That only way you please the Nine)
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the songs of Durfey do.

Rent from the corps, on yonder pin,
I hang the scales that brac'd it in;
I hang my studious morning-gown,
And write my own inscription down.

"This trophy from the Python won,
This robe, in which the deed was done,
These, Parnell, glorying in the feat,
Hung on these shelves, the Muses' seat.
Here Ignorance and Hunger found
Large realms of Wit to ravage round:
Here Ignorance and Hunger fell?
Two foes in one I sent to Hell."
Ye poets, who my labours see,
Come share the triumph all with me!
Ye critics! born to vex the Muse,
Go mourn the grand ally you lose."

AN ALLEGORY ON MAN.

A THOUGHTFUL being, long and spare, Our race of mortals call him Care

(Were Homer living, well he knew
What name the gods have call'd him too)
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, though no one bought.
This being, by a model bred

In Jove's eternal sable head,
Contriv'd a shape impower'd to breathe,
And be the worldling here beneath.

The man rose staring, like a stake;
Wondering to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The business he was made to do;
That, pleas'd to see with what a grace
He gravely show'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-something of the sky.

But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a poet's god,
(For which his curls ambrosial shake,
And mother Earth's oblig'd to quake)
He saw old mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before,

Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her, like commodes:
As yet with wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a landskip-painted vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said,
And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honours made, "Great Jove," she cry'd, "This thing was fashion'd from my side: His hands, his heart, his head, are mine; Then what hast thou to call him thine?"

"Halves, more than halves!" cry'd honest
"Your pleas would make your titles fair,
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole."
Thus with the gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause, as man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age?

As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as 1,
For what the fabling ancients sung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honours on his head;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old sire, Eternity.
A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth, before;
By which our almanacs are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carry'd, where on high
A glass was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.
His vest, for day and night, was py'd;
A bending sickle arm'd his side;
And Spring's new months his train adorn!
The other seasons were unborn,

Known by the gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause.
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where since his hours a dial made;

Then leaning heard the nice debate,
And thus pronounc'd the words of Fate:
"Since body from the parent Earth,
And soul from Jove receiv'd a birth,
Return they where they first began;
But since their union makes the man,
Till Jove and Earth shall part these two,
To Care who join'd them, man is due."

He said, and sprung with swift career
To trace a circle for the year;
Where ever since the seasons wheel,
And tread on one another's heel."

""Tis well," said Jove, and for consent
Thundering he shook the firmament.
"Our umpire Time shall have his way,
With Care I let the creature stay:
Let business vex him, avarice blind,
Let doubt and knowledge rack his mind,
Let errour act, opinion speak,
And want afflict, and sickness break,
And anger burn, dejection chill,
And joy distract, and sorrow kill,

Till, arm'd by Care, and taught to mow,
Time draws the long destructive blow;
And wasted man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his day,
Shall only find by this decree,
The soul flies sooner back to me."

I pass'd the glories which adorn
The splendid courts of kings,
And while the persons mov'd my scorn,
I rose to scorn the things.

My manhood felt a vigorous fire
By love increas'd the more;
But years with coming years conspire
To break the chains I wore.

In weakness safe, the sex I see
With idle lustre shine;
For what are all their joys to me,

Which cannot now be mine?

But hold-I feel my gout decrease,

My troubles laid to rest,

And truths which would disturb my peace
Are painful truths at best.

Vainly the time I have to roll
In sad reflection flies;
Ye fondling passions of my soul!
Ye sweet deceits! arise.

I wisely change the scene within,
To things that us'd to please;
In pain, philosophy is spleen,
In health, 'tis only ease.

AN

IMITATION OF SOME FRENCH VERSES.

RELENTLESS Time! destroying power,
Whom stone and brass obey,
Who giv'st to every flying hour
To work some new decay;

Unheard, unheeded, and unseen,
Thy secret saps prevail,
And ruin man, a nice machine,
By Nature form'd to fail.

My change arrives; the change I meet,
Before I thought it nigh.

My spring, my years of pleasure fleet,
And all their beauties die.

In age I search, and only find
A poor unfruitful gain,
Grave wisdom stalking slow behind,
Oppress'd with loads of pain.
My ignorance could once beguile,
And fancy'd joys inspire;
My errours cherish'd hope to smile
On newly-born desire.

But now experience shows the bliss,
For which I fondly sought,
Not worth the long impatient wish,
And ardour of the thought.

My youth met Fortune fair array'd,
In all her pomp she shone.
And might perhaps have well essay'd,
To make her gifts my own:

But when I saw the blessings shower
On some unworthy mind,

1 left the chase, and own'd the power
Was justly painted blind,

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH. By the blue taper's trembling light, No more I waste the wakeful night, Intent with endless view to pore The schoolmen and the sages o'er: Their books from wisdom widely stray, Or point at best the longest way. I'll seek a readier path, and go Where wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky! Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie, While through their ranks in silver pride The nether crescent seems to glide. The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds, which on the right aspire, In dimness from the view retire: The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. That steeple guides thy doubtful sight Among the livid gleams of night. There pass with melancholy state By all the solemn heaps of Fate, And think, as softly-sad you tread Above the venerable dead,