Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

To you the fad account I bring,
Life's autumn has no second spring.

NE

XX. ANO THE R.

EVER fpeaking, still awake,
Pleafing moft when most I speak,

The delight of old and young,
Though I fpeak without a tongue.
Nought but one thing can confound me,
Many voices joining round me;
Then I fret, and rave, and gabble,

Like the labourers of Babel.
Now I am a dog, or cow,
I can bark, or I can low,
I can bleat, or I can fing,
Like the warblers of the fpring.
Let the love-fick bard complain,
And I mourn the cruel pain;
Let the happy fwain rejoice,
And I join my helping voice;
Both are welcome, grief or joy,
I with either sport and toy.
Though a lady, I am flout,

Drums and trumpets bring me out ;
Then I clafh and roar and rattle,
Join in all the din of battle.

[ocr errors]

Jove, with all his loudeft thunder,
When I'm vext, can't keep me under;
Yet fo tender is my ear,

That the loweft voice I fear;

Much I dread the courtier's fate,

When his merit's out of date,
For I hate a filent breath,
And a whisper is my death.

XXI.

ANOTHER.

MOST things by me do rife and fall, And as I please they're great and fmall;

Invading foes, without refiftance,
With ease I make to keep their distance;
Again, as I'm difpos'd, the foe

Will come, though not a foot they go. Both mountains, woods, and hills, and rocks,

And gaming goats, and fleecy flocks,
And lowing herds, and piping fwains,
Come dancing to me o'er the plains.
The greatest whale that fwims the fea,
Does inftantly my pow'r obey.
In vain from me the failor Aies,
The quickest fhip I can furprize,

[blocks in formation]

And turn it as I have a mind,
And move it against tide and wind,
Nay, bring me here the tallest man,
I'll squeeze him to a little span,
Or bring a tender child and pliant,
You'll fee me ftretch him to a giant;
Nor fhall they in the leaft complain,
Because my magick gives no pain.

XXII.

ANOTHER.

WE are little brethren-twain,

Arbiters of lofs and gain,

Many to our counters run,

Some are made, and fome undone.
But men find it to their coft,
Few are made, but numbers loft.
Though we play them tricks for ever,
Yet they always hope our favour.

To Dr. SHERIDAN.

DEAR Sheridan 1 a gentle pair
Of Gallftown lads (for fuch they

are)

Befides a brace of grave divines
Adore the smoothness of thy lines;

Smooth

Smooth as our bafon's filver flood,
Ere George had robb'd it of it's mud;
Smoother than Pegasus' old fhoe,
Ere Vulcan comes to make him new.
The board on which we fet our a-s
Is not fo smooth as are thy verses,
Compar'd with which (and that's enough)
A fmoothing-ir'n itself is rough.
Nor praise I less that circumcifion,
By modern poets call'd elifion,
With which, in proper ftation plac'd,
Thy polifh'd lines are firmly brac'd.
Thus a wife taylor is not pinching,
But turns at ev'ry feam an inch in,
Or elfe, be fure, your broad-cloth breeches.
Will ne'er be fmooth, nor hold their
ftitches.

Thy verse, like bricks, defy the weather,
When fmooth'd by rubbing them together.
Thy words foclofely wedg'd, and fhort are
Like walls, more lafting without mortar;
By leaving out the needlefs vowels.

You fave the charge of lime and trowels.
One letter ftill another locks,
Each groov'd, and dove-tail'd like a box;
Thy mufe is tuckt up and fuccinct ;
In chains thy fyllables are linkt.

Thy words together ty'd in fmall hanks,
Clofe as the Macedonian phalanx;
Or like the umbo of the Romans,
Which fierceft foes could break by no

means.

The critick to his grief will find,
How firmly these indentures bind :
So, in the kindred painter's art
The fhortening is the niceft part.

!

Philologers of future ages,
How will they pore upon thy pages
Nor will they dare to break the joints,
But help thee to be read with points:
Or elfe, to fhew their learned labour, you
May backward be perus'd like Hebrew,
Where they need not lose a bit
Or of thy harmony or wit.

To make a work compleatly fine
Number and weight and measure join;
Then all muft grant your lines are weighty,
Where thirty weigh as much as eighty.
All muft allow your numbers more,
Where twenty lines exceed fourfcore;
Nor can we think your measure short,
Where lefs than forty fill a quart,
With Alexandrian in the clofe,
Long, long, long, long, like Dan's long

nofe.

A RE

« AnteriorContinua »