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For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly,
Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch
Indulg'd apart; but earnest, brimming bowls
Lave every soul, the table floating round,
And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,

Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses, hounds,
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,

In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd.
Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud,

Th' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart;
That moment touch'd is every kindred soul;

And, opening in a full-mouth'd cry of joy,

The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse

go round; While, from their slumbers shook, the kennel'd hounds Mix in the music of the day again.

As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep
The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls,
So gradual sings their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,

Lie quite dissolv'd. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim, and blue, the double tapers dance,
Like the sun wading through the misty sky.
Then, sliding soft, they drop. Confus'd above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table ev'n itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene, and wide, below,
Is heap'd the social slaughter: where astride
The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits,
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till morn.
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,

Outlives them all; and from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,

Laments the weakness of these latter times.

DRINKING. Effects of.

Thomson.

Struck by the pow'rful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round.

A pleasing frenzy buoys the lighten'd soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care:
And what was difficult and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars:
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.

But soon your heaven is gone; a heavier gloom
Shuts o'er your head: and, as the thund'ring stream,
Swoln o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook;

So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone.
For prodigal of life, in one rash night

You lavish'd more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endur'd; so may the throbbing heart:
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as madd'ning Pentheus felt
When, baited round Citharon's cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes, ascend.-
Add, that your means, your health, your parts decay,
Your friends avoid you; brutishly transform'd,

They hardly know you, or, if one remains

To wish you well, he wishes you in heaven. Armstrong

DULL. Charity to their Vanity.

"Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, And charitably let the dull be vain :

Your silence there is better than your spite ;
For who can rail so long as they can write?
Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep,
And lash'd so long, like tops, are lash'd asleep.
False steps but help them to renew the race;
As, after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.
What crowds of these, impenitently bold,
In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,
Still run on poets in a raging vein,

Ev'n to the dregs and squeezings of the brain;
Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense
And rhyme with all the rage of impotence.

DUTY. Modest Duty.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes:
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

EAGLE,

High from the summit of a craggy cliff,
Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns
On utmost Kilda's shore, whose lonely race
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young,

Pope.

Shakspeare.

Strong pounc'd, and ardent with paternal fire,
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own,

He drives them from his fort, the towering seat,
For ages, of his empire; which, in peace,

Unstain'd he holds, while many a league to sea

He wings his course, and preys in distant isles. Thomson.

EARTH. Has been all alive.

What is the world itself? thy world?-a grave?
Where is the dust that has not been alive?
The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors,
From human mould we reap our daily bread;
The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons:
O'er devastation we blind revels keep;
Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel.

EDUCATION.

'Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a 'Squire,
The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar;
Tom struts a Soldier, open, bold, and brave,
Will sneaks a Scriv'ner, an exceeding knave:
Is he a churchman? then he's fond of power:
A Quaker? sly: a Presbyterian? sour:
A smart Free-thinker? all things in an hour.

EGERIA.

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart,
Which found no mortal resting place so fair
As thine ideal breast; what'er thou art,
Or wert, a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair,

Young

Pope.

Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth;

Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,

Thou wert a beautiful tho't, and softly bodied forth.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
With thine Elysian water drops: the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkl'd,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep,

Fantastically tangled; the green hills

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass:
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,

Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
Egeria thy all-heavenly bosom beating

For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple midnight veil'd that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy, and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?

This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamour'd goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy love-the earliest oracle!

Byron

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