Those ills, that wait on all below, As being shared with thee. When lightnings flash among the trees, I fear lest thee alone they seize, 'Tis then I feel myself a wife, But oh! if fickle and unchaste No need of lightning from on high, Thus sang the sweet sequestered bird, FABLE. A RAVEN, while with glossy breast Her new-laid eggs she fondly pressed, And on her wicker-work high mounted, Her chickens prematurely counted (A fault philosophers might blame Shook the young leaves about her ears, (For ravens, though as birds of omen They teach both conjurors and old women To tell us what is to befall, Can't prophesy themselves at all.) The morning came when neighbour Hodge, A gift to his expecting fair, Climbed like a squirrel to his dray, MORAL. "Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours: Fate steals along with silent tread, A COMPARISON. THE lapse of time and rivers is the same, And a wide ocean swallows both at last. Though each resemble each in every part, A difference strikes at length the musing heart; Streams never flow in vain: where streams abound, How laughs the land with various plenty crowned! But time, that should enrich the nobler mind, Neglected leaves a dreary waste behind. ANOTHER. ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. SWEET stream, that winds through yonder glade, Apt emblem of a virtuous maid Silent and chaste she steals along, THE POET'S NEW YEAR'S GIFT. TO MRS. (NOW LADY) THROCKMORTON. For thee wished many a time, To wish thee fairer is no need, What favour then not yet possessed In wedded fove already blest, To thy whole heart's desire? None here is happy but in part: That wish, on some fair future day, ODE TO APOLLO. ON AN INK-GLASS ALMOST DRIED IN THE SUN. PATRON of all those luckless brains, Ah why, since oceans, rivers, streams, Pay tribute to thy glorious beams, Why stooping from the noon of day, Upborne into the viewless air, It floats a vapour now, Ordained perhaps ere summer flies, Illustrious drop! and happy then Phoebus, if such be thy design, To place it in thy bow, Give wit, that what is left may shine PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED. A FABLE. I SHALL not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau *, * It was one of the whimsical speculations of this philoso pher, that all fables which ascribe reason and speech to animals should be withheld from children, as being only vehicles of deception. But what child was ever deceived by them, or can be, against the evidence of his senses? |