At my right han' assign'd your seat
'Tween Herod's hip an Polycrate,—
Or if you on your station tarrow,
Between Almagro and Pizarro,
A seat, I'm sure ye're weel deservin't;
An' till ye come-Your humble servant,
TO JOHN TAYLOR.
WITH Pegasus upon a day
Apollo weary flying,
Through frosty hills the journey lay,
On foot the way was plying.
Poor slip-shod giddy Pegasus
Was but a sorry walker;
To Vulcan then Apollo goes,
To get a frosty calker.
Obliging Vulcan fell to work,
Threw by his coat and bonnet,
And did Sol's business in a crack;
Sol paid him with a sonnet.
Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead,
Pity my sad disaster;
My Pegasus is poorly shod-
I'll pay you like my master.
These verses were written, to induce a blacksmith to proceed at once to sharpen his horse's shoes,' as the roads had become slippery with ice. The blacksmith is said to have lived thirty years after to say that he had never been weel paid but ance, and that was by a Poet, who paid him in money, paid him in drink, and paid him in verse.'
EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA.
The Esopns of this epistle was Williamson, an actor, and the
Maria to whom it is addressed was Mrs. Riddel.
FROM those drear solitudes and frowzy cells,
Where infamy with sad repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in ;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay half to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing,
Beat hemp for others, riper for the string :
From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,
To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.
'Alas! I feel I am no actor here!"
'Tis real hangmen, real scourges bear!
Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale
Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;
Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd,
By barber woven, and by barber sold,
Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,
Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.
The hero of the mimic scene, no more
I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar ;
Or haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms,
In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms,
While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high,
And steal from me Maria's prying eye.
Bless'd Highland bonnet! Once my proudest
Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.
I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,
And call each coxcomb to the wordy war.
I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,
And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;
The crafty colonelt leaves the tartan'd lines,
For other wars, where he a hero shines:
The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,
Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head;
Comes 'mid a string of coxcombs to display,
That veni, vidi, vici, is his way;
The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks,
And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks;
Though there his heresies in church and state
Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate :
Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
And dares the public like a noontide sun.
(What scandal called Maria's janty stagger,
The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?
Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns's venom when
He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen,-
And pours his vengeance in the burning line,
Who christen'd thus Maria's lyre divine;
The idiot strum of vanity bemused,
And even th' abuse of poesy abused!
Thou know'st, the virtues cannot hate thee worse,
The vices also, must they club their curse?
Or must no tiny sin to others fall,
Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?
Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares;
In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.
As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,
Who on my fair-one satire's vengeance hurls?
Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette,
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit?
Who says that fool alone is not thy due,
And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true?
Our force united on thy foes we'll turn,
And dare the war with all of woman born:
For who can write and speak as thou and I?
My periods that decyphering defy,
And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply.
ON SEEING MISS FONTENELLE
IN A FAVOURITE CHARACTER.
SWEET naïveté of feature,
Simple, wild, enchanting elf,
Not to thee, but thanks to Nature,
Thou art acting but thyself.
Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,
Spurning nature, torturing art;
Loves and graces all rejected,
Then indeed thou'd'st act a part.
THE HERON BALLADS.
[BALLAD FIRST.]
These were written as election squibs to serve Patrick Heron, Esq. of Kerroughtree, at two contested elections.
WHOM will you send to London town,
To Parliament and a' that?
Or wha in a' the country round
The best deserves to fa' that?
For a' that, and a' that,
Thro' Galloway and a' that;
Where is the laird or belted knight
The best deserves to fa' that?
Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett,
And wha is't never saw that?
Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets
And has a doubt of a' that?
For a' that, and a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that;
The independent patriot,
The honest man, an' a' that.
Tho' wit and worth in either sex,
St. Mary's Isle can shaw that;
Wi' dukes an' lords let Selkirk mix,
And weel does Selkirk fa' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
The independent commoner
Shall be the man for a' that.
But why should we to nobles jouk,
And its against the law that;
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