For remembering the bliss Of beauty's soft Kiss, I now long for such riddles again. J. T. EPIGRAM ON HIS MISTAKE IN TRANS- COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse, But, male for female is a trope, * Or rather bold misnomer, AN ODE ADDRESSED TO MR. JOHN ROUSE, LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. ON A LOST VOLUME OF MY POEMS, WHICH HE DESIRED ME TO REPLACE, THAT HE MIGHT ADD THEM TO MY OTHER WORKS DEPOSITED IN THE LIBRARY. This Ode is rendered without rhyme, that it might more adequately represent the original, which, as Milton himself informs us, is of no certain measure. It may possibly for this reason disappoint the reader, though it cost the writer more labour than the translation of any other piece in the whole collection, STROPHE. My twofold book! single in show, Neat, but not curiously adorn'd, I * I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.-Letter to Joseph Hill, April 15, 1792. Which, in his early youth, A poet gave, no lofty one in truth, ANTISTROPHE. Say, little book, what furtive hand Thee from thy fellow-books convey'd, What time, at the repeated suit Of my most learned friend, I sent thee forth, an honour'd traveller, From our great city to the source of Thames, Cærulean sire; Where rise the fountains, and the raptures ring Of the Aonian choir, Durable as yonder spheres, And through the endless lapse of years STROPHE II. Now what god, or demigod, Have expiated at length the guilty sloth Shall terminate our impious feuds, Driven from their ancient seats In Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore, Piercing the unseemly birds, Shall drive the harpy race from Helicon afar? ANTISTROPHE. But thou, my book, though thou hast stray'd, Whether by treachery lost, Or indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault, To some dark cell, or cave forlorn, The chafing of some hard untutor❜d hand, For lo! again the splendid hope appears The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wings STROPHE III. Since Rouse desires thee, and complains But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete. Of that unperishing wealth, Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge, ANTISTROPHE. Haste, then, to the pleasant groves, Resume thy station in Apollo's dome, Than Delos, or the fork'd Parnassian hill! Exulting go, Since now a splendid lot is also thine, With authors of exalted note, The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome. EPODE. Ye then, my words, no longer vain, Whate'er this steril genius has produced Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend; And whence the coarse unletter'd multitude Perhaps some future distant age, To judge more equally. Then, malice silenced in the tomb, I merit, shall with candour weigh the claim. STANZAS SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON,* ANNO DOMINI 1787. "Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Regumque turres." HORACE. Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run All these, life's rambling journey done, Was man (frail always) made more frail Did famine or did plague prevail, That so much death appears ? No; these were vigorous as their sires, Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton. This annual tribute Death requires, Green as the bay tree, ever green, The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen, No present health can health insure And oh! that humble as my lot, These truths, though known, too much forgot, So prays your Clerk with all his heart, And, ere he quits the pen, Begs you for once to take his part, And answer all-Amen! COULD I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage |