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For remembering the bliss

Of beauty's soft Kiss,

I now long for such riddles again. J. T.

EPIGRAM ON HIS MISTAKE IN TRANS-
LATING HOMER.

COWPER had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
He had committed this abuse
Of changing ewes for wethers;

But, male for female is a trope,

*

Or rather bold misnomer,
That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.

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,
But double in contents,

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,
Although an earnest wooer of the muse-
Say while in cool Ausonian shades
Or British wilds he roam'd,
Striking by turns his native lyre,
By turns the Daunian lute,
And stepp'd almost in air;

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
Secure to be admired?

STROPHE II.

Now what god, or demigod,
For Britain's ancient genius moved
(If our afflicted land

Have expiated at length the guilty sloth
Of her degenerate sons)

Shall terminate our impious feuds,
And discipline, with hallow'd voice, recall?
Recall the Muses too,

Driven from their ancient seats

In Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore,
And with keen Phobean shafts

Piercing the unseemly birds,
Whose talons menace us,

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,
From all thy kindred books,

To some dark cell, or cave forlorn,
Where thou endurest, perhaps,

The chafing of some hard untutor❜d hand,
Be comforted-

For lo! again the splendid hope appears
That thou may'st yet escape

The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wings
Mount to the everlasting courts of Jove!

STROPHE III.

Since Rouse desires thee, and complains
That though by promise his,
Thou yet appear'st not in thy place
Among the literary noble stores,
Given to his care,

But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete.
He, therefore, guardian vigilant

Of that unperishing wealth,

Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge,
Where he intends a richer treasure far
Than Ion kept (Ion, Erectheus' son
Illustrious, of the fair Creusa born)
In the resplendent temple of his god,
Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.

ANTISTROPHE.

Haste, then, to the pleasant groves,
The muses' favourite haunt;

Resume thy station in Apollo's dome,
Dearer to him

Than Delos, or the fork'd Parnassian hill!

Exulting go,

Since now a splendid lot is also thine,
And thou art sought by my propitious friend;
For there thou shalt be read

With authors of exalted note,

The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.

EPODE.

Ye then, my words, no longer vain,
And worthless deem'd by me!

Whate'er this steril genius has produced
Expect, at last, the rage of envy spent,
An unmolested happy home,

Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend;
Where never flippant tongue profane
Shall entrance find,

And whence the coarse unletter'd multitude
Shall babble far remote.

Perhaps some future distant age,
Less tinged with prejudice and better taught,
Shall furnish minds of power

To judge more equally.

Then, malice silenced in the tomb,
Cooler heads and sounder hearts,
Thanks to Rouse, if aught of praise

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
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,

All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears ?

No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;

Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.

This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waives his claim.
Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are mark'd to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen,
I pass'd, and they were gone.
Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page!
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh! that humble as my lot,
And scorn'd as is my strain,

These truths, though known, too much forgot,
I may not teach in vain.

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!

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COULD I, from Heaven inspired, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,

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