Which, whether pulverized it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touch'd with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine-
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe
That symbol of thy power, the pipe ;
So may no blight infest thy plains,
And no unseasonable rains;

And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore;

And thou, secure from all alarms,

Of thundering drums and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,
And fumigation never cease.
May Newton with renew'd delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.

EPITAPH ON MRS. M. HIGGINS, OF WESTON.

LAURELS may flourish round the conqueror's tomb,
But happiest they who win the world to come:
Believers have a silent field to fight,

And their exploits are veil'd from human sight.
They in some nook, where little known they dwell,
Kneel, pray
in faith, and rout the hosts of hell;
Eternal triumphs crown their toils divine,
And all those triumphs, Mary, now are thine.

1791.

SONNET TO A YOUNG LADY ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

DEEM not, sweet rose, that bloom'st 'midst many

thorn,

Thy friend, tho' to a cloister's shade consign'd,
Can e'er forget the charms he left behind,
Or pass unheeded this auspicious morn!
In happier days to brighter prospects born,
O tell thy thoughtless sex, the virtuous mind,
Like thee, content in
every state may find,
And look on Folly's pageantry with scorn.
To steer with nicest art betwixt th' extreme
Of idle mirth, and affectation coy;

To blend good sense with elegance and ease;
To bid Affliction's eye no longer stream;
Is thine; best gift, the unfailing source of joy,
The guide to pleasures which can never cease!

a

ON A MISTAKE IN HIS TRANSLATION OF 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.

ON THE BENEFIT RECEIVED BY HIS MAJESTY FROM SEA-BATHING IN THE YEAR 1789.

O SOVEREIGN of an isle renown'd

For undisputed sway, Wherever o'er yon gulf profound Her navies wing their way,

* 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. I 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, Esq., dated April 15,

With juster claim she builds at length
Her empire on the sea,

And well may boast the waves her strength
Which strength restored to thee.

ADDRESSED TO MISS

ON READING THE

PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE.*

AND dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous Heaven design'd,
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined—

Dwells there a wish in such a breast
Its nature to forego,

To smother in ignoble rest

At once both bliss and woe!

Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe'er the verse complain,
Though Phoebus string the lyre.

Come, then, fair maid, (in nature wise,)
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell:

* For Mrs. Greville's Ode, see Annual Register, vol. v. p. 202.

In justice to the various powers

Of pleasing, which you share, Join me, amid your silent hours, To form the better prayer.

With lenient balm may Oberon hence

To fairy land be driven,

With every

herb that blunts the sense

Mankind received from heaven.

"Oh! if my sovereign Author please,

Far be it from my fate
To live unbless'd in torpid ease,
And slumber on in state;

"Each tender tie of life defied,

Whence social pleasures spring,
Unmoved with all the world beside,
A solitary thing-"

Some Alpine mountain, wrapt in snow,
Thus braves the whirling blast,
Eternal winter doom'd to know,
No genial spring to taste.

In vain warm suns their influence shed,
The zephyrs sport in vain,

He rears unchanged his barren head,
Whilst beauty decks the plain.

What though in scaly armour dress'd,
Indifference may repel

The shafts of woe-in such a breast
No joy can ever dwell.