Now bricklay'rs, carpenters, and joiners, With Chinese artists and designers, Produce their schemes of alteration To work this wondrous reformation. The useful dome, which secret stood, Embosom'd in the yew-tree's wood, The trav'ller with amazement sees A temple Gothic, or Chinese, • With many a bell and tawdry rag on, A ditch of water four feet wide, Where Taste would want its great first law, But for the sculking, sly ha-ha, By whose miraculous assistance You gain a prospect two fields distance. The villa thus completely grac'd, All own that Thrifty has a taste; And Madam's female friends and cousins, Flock ev'ry Sunday to the seat, THE FRIAR OF ORDERS GREY. FIRST PUBLISHED BY DR. PERCY. It was a Friar of Orders Grey Walk'd forth to tell his beads; And he met with a lady fair "Now Christ thee save, thou reverend Friar, I pray thee tell to me, If ever at yon holy shrine My true love thou didst see.” "And how should I your true-love know From many another one?" "O, by his cockle hat, and staff, And by his saudal shoon. "Bu chiefly by his face and mien His flaxen locks that sweetly curl'd, "O Lady, he is dead and gone! "Within these holy cloysters long Here bore him barefac'd on his bier, Six proper youths and tall, And many a tear bedew'd his grave, "And art thou dead, thou gentle youth! And art thou dead and gone! And didst thou die for love of me?- "O weep not, Lady, weep not so; "O do not, do not, holy Friar, My sorrow now reprove; For I have lost the sweetest youth "And now, alas! for thy sad loss, "Weep no more, Lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain : For violets pluck'd, the sweetest showers Will ne'er make good again. "Our joys as winged dreams do fly, "O, say not so, thou holy Friar, 'Tis meet my tears should flow. "And will he never come again? Will he ne'er come again? Ah! no; he is dead, and laid in his grave, For ever to remain.. "His cheek was redder than the rose; The comeliest youth was he!- "Sigh no more, Lady, sigh no more, One foot on sea and one on land, "Hadst thou been fond, he had been false, "Now say not so, thou holy Friar, I pray thee say not so; My love he had the truest heart O he was ever true! "And art thou dead, thou much-lov'd youth! And didst thou die for me? Then farewell home! for evermore A pilgrim I will be. "But first upon my true-love's grave My weary limbs I'll lay, And thrice I'll kiss the green-grass turf That wraps his breathless clay." |