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Formed with materials neat and soft,
Bents, wool, and feathers mixt.

Four ivory eggs soon pave its floor,
With russet specks bedight:-
The vessel weighs-forsakes the shore,
And lessens to the sight.

The mother bird is gone to sea,

As she had changed her kind;

But goes the mate? Far wiser, he
Is doubtless left behind.

No!-Soon as from ashore he saw
The winged mansion move;

He flew to reach it, by a law

Of never failing-love!

Then perching at his consort's side,
Was briskly borne along ;

The billows and the blasts defied,
And cheered her with a song.

The seaman, with sincere delight,
His feathered shipmate eyes,
Scarce less exulting in the sight,
Than when he tows a prize.

For seamen much believe in signs,
And from a chance so new,

Each some approaching good divines,
And may his hopes be true!

Hail, honoured land! a desert, where

Not even birds can hide,

Yet parent of this loving pair,

Whom nothing can divide.

And ye, who rather than resign
Your matrimonial plan;

Were not afraid to plough the brine
. In company with man.

To whose lean country, much disdain
We English often show;
Yet from a richer, nothing gain

But wantonness and woe.

Be it your fortune, year by year,

The same resource to prove;
And may ye, sometimes landing here,
Instruct us how to love!

TO THE

REV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN.

I.

UNWIN, I should but ill repay

The kindness of a friend,

Whose worth deserves as warm a lay

As ever friendship penned,

Thy name omitted in a page,

That would reclaim a vicious age.

II.

An union formed, as mine with thee,
Not rashly, nor in sport,

May be as fervent in degree,
And faithful in its sort,

And may as rich in comfort prove,
As that of true fraternal love.

111.

The bud inserted in the rind,
The bud of peach-or rose,
Adorns, though differing in its kind,
The stock whereon it grows,

With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair,
As if produced by nature there.

IV.

Not rich, I render what I may,
I seize thy name in haste,
And place it in this first essay,

Lest it should prove the last.

'Tis where it should be-in a plan, That holds in view the good of man.

V.

The poet's lyre, to fix his fame,

Should be the poet's heart;

Affection lights a brighter flame
Than ever blazed by art.
No muses on these lines attend,
I sink the poet in the friend.

STANZAS

Addressed to lady HESKETH, by a lady, in returning a Poem of Mr. CowPER's, lent to the Writer on Condition she should neither show it, nor take a Copy,

WHAT Wonder! if my wavering hand
Had dared to disobey,

When Hesketh gave a harsh command,

And Cowper led astray?

Then take this tempting gift of thine,
By pen uncopied yet :
But canst thou Memory confine,

Or teach me to forget?

More lasting than the touch of art

Her characters remain ;

When written by a feeling heart
On tablets of the brain.

VOL. III.

COWPERS REPLY,

To be remembered thus is fame,

And in the first degree;

And did the few, like her, the same,
The press might rest for me.

So Homer, in the memory stored
Of many a Grecian belle,

Was once preserved-a richer hoard,
But never lodged so well.

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