And that chill Nova-Scotia's unpromising strand Well-peace to the land! may the people, at length, Yet if health do not sweeten the blast with her bloom, Unblest is the freedom and dreary the flight, Farewell to the few I have left with regret. May they sometimes recall, what I cannot forget, That communion of heart and that parley of soul Which has lengthened our nights and illumined our bowl, When they've asked me the manners, the mind, or the mien, I told them each luminous trait that I knew, They have listened and sighed that the powerful stream But, Douglas! while thus I endear to my mind That I could not with patience, with pleasure explore! When hope smooths the billowy path of our prow, And each prosperous sigh of the west-springing wind Takes me nearer the home, where my heart is enshrined ; And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain! Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart, But see the bent topsails are ready to swellTo the boat-I am with thee-Columbia, farewell! TO LADY H— ? N AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS. Tunbridge-Wells, August 1805. WHEN Grammont graced these happy springs, The merriest wight of all the kings That ever ruled these gay gallant isles; Like us, by day, they rode, they walked, The only different trait is this, That woman then, if man beset her, Was rather given to saying "yes," Because as yet she knew no better! Each night they held a coterie, Where every fear to slumber charmed, Lovers were all they ought to be, And husbands not the least alarmed! They called up all their school-day pranks, And lords showed wit, and ladies teeth. As-"Why are husbands like the Mint?" That give a currency to beauty. "Why is a garden's wildered maze Like a young widow, fresh and fair?" Because it wants some hand to raise The weeds which "have no business there!" And thus they missed, and thus they hit, And now they struck, and now they parried, And some lay in of full-grown wit, While others of a pun miscarried. 'Twas one of those facetious nights That Grammont gave this forfeit ring From whence it can be fairly traced Through many a branch and many a bough, From twig to twig, until it graced The snowy hand that wears it now. All this I'll prove, and then-to you, Long may your ancient inmates give Let no pedantic fools be there, For ever be those fops abolished, With heads as wooden as thy ware, And, Heaven knows! not half so polished. But still receive the mild, the gay, Of reading Grammont every day, ΤΟ NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses, The lip that's so scented by roses Old Chloe, whose withering kisses Young Sappho, for want of employments, But for you to be buried in books— Astronomy finds in your eye Better light than she studies above, And Music must borrow your sigh As the melody dearest to love. |