From morn to dewy eve, It is content of heart Gives nature power to please; Seem bright as smiling May, And evening's closing eye The vast majestic globe, Is to a mourner's heart A dreary wild at best; It flutters to depart, And longs to be at rest. EPITAPH ON JOHNSON. JANUARY, 1785. HERE Johnson lies, a sage by all allow'd, Whom to have bred, may well make England proud; Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught, The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought; Whose verse may claim, grave masculine and strong, Superior praise to the mere poet's song; Who many a noble gift from Heaven possess'd, ΤΟ MISS C, ON HER BIRTHDAY. 1786. How many between east and west, We can rejoice that she was born, THE FLATTING-MILL. AN ILLUSTRATION. WHEN a bar of pure silver or ingot of gold And warm'd by the pressure is all in a glow. This process achieved, it is doom'd to sustain The thump-after-thump of a gold-beater's mallet, Alas for the Poet, who dares undertake His head and his heart are both likely to ache If he wish to instruct, he must learn to delight, Smooth, ductile, and even, his fancy must flow, Must tinkle and glitter like gold to the sight, And catch in its progress a sensible glow. After all he must beat it as thin and as fine As the leaf that enfolds what an invalid swallows, For truth is unwelcome, however divine, And unless you adorn it, a nausea follows. EPITAPH ON A HARE. HERE lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue, Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, And to domestic bounds confined, Though duly from my hand he took He did it with a jealous look, And, when he could, would bite. His diet was of wheaten bread, With sand to scour his maw. On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, And, when his juicy salads fail'd, A Turkey carpet was his lawn, His frisking was at evening hours, But most before approaching showers, Or when a storm drew near. Eight years and five round rolling moons He thus saw steal away, Dozing out all his idle noons, I kept him for his humour's sake, My heart of thoughts that made it ache, But now beneath his walnut shade He, still more aged, feels the shocks EPITAPHIUM ALTERUM. Hic etiam jacet, Qui totum novennium vixit, Siste paulisper, Qui præteriturus es, Et tecum sic reputa— Nec imbres nimii, Confecêre: Tamen mortuus est Et moriar ego. |