Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Approach your grace with grateful heart,
My thanks and verse both void of art,
Content with what your bounty gave,
No larger income do I crave:
Rejoicing that, in better times,
Grafton requires my loyal lines.
Proud! while my patron is polite,
I likewife to the patriot write!
Proud! that at once I can commend
King George's and the Mufes' friend!
Endear❜d to Britain; and to thee
(Disjoin'd, Hibernia, by the fea),
Endear'd by twice three anxious years,
Employ'd in guardian toils and cares ;
By love, by wisdom, and by skill;
For he has fav'd thee 'gainst thy will.
But where shall Smedley make his neft,
And lay his wandering head to rest?
Where fhall he find a decent house,
To treat his friends, and chear his spouse?
Oh! tack, my lord, fome pretty cure;
In wholesome foil, and æther pure ;
The garden ftor'd with artless flowers,
In either angle fhady bowers.
No gay parterre, with coftly green,
Within the ambient hedge be feen :
Let Nature freely take her course,
Nor fear from me ungrateful force ;
No fheers fhall check her sprouting vigour,
Nor fhape the yews to antic figure :
$ 2

A limpid

A limpid brook fhall trout fupply,
In May, to take the mimic fly;
Round a small orchard may it run,
Whofe apples redden to the fun.
Let all be fnug, and warm, and neat ;
For fifty turn'd a safe retreat.
A little Eufton may it be,
Eufton I'll carve on every tree.
But then, to keep it in repair,
My lord twice fifty pounds a year
Will barely do; but if your grace

Could make them hundreds-charming place!
Thou then wouldft fhew another face.
Clogher! far north, my lord, it lies,
Midft fnowy hills, inclement skies;
One fhivers with the Arctic wind,
One hears the polar axis grind.

*

Good John indeed, with beef and claret,

Makes the place warm that one may bear it.
He has a purse to keep a table,

And eke a foul as hofpitable.

My heart is good; but affets fail,

To fight with ftorms of fnow and hail.

Befides, the country 's thin of people,
Who feldom meet but at the fteeple:
The strapping dean, that's gone to Down,
Ne'er nam'd the thing without a frown,
When, much fatigued with fermon-study,
He felt his brain grow dull and muddy;
Bp. Sterne.

No

}

No fit companion could be found,
To pufh the lazy bottle round;
Sure then, for want of better folks
To pledge, his clerk was orthodox.

Ah! how unlike to Gerard-street,
Where beaux and belles in parties meet;
Where gilded chairs and coaches throng,
And joftle as they trowl along;
Where tea and coffee hourly flow,
And gape-feed does in plenty grow;
And Griz (no clock more certain) cries,
Exact at feven, "Hot mutton-pies !"
There lady Luna in her sphere

Once fhone, when Paunceforth was not near;
But now she wanes, and, as 'tis faid,
Keeps fober hours, and goes to bed.
There-but 'tis endless to write down
All the amufements of the town;

And spouse will think herself quite undone,
To trudge to Connor * from fweet London;
And care we must our wives to please,
Or elfe-we fhall be ill at ease.

You fee, my lord, what 'tis I lack,

"Tis only fome convenient tack,

Some parfonage-houfe, with garden fweet,,

To be my late, my last retreat;

A decent church close by its fide,

There, preaching, praying, to refide;

*The bishoprick of Connor is united to that of

Down; but there are two deans.

[blocks in formation]

And, as my time securely rolls,

To fave my own and other fouls.

THE

DUKE'S ANSWER.

BY DR.

SWIFT.

DEAR Smed, I read thy brilliant lines,
Where wit in all its glory fhines ;
Where compliments, with all their pride,
Are by their numbers dignified:

I hope, to make you yet as clean
As that fame Viz, St. Patrick's dean.
I'll give thee surplice, vergé, and stall,
And may be fomething elfe withal;
And, were you not so good a writer,
I should prefent you with a mitre.
Write worse then, if you can-Be wife
Believe me, 'tis the way to rife.
Talk not of making of thy neft:

Ah! never lay thy head to reft!

That head fo well with wisdom fraught,
That writes without the toil of thought?
While others rack their bufy brains,
You are not in the leaft at pains.
Down to your deanry now repair,

And build a cafle in the air.

I'm fure a man of your fine fenfe
Can do it with a fall expence.
There your dear spouse and you together
May breathe your bellies full of æther.

When

When lady Luna is your neighbour,

She'll help your wife when the 's in labour;
Well skill'd in midwife artifices,

For the herself oft' falls in pieces.

There you shall see a raree-shew

Will make you fcorn this world below,
When you behold the milky way,
As white as fnow, as bright as day;
The glittering constellations roll
About the grinding Arctic pole;
The lovely tingling in your ears,
Wrought by the mufick of the spheres-
Your spouse shall then no longer hector,
You need not fear a curtain-lecture;
Nor fhall the think that she is undone
For quitting her beloved London.
When the 's exalted in the fkies,
She 'll never think of mutton-pies;
When you 're advanc'd above dean Viz,
You'll never think of goody Griz.
But ever, ever, live at eafe,

And ftrive, and ftrive, your wife to please;

In her '11
you centre all your joys,

And get ten thousand girls and boys:
Ten thousand girls and boys you '11 get,
And they like ftars fhall rise and set.

While you and Spouse, transform'd, shall foon
Be a new fun and a new moon :

Nor fhall you strive your horns to hide,

For then your horns fhall be your pride.

[blocks in formation]
« ПредишнаНапред »