'Twas all the ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford;
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventured on the town,
And with a borrow'd play outdid poor Crown.
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little:
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.
So some coarse country-wench, almost decay'd,
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay,
She flatters her good lady twice a-day;
Thought wondrous honest, though of mean degree,
And strangely liked for her simplicity:
In a translated suit, then tries the town,
With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own;
But just endured the winter she began,
And in four months a batter'd harridan.
Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale, and shrunk, To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.
TO MR. JOHN MOORE,
Author of the celebrated Worm-Powder
How much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceived by shows and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we see,
All human kind are worms.
Man is a very worm by birth,
Vile, reptile, weak, and vain!
A while he crawls upon the earth.
Then shrinks to earth again
That woman is a worm, we find
E'er since our grandame's evil;
She first conversed with her own kind,
That ancient worm, the devil.
The learn'd themselves we book-worms name;
The blockhead is a slow-worm;
The nymph whose tail is all on flame,
Is aptly term'd a glow-worm.
The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;
First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay..
The flatterer an earwig grows;
Thus worms suit all conditions:
Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaus,
And death-watches physicians.
That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;
Their conscience is a worm within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah, Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,
If thou couldst make the courtier void
The worm that never dies.
O learned friend of Abchurch-lane,
Who setst our entrails free;
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall eat e'en thee.
Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
E'en Button's wits to worms shall turn,
Who maggots were before.
SONG BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.
Written in the Year 1733.
FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Meander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping:
Melody resigns to fate.
ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.
I KNOW the thing that 's most uncommon; (Envy, be silent and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.
Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour,
Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly:
An equal mixture of good-humour,
And sensible soft melancholy.
'Has she no faults, then,' Envy says, ' sir?'
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.
ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,
Composed of Marble, Spars, Gems, Ores, and
Minerals.
THOU who shalt drop,where Thames translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,
Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow:
Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine, without a wish for gold.
Approach; but awful! lo! the Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and the poor.
TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
Oн, be thou bless'd with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend
Not with those toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and vanities that tire.
With added years, if life bring nothing new,
But like a sieve let every blessing through,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth day? 'tis, alas! too clear,
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear;
Till death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstacy of joy.
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb,
And wake to raptures in a life to come.
TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN,
On his Birth-day, 1742.
RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild-goose and the larks!
The mushrooms show his wit was sudden!
And for his judgment, lo! a pudden !
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