The swains their love in easy music breathe,
When tongues and tumult stun the field beneath.
Black ants in teams come darkening all the road,
Some call to march, and some to lift the load;
They strain, they labour with incessant pains,
Press'd by the cumbrous weight of single grains.
The flies, struck silent, gaze with wonder down:
The busy burghers reach their earthy town,
Where lay the burthens of a wintry store,
And thence unwearied part in search of more.
Yet one grave sage a moment's space attends,
And the small city's loftiest point ascends,
Wipes the salt dew that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the gravest grace.
Ye foolish nurslings of the summer air,
These gentle tunes and whining songs forbear; Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and
Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove.
Let bards to business bend their vigorous wing,
And sing but seldom, if they love to sing:
Else, when the flowerets of the season fail,
And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale,
Though one would save ye, not one grain of wheat
Should pay such songsters idling at my gate.
He ceas'd: the flies, incorrigibly vain,
Heard the mayor's speech, and fell to sing again.
AN ELEGY, TO AN OLD BEAUTY.
In vain, poor nymph, to please our youthful sight You sleep in cream and frontlets all the night, Your face with patches soil, with paint repair, Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair. If truth, in spite of manners, must be told,
Why really fifty-five is something old.
Once
you were young; or one, whose life's so long
She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong;
And once, since envy's dead before you die,
The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye,
Taught the light foot a modish little trip,
And pouted with the prettiest purple lip.
To some new charmer are the roses fled,
Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red;
Youth calls the Graces there to fix their reign,
And airs by thousands fill their easy train.
So parting summer bids her flowery prime
Attend the sun to dress some foreign clime,
While withering seasons in succession, here,
Strip the gay gardens, and deform the year.
But thou, since nature bids, the world resign; 'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine.
With more address, or such as pleases more,
She runs her female exercises o'er,
Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan,
And smiles, or blushes at the creature man.
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass,
In sideling courtesy she drops the glass.
With better strength, on visit-days, she bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.
Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes, and tongue, Are sure to conquer, for the rogue is young; And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,
We call it only pretty Fanny's way.
Let time, that makes you homely, make you
The sphere of wisdom is the sphere of age.
'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire,
And hears the flattering tongues of soft desire,
If not from virtue, from its gravest ways
The soul with pleasing avocation strays :
But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise;
As harpers better, by the loss of eyes.
Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs, Haunt less the plays, and more the public prayers, Reject the Mechlin head, and gold brocade, Go pray, in sober Norwich crape array'd. Thy pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take, (Their trembling lustre shows how much you. shake ;)
Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl,
You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl.
So for the rest, with less incumbrance hung,
You walk through life, unmingled with the young;
And view the shade and substance, as you pass,
With joint endeavour trifling at the glass,
Or Folly drest, and rambling all her days,
To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise :
Yet still sedate yourself, and gravely plain,
You neither fret, nor envy at the vain.
'Twas thus, if man with woman we compare, The wise Athenian cross'd a glittering fair. Unmov'd by tongues and sights, he walk'd the
Through tape, toys, tinsel, gimp, perfume, and
Then bends from Mars's hill his awful eyes,
And-What a world I never want!' he cries;
But cries unheard; for Folly will be free.
So parts the buzzing gaudy crowd, and he:
As careless he for them, as they for him ;
He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirl'd by whim.
COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day
The book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat:
We'll rouse him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er,
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