My copper lamps at any rate,
For being true antique, I bought; Yet wifely melted down my plate,
On modern models to be wrought:
And trifles I alike pursue,
Because they're old, because they 're new.
Quoth Dick: fuch truths are worth receiving. Yet ftill Dick look'd as not believing.
Now, Alma, to divines and profe
I leave thy frauds, and crimes, and woes;
Nor think to-night of thy ill-nature,
But of thy follies, idle creature!
The turns of thy uncertain wing,
And not the malice of thy fting: Thy pride of being great and wife I do but mention, to despise; I view with anger and disdain How little gives thee joy or pain; A print, a bronze, a flower, a root, A fhell, a butterfly, can do 't; Ev'n a romance, a tune, a rhyme, Help thee to pass the tedious time,
Which elfe would on thy hand remain ;
Though, flown, it ne'er looks back again ; And cards are dealt, and chess-boards brought, To ease the pain of coward thought: Happy refult of human wit!
That Alma may herself forget.
Dick, thus we act; and thus we are, Or tofs'd by hope, or funk by care. With endless pain this man pursues What, if he gain'd, he could not use : And t'other fondly hopes to fee What never was, nor e'er fhall be. We err by ufe, go wrong by rules, In gesture grave, in action fools: We join hypocrify to pride, Doubling the faults we strive to hide. Or grant that, with extreme furprize, We find ourselves at fixty wife; And twenty pretty things are known, Of which we can't accomplish one; Whilft, as my fyftem fays, the mind Is to thefe upper rooms confin'd: Should I, my friend, at large repeat Her borrow'd fenfe, her fond conceit, The bead-roll of her vicious tricks;
As Brentford kings, difcreet and wife, After long thought and grave advice,
Into Lardella's coffin peeping,
Saw nought to cause their mirth or weeping: So Alma, now to joy or grief
Superior, finds her late relief: Weary'd of being high or great,
And nodding in her chair of state;
Stunn'd and worn out with endless chat Of Will did this, and Nan faid that;
She finds, poor thing, fome little crack,
Which Nature, forc'd by Time, must make,
Through which the wings her destin'd way;
Upward the foars; and down drops clay : While fome furviving friend fupplies
Hic jacet, and a hundred lies.
O Richard, till that day appears,
Which must decide our hopes and fears, Would Fortune calm her prefent rage, And give us play-things for our age; Would Clotho wash her hands in milk, And twist our thread with gold and filk; Would fhe, in friendship, peace, and plenty, Spin out our years to four times twenty; And fhould we both in this condition
Have conquer'd Love, and worse Ambition
(Elfe those two paffions, by the way, May chance to fhew us fcurvy play); Then, Richard, then fhould we fit down, Far from the tumult of this town;
my well-chofen feat,
My pictures, medals, books compleat. Or, fhould we mix our friendly talk, O'er-fhaded in that favourite walk,
Which thy own hand had whilom planted,
Both pleas'd with all we thought we wanted: 550 Yet then, ev'n then, one cross reflection Would fpoil thy grove, and my collection : Thy fon, and his, ere that, may die ; And Time fome uncouth heir fupply, Who fhall for nothing elfe be known But fpoiling all that thou haft done. Who fet the twigs, fhall he remember That is in hafte to fell the timber? And what fhall of thy woods remain, Except the box that threw the main ? Nay, may not Time and Death remove
The near relations whom I love?
And my coz Tom, or his coz Mary,
(Who hold the plough, or fkim the dairy)
My copper medals by the pound
May be with learned juftice weigh'd;
To turn the balance, Otho's head
May be thrown in; and for the metal,
The coin may mend a tinker's kettle
Tir'd with these thoughts-Lefs tir'd than I, Quoth Dick, with your philofophy- That people live and die, I knew
An hour ago, as well as you. And, if Fate fpins us longer years, Or is in hafte to take the fhears, I know we must both fortunes try, And bear our evils wet or dry. Yet, let the Goddess fmile or frown, Bread we shall eat, or white or brown; And in a cottage, or a court,
Drink fine champaigne or muddled port, What need of books thefe truths to tell, Which folks perceive who cannot fpell?!
Come on, friend; broach the pleasing notion :
But, if you would deprefs my thought,
Your fyftem is not worth a groat―
For Plato's fancies what care I? I hope you would not have me die, Like fimple Cato, in the play, For any thing that he can say? E'en let him of ideas fpeak
To heathens in his native Greek.
« הקודםהמשך » |