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But painful ftill, though meant for kind,
The praise that falls on Envy's ear;
O'er the dim window's arch entwin'd,

The canker'd ivy chanc'd to hear.

And See,' fhe cried, that fpecious flower, • Whose flattering bofom courts the fun; The pageant of a gilded hour,

• The convent's fimple hearts hath won!

• Obfequious meannefs! ever prone
To watch the patron's turning eye;
No will, no motion of it's own!
'Tis this they love, for this they figh:

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To me their praise more juftly due,

Of longer bloom, and happier grace! • Whom changing months unalter'd view, And find them in my fond embrace.'

How well,' the modeft flower replied,
• Can Envy's tutor❜d eye elude
The obvious bounds that still divide
Foul Flattery from fair Gratitude.

My duteous praise each hour I pay,

For few the hours that I muft live; And give to him my little day, • Whose grace another day may give.

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• When

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When low this golden form shall fall,
And spread with duft it's parent plain;
• That duft shall hear his genial call,
And rife, to glory rife again.

To thee, my gracious Power, to thee
My love, my heart, my life are due!
Thy goodness gave that life to be,

Thy goodness fhall that life renew.

Ah, me! one moment from thy fight
That thus my truant-eye fhould stray!
The God of glory fets in night;

• His faithlefs flower has loft a day!'

Sore figh'd the flower, and droop'd her head;
And fudden tears her breast bedew'd:

Confenting tears the fifters fhed,

And, wrapp'd in holy wonder, view'd.

With joy, with pious pride elate,

Behold,' the aged abbess cries, An emblem of that happier fate

• Which Heaven to all but us denies.

• Our hearts no fears but duteous fears,

No charm but duty's charm can move ;

We shed no tears but holy tears

Of tender penitence and love.

See there the flattering world pourtray'd
In that dark look, that creeping pace!
No flower can bear the Ivy's fhade;

No tree fupport it's cold embrace.

The

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The oak that rears it from the ground,
And bears it's tendrils to the skies,
Feels at his heart the rankling wound,
And in it's poisonous arms he dies.'

Her moral thus the matron read,
Studious to teach her children dear,
And they by love, or duty led,

With pleasure heard, or seem'd to hear.

Yet one lefs duteous, not lefs fair,

(In convents ftill the tale is known)

The fable heard with filent care,

But found a moral of her own.

The flower that fmil'd along the day,
And droop'd in tears at evening's fall;
Too well fhe found her life difplay,
Too well her fatal lot recal.

The envious Ivy's gloomy fhade,

That murder'd what it most embrac❜d;

Too well that cruel scene convey'd,
Which all her fairer hopes effac'd.

Her heart with filent horror fhook,
With fighs fhe fought her lonely cell;

To the dim light she caft one look,

And bade, once more, the world farewel.

ODE

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If that nymph, deceiv'd by thee,
Liftens to thy fophiftry;

If the courts thy cold embraces,
And to thee refigns her graces;
What, alas! is left for me,
But to fly, myself, to thee?

H

THE COPPER FARTHING.

BY MISS PENNINGTON.

APPY the boy who dwells remote from school,
Whose pocket or whofe rattling-box contains

A copper farthing! he nor grieving hears

Hot cheese-cakes cried, nor favoury mutton-pies;
But with his play-mates, in the dusk of eve,

To well-known blacksmith's fhop, or church-yard hies;
Where, mindful of the sport that joys his heart,
Marbles or chuck, he inftantly begins,

With undiffembled pleasure in his face,
To draw the circle, or to pitch the dump:
While I, confin'd within the hated walls
Of school, refounding with a clamorous din,
ftill more hated books environ'd, I,

By
With tedious leffons and long task to get,

My difmal thoughts employ; or wield my pen
To mark dire characters on paper white:
Not blunter pen or ftronger character
Ufes the fage, a chiromancer hight,
Sprung from Egyptian king, and fwarthy race,
Amenophis or Ptolemy, when he,

In fearch of stolen calf, or money lost,
For wondering plowman does his art employ;
Or for the wish'd return of fweetheart dear,

Or

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