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THE FLIES. AN ECLOGUE.

Was in the river cows for coolness stand,
And fheep for breezes feek the lofty land,
A youth, whom op taught that every tree,
Each bird and infect, fpoke as well as he,
Waik'd calmly mafing in a fhady way,
Where flowering hawthorns broke the funný ray,
And thus inftructs his moral pen to draw
A fcene that obvious in the field he faw.

Near a low ditch, where fhallow waters meet,
Which never learn'd to glide with liquid feet;
Whofe Naia's never prattle as they play,
Eat fcreen'd with hedges flumber oat the day,
There ftands a flender fern's afpiring fhade,
Whofe anfwering branches regularly laid
Put forth their aufwering boughs, and proudly rife
Three ftories upward, in the nether skies.

For theiter here, to fhun the noon-day heat, An airy nation of the flies retreat; Some in foft airs their filken pinions ply, And fome from bough to bough delighted fly; Some rife, and circling light to perch again; A pleafing murmur hums along the plain. So, when a ftage invites to pageant fhews, (If great and fall are like) appear the beaux; In boxes fome with fpruce pretenfion fit, Some change from feat to feat within the pit, Some roam the fcenes, or turning ceafe to roam; Preluding mufic fills the lofty dome.

When thus a fly (if what a fly can fay Deferves attention) rais'd the rural lay. Where late Arintor made a nymph a bride, Joyful I flew by young Favonia's fide, Who, mindless of the feafting, went to flip The balmy pleasure of the fhepherd's lip, I faw the wanton, where I ftoop'd to fup, And half refolv'd to drown me in a cup; Till, bruth'd by carelefs hands, the fear'd above: Ceafe, beauty, ceafe to vex a tender love.

Thus ends the youth, the buzzing meadow rung, And thus the rival of his mulic fung.

When funs by thousands fhone on orbs of dew, I wafted foft with Zephyretta flew; Saw the clean pale, and fought the milky cheer, While little Daphne feiz'd my roving dear. Wretch that I was! I might have warn'd the dame, Yet fate indulging as the danger came. But the kind huntress left her free to foar: Ah guard, ye lovers, guard a mistress more. Thus from the fern, whofe high projecting arms The fleeting nation bent with dufky (warms, The Iwains their love in cafy mufic breathe, When tongues and tumult flun the field beneath : Black ants in teams come darkening all the road, Some call to march, and fome to lift the load; They train, they labour with inceffant pains, Preis'd by the cumbrous weight of fingle grains. The Bies ftruck filent gaze with wonder down: The bufy burghers reach their earthy town; Where lay the burthens of a wintery store, And thence unwearied part in fearch of more. Yet one grave fage a moment's space attends, And the mall city's loftieft point afcends,

Wipes the falt dew that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the gravest grace.
Ye foolish nurflings of the fummer air,
These gentle tunes and whining fongs forbear;
Your trees and whilpering breeze, your grove and
love,

Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove;
Let bards to bufinefs bend their vigorous wing,
And fing but feldom, if they love to fing:
Elfe, when the flowerets of the fafon fail,
And this your ferny fhade forfakes the vale,
Though one would fave you, not one grain of
wheat,

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In vain, poor nymph, to please our youthful fight
You fleep in cream and frontlets all the night,
Your face with patches foil, with paint repair,
Drefs with gay gowns, and fhade with foreign hais.
If truth, in spite of manners, must be told,
Why really fifty-five is fomething ald.

[long
Once you were young; or one, whofe life's fo
She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong.
And once, fince envy's dead before you die,
The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye,
Taught the light foot a modifh little trip,
And pouted with the prettieft purple lip.

To fome new charmer are the rofes 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 cafy train.
So parting fummer bids her flowery prime
Attend the fun to drefs fome foreign clime,
While withering seasons in fucceflion, here,
Strip the gay gardens, and deform the year.

But thou, fince nature bids, the world refign,
'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine.
With more addrefs, or fuch as pleases more,
She runs her female exercises o'er,
Unfurls or clofes, raps or turns the fan,
And fmiles, or blushes at the creature man.
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pals,
In fideling courtefy the drops the glafs.
With better ftrength, on vifit-days the bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.
Her mein, her fhape, her temper, eyes, and tongue,
Are fure 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 sagt, The fphere of wifdom is the fphere of age.

'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire," And hears the flattering tongues of foft defire, If not from virtue, from its gravett ways The foul with pleafing avocation strays. But beauty gone, 'tis cafier to be wile; As harpers better by the lofs of eyes. Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs, Haunt lefs the plays, and more the public prayere

Reject the Mechlin head, and gold brocade,
Go pray, in fober Norwich crape array'd.
Thy pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take
(Their trembling luftre fhows how much you
fhake);

Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl,
You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl.
So for the reft, with lefs incumbrance hung,
You walk through life, unmingled with the
young, L

And view the fhade and fubftance as you pass,
With joint endeavour trifling at the glass,
Or folly dreft, and rambling all her days,
To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise :
Yet ftill fedate yourself, and gravely plain,
You neither fret, nor envy at the vain.
'Twas thus, if man with woman we compare,
The wife Athenian croft a glittering fair,
Unmov'd by tongue and fights, he walk'd the place,
Through tape, toys, tinfel, gimp, perfume, and
lace;

Then bends from Mar'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:

By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's fparrow dies
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless juftice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the nine,
Myfelf the priest, my desk the fhrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Taffo near,
To pile a facred altar here;
Hold, boy, thy hand out-runs thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ;
You reach'd me Philips' ruftic strain ;
Pray take your mortal bards again.

Come, bind the victim,-there he lies, And here between his numerous eyes This venerable duft I lay,

From manuscripts juft fwept away.

The goblet in my hand I take, (For the libation's yet to make) A health to poets! all their days May they have bread, as well as praise; Senfe may they seek, and less engage In papers fill'd with party-rage

He wrapt in wifdom, and they whirl'd by But if their riches fpoil their vein,

whim.

THE BOOK-WORM.

Came hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day,
The book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent earth, at odds,
A 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 tufks within,
And fcales to ferve him for a skin.
Obferve him nearly, left he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear fome modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he flips thee by.
See where his teeth a paffage eat :
We'll roufe him from the deep retreat.
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
'Tis facred Virgil, as I live!
From leaf to leaf, from fong to fong,
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he feuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Infatiate brute, whofe teeth abuse
The fweeteft fervants of the mufe.
(Nay never offer to deny,

I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roles nipt in every page,

My pour Anacreon mourns thy rage

Ye mufes, make them poor again.

Now bring the weapon, yonder blade, With which my tuneful pens are made. I ftrike the fcales that arm thee round, And twice and thrice I print the wound; The facred altar floats with red, And now he dies, and now he's dead.

How like the son of Jove I stand,
This Hydra ftretch'd beneath my hand!
Lay bare the monster's entrails here,
To fee what dangers threat the year:
Ye gods what fonnets on a wench!
What lean tranflations out of French!
"Tis plain, this lobe is fo unfound,
Sprints, before the months go round.

But hold, before I close the scene,
The facred altar fhould be clean.
Oh had I Shadwell's fecond bays,
Or, Tate! thy pert and humble lays!
(Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never mifs'd your works till now)
I'd tear the leaves to wipe the fhrine,
(That only way you please the nine)
But fince I chance to want these two,
I'll make the fongs of Durfey do.

Rent from the corps, on yonder pin,
I hang the fcales that brac'd it in;
I hang my ftudious morning-gown,
And write my own infcription down.

"This trophy from the Python won, "This robe, in which the deed was done, "Thefe, Parnell, glorying in the feat, Hung on thefe fhelves, the mufes feat. "Here ignorance and hunger found

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Large realms of wit to ravage round: "Here ignorance and hunger fell: "Two foes in one I fent to hell. "Ye poets, who my labours fee, "Come fhare the triumph all with me!

"Ye critics! born to vex the mufe, "Go mourn the grand ally you lofe."

AN ALLEGORY ON MAN.

A THOUGHTFUL being, long and spare,
Our race of mortals call him Care
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What name the gods have call'd him too),
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, though no one bought.
This being, by a model bred
In Jove's eternal fable head,
Contriv'd a shape empower'd to breathe,
And be the worldling here beneath.

The man rofe ftaring, like a stake;
Wondering to fee himself awake!
Then look'd fo wife, before he knew
The business he was made to do;
That, pleas'd to fee with what a grace
He gravely fhew'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-fomething of the sky.

But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a poet's god
(For which his curls ambrofial shake,
And mother earth's oblig'd to quake),
He faw old mother earth arise,
She stood confefs'd before his eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before,

Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her, like commodes:
As yet with wreaths alone the drest,
And trail'd a landskip-painted veft.
Then thrice fhe rais'd, as Ovid faid,
And thrice the bow'd her weighty head.
Her honours made, great Jove, fhe cry'd,
This thing was fashion'd from my side :
His hands, his heart, his head, are mine;
Then what haft thou to call him thine?
Nay rather afk, the monarch faid,
What boots his hand, his heart, his head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?
Thy part's an idle fhape of clay.

Halves, more than halves! cry'd honest Care,
Your pleas would make your titles fair,
You claim the body, you the foul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.
Thus with the gods debate began,
On fuch a trivial caufe, as man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age.

As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him fuch as I,
For what the fabling ancients fung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his winters had not shed
Their filver honours on his head;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old fire, Eternity.
A ferpent girdled round he wore,
he tail within the mouth, before;
VOL, VU.

By which our almanacks are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A ftaff he carry'd, where on high
A glafs was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a fhow
For heads of canes an age ago.
His veft, for day and night, was py'd;
A bending fickle arm'd his fide;
And spring's new months his train adorn!
The other feafons were unborn.

Known by the gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause.
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where fince his hours a dial made;
Then leaning heard the nice debate,
And thus pronounc'd the words of fate :

Since body from the parent earth, And foul from Jove receiv'd a birth, Return they where they firft began ; But fince their union makes the man, Till Jove and earth fhall part these two, To Care who join'd them, man is due.

He faid, and fprung with swift career To trace a circle for the year; Where ever fince the feafons wheel, And tread on one another's heel.

'Tis well, faid Jove, and for confent
Thund'ring he shook the firmament.
Our umpire Time fhall have his way,
With care I let the creature ftay:
Let business vex him, avarice blind,
Let doubt and knowledge rack his mind,
Let error act, opinion fpeak,

And want afflict, and fickness break,
And anger burn, dejection chill,
And joy diftract, and forrow kill.

Till, arm'd by Care, and taught to mow,
Time draws the long deftructive blow;
And wafted man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his day,
Shall only find by this decree,
The foul flies fooner back to me.

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I'll feek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's furely taught below

How deep yon azure dyes the sky!
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in filver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide.
The flumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is fmooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the fpangled show
Defcends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds, which on the right aspire.
In dimnefs from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whofe wall the filent water laves.
That fteeple guides thy doubtful fight
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass with melancholy state
By all the folemn heaps of fate,
And think, as foftly-fad you tread
Above the venerable dead,
Time was, like thee, they life poffeft,
And time fball be, that thou fbalt reft.

Those with bending ofier bound,
That nameless have the crumbled ground,
Quick to the glancing thought disclose,
Where toil and poverty repofe.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chiffel's flender help to fame
(Which ere our fet of friends decay
Their frequent fteps may wear away);
A middle race of mortals own,
Men, half ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rife on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whofe pillars fwell with fculptur'd ftones,
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones,

Thefe, all the poor remains of state,
Adorn the rich, or praise the great;
Who, while on earth in fame they live,
Are fenfeless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,
The bursting earth unveils the fhades!

All flow, and wan, and wrap'd with shrouds,
They rife in vifionary crowds,
And all with fober accent cry,
Think, mortal, what it is to die.

Now from yon black and funeral yew,
That bathes the charnel-house with dew,
Methinks, I hear a voice begin;

(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din, Ye tolling clocks, no time refound

O'er the long lake and midnight ground!)

It fends a peal of hollow groans,

Thus fpeaking from among the bones.

When men my scythe and darts supply,

How great a king of fears am I!

They view me like the last of things;

They make, and then they draw, my strings.
Fools if you lefs provok'd your fears,
No more my spectre form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever país to God:
A port of calms, a state to ease
From the rough age of fwelling feas.

Why then thy flowing fable stoles,
Deep pendant cypress, mourning poles,

Loofe fearfs to fall athwart thy weeds, Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds, And plumes of black, that, as they tread, Nod o'er the 'icutcheons of the dead?

Nor can the parted body know, Nor wants the foul. thefe forms of woe; As men who long in prifon dwell, With lamps that glimmer round the cell, Whene'er their fuffering years are run, Spring forth to greet the glittering fun: Such joy, though far tranfcending sense, Have pious fouls at parting hence. On earth, and in the body plac'd, A few, and evil years, they wafte : But when their chains are caft afide, See the glad scene unfolding wide, Clap the glad wing, and tower away, And mingle with the blaze of day.

HYMN TO CONTENTMENT. LOVELY, lafting peace of mind! Sweet delight of human kind! Heavenly born, and bred on high, To crown the favourites of the fky With more of happiness below, Than victors in a triumph know! Whither, O whither art thou fled, To lay thy meek contented head; What happy region doft thou please To make the feat of calms and ease!

Ambition fearches all its sphere
of pomp and state, to meet thee there.
Encreafing avarice would find
Thy prefence in its gold infhrin'd.
The bold adventurer ploughs his way,
Through rocks amidst the foaming fea,
To gain thy love; and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves.
The filent heart, which grief affails,
Treads foft and lonefome o'er the vales,
Sees dailies open, rivers run,
And feeks (as I have vainly done)
Anuling thought; but learns to know
That folitude's the nurfe of woe.
No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o'er the ground:
Or in a foul exalted high,
To range the circuit of the sky,
Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below;
The rest it fecks, in feeking dies,
And doubts at laft, for knowledge, rife.
Lovely, lafting peace, appear!
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden bleft,
And man contains it in his breast.
'Twas thus, as under fhade I flood,
I fung my wishes to the wood,
And, loft in thought, no more perceiv'd
The branches whifper as they wav'd:
It feem'd as all the quiet place
Confefs'd the prefence of his grace.

When thus fhe fpoke-Go rule thy will,
Bid thy wild paffions all be still,
Know God-and bring thy heart to know
The joys which from religion flow:
Then every grace fhall prove its guest,
And I'll be there to crown the reft.

Oh! by yonder moffy seat,
In my hours of sweet retreat,
Might I thus my foul employ,
With fenfe of gratitude and joy :
Rais'd as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vifion, praife, and prayer;
Pleafing all men, hurting none,
Pleas'd and blefs'd with God alone:
Then while the gardens take my fight,
With all the colours of delight;
While filver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my fong:
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great fource of nature, fing.

The fun that walks his airy way,
To light the world, and give the day;
The moon that fhines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The feas that roll unnumber'd waves;
The wood that spreads its fhady leaves;
The field whofe ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;
All of thefe, and all I fee,

Should be fung, and fung by me :
They speak their Maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go fearch among your idle dreams,
Your bufy or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal blifs,
Or own the next begun in this.

THE HERMIT.

FAR in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew;
The mofs his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well:
Remote from men, with God he pafs'd the days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.

A life fo facred, such ferene repose,
Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rofe;
That vice fhould triumph, virtue vice obey,
This fprung fome doubt of Providence's sway:
His hopes no more a certain profpect boast,
And all the tenour of his foul is loft:
So when a smooth expanfe receives imprest
Calm nature's image on its watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow,
And skies beneath with anfwering colours glow:
But if a ftone the gentle fea divide,
Swift ruffling circles curl on every fide,
And glimmering fragments of a broken fun,
Banks, trees, and skies, in thick disorder run.

To clear this doubt, to know the world by fight, To find if books, or fwains, report it right, (For yet by fwains alone the world he knew, Whofe feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew)

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