Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire,
Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire.
In vain our plans of happiness we raise,
Pain is our lot, and patience is our praise;
Wealth, lineage, honours, conquest, or a throne,
Are what the wise would fear to call their own.
Health is at best a vain precarious thing,
And fair-fac'd youth is ever on the wing;
'Tis like the stream, beside whose wat❜ry bed
Some blooming plant exalts his flow'ry head,
Nurs'd by the wave the spreading branches rise,
Shade all the ground, and flourish to the skies;
The waves the while beneath in secret flow,
And undermine the hollow bank below;
Wide and more wide the waters urge their way,
Bare all the roots, and on their fibres prey.
Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride,
And sinks, untimely, in the whelming tide.
But why repine? Does life deserve my sigh? Few will lament my loss whene'er I die.
For those the wretches I despise or hate,
I neither envy nor regard their fate.
For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread
His wings around my unrepining head,
I care not; though this face be seen no more,
The world will pass as cheerful as before;
Bright as before the day-star will appear,
The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear;
Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare,
Nor signs on earth, nor portents in the air;
Unknown and silent will depart my breath,
Nor Nature e'er take notice of my death.
Yet some there are (ere spent my vital days)
Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise.
Loy'd in my life, lamented in my end,
Their praise would crown me as their precepts mend:
To them may these fond lines my name endear,
Not from the Poet but the Friend sincere.
JAMES EYRE WEEKES.
FROM POEMS PRINTED AT CORK, 1743.
THERE's not a sense but still betrays,
Like bosom-snakes, their master;
Where'er my various fancy strays,
It still brings some disaster;
For all my different senses move
To the same centre-fatal love!
My rebel eyes betray my heart,
And ruin me by gazing,
Like burning glasses flames impart,
And set me all a blazing:
These treach'rous twins, which should protect,
Like fatal stars my peace have wreck'd.
My simple ears my soul betray,
By list'ning to the syren;
They who should guard th' important way,
With sounds my heart environ;
Brib'd they admit such potent foes
As rob me of my sweet repose.
My smell, too, plays a traitor's part,
Her fragrant breath admitting;
Her perfum'd sighs sharp stings impart,
My simple soul outwitting :
Poor I am led thus by the nose,
And find the nettle in the rose.
My taste the dangerous nectar sips,-
Such nectar Gods ne'er tasted;
And sucks ambrosia from her lips;
With ruin thus I'm feasted :
My palate, which should be my cook,
Destroys me with the poison'd hook.
My touch-oh, there contagion lies!
Whene'er I touch I tremble;
Through all my frame th' enchantment flies,
An aspin I resemble;
My lips, deluding me with bliss,
Betray their master with a kiss.
Whate'er I see, or hear, or smell,
Or taste, or touch, delighted, By all together, like a spell,
Am I to love invited:
All other things their ruin shun,
But I am by myself undone.
RICHARD SAVAGE,
SON of the unnatural Anne Countess of Macclesfield, by Earl Rivers, was born in 1697-8, and died in a jail at Bristol, 1743.
In gayer hours, when high my fancy ran, The Muse, exulting, thus her lay began. "Blest be the Bastard's birth! through wondrous
He shines eccentric like a comet's blaze!
No sickly fruit of faint compliance he!
He! stampt in nature's mint of ecstacy!
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race:
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face:
His daring hope no sire's example bounds;
His first-born lights no prejudice confounds.
He, kindling from within, requires no flame;
He glories in a Bastard's glowing name.
"Born to himself, by no possession led, In freedom foster'd, and by fortune fed;
Nor guides, nor rules, his sovereign choice control,
His body independent as his soul;
Loos'd to the world's wide range-enjoy'd no aim,
Prescrib'd no duty, and assign'd no name:
Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone,
His heart unbiass'd, and his mind his own.
"O mother, yet no mother! 'tis to you
My thanks for such distinguish'd claims are due ;
You, unenslav'd to Nature's narrow laws,
Warm championess for freedom's sacred cause,
From all the dry devoirs of blood and line,
From ties maternal, moral and divine,
Discharg'd my grasping soul; push'd me from shore,
And launch'd me into life without an oar.
"What had I lost, if, conjugally kind,
By nature hating, yet by vows confin'd,
Untaught the matrimonial bounds to slight,
And coldly conscious of a husband's right,
You had faint-drawn me with a form alone,
A lawful lump of life by force your own!
Then, while your backward will retrench'd desire,
And unconcurring spirits lent no fire,
I had been born your dull, domestic heir,
Load of your life, and motive of your care;
Perhaps been poorly rich, and meanly great,
The slave of pomp, a cypher in the state;
Lordly neglectful of a worth unknown,
And slumbering in a seat by chance my own.
"Far nobler blessings wait the bastard's lot;
Conceiv'd in rapture, and with fire begot!
Strong as necessity, he starts away,
Climbs against wrongs, and brightens into day."
Thus unprophetic, lately misinspir'd,
I sung: gay fluttering hope my fancy fir'd:
Inly secure, through conscious scorn of ill,
Nor taught by wisdom how to balance will,
Rashly deceiv'd, I saw no pits to shun,
But thought to purpose and to act were one;
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