Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast!
For which he paid full dear;
For, while he spake, a braying ass
Did sing most loud and clear;
Whereat his horse did snort, as he
Had heard a lion roar,
And galloped off with all his might,
As he had done before.
Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig:
He lost them sooner than at first,
For why?-they were too big.
Now, mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down
Into the country far away,
She pulled out half-a-crown;
And thus unto the youth she said,
That drove them to the Bell,
This shall be yours when you bring back
My husband safe and well.
The youth did ride, and soon did meet
John coming back amain!
Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein:
But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.
Away went Gilpin, and away
Went post-boy at his heels,
The post-boy's horse right glad to miss
The lumbering of the wheels.
Six gentlemen upon the road
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With post-boy scampering in the rear,
They raised the hue and cry :-
Stop thief! stop thief!-a highwayman!
Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.
And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking as before
That Gilpin rode a race.
And so he did, and won it too,
For he got first to town;
Nor stopped till where he had got up
He did again get down.
Now let us sing, long live the king,
And Gilpin, long live he;
And, when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!
TO A PROTESTANT LADY IN FRANCE.
A STRANGER'S purpose in these lays
Is to congratulate, and not to praise.
To give the creature her Creator's due
Were sin in me, and an offence to you.
From man to man, or e'en to woman paid,
Praise is the medium of a knavish trade,
A coin by craft for folly's use designed,
Spurious, and only current with the blind.
The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown;
No traveller ever reached that blest abode,
Who found not thorns and briars in his road.
The world may dance along the flowery plain,
Cheered as they go by many a sprightly strain,
Where nature has her mossy velvet spread,
With unshod feet they yet securely tread,
Admonished, scorn the caution and the friend,
Bent upon pleasure, heedless of its end.
But he, who knew what human hearts would prove,"
How slow to learn the dictates of his love,
That hard by nature and of stubborn will,
A life of ease would make them harder still,
In pity to the sinners he designed
To rescue from the ruins of mankind,
Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And said, "Go, spend them in the vale of tears."
Oh balmy gales of soul-reviving air,
Oh salutary streams that murmur there,
These flowing from the fount of grace above,
Those breathed from lips of everlasting love!
The flinty soil indeed their feet annoys,
And sudden sorrow nips their springing joys,
An envious world will interpose its frown
To mar delights superior to its own,
And many a pang, experienced still within,
Reminds them of their hatred inmate, sin;
But ills of every shape and every name
Transformed to blessings miss their cruel aim,
And every moment's calm, that soothes the breast,
Is given in earnest of eternal rest.
Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast
Far from the flock, and in a distant waste!
230 TO THE REV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN.
No shepherd's tents within thy view appear,
But the chief Shepherd is for ever near;
Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain
Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain ;
Thy tears all issue from a source divine,
And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine-
'Twas thus in Gideon's fleece the dews were found,
And drought on all the drooping herds around.
THE REV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN.
UNWIN, I should but ill repay
The kindness of a friend,
Whose worth deserves as warm a lay
As ever friendship penned,
Thy name omitted in a page,
That would reclaim a vicious age.
An union formed, as mine with thee,
Not rashly, nor in sport,
May be as fervent in degree,
And faithful in its sort,
And may as rich in comfort prove,
As that of true fraternal love.
The bud inserted in the rind,
The bud of peach or rose,
Adorns, though differing in its kind,
The stock whereon it grows,
With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair,
As if produced by nature there.
EPISTLE TO THE REV. W. BULL.
Not rich, I render what I may,
I seize thy name in haste,
And place it in this first essay,
Lest this should prove the last.
'Tis where it should be-in a plan,
That holds in view the good of man.
The poet's lyre, to fix his fame,
Should be the poet's heart;
Affection lights a brighter flame
Than ever blazed by art.
No muses on these lines attend,
I sink the poet in the friend.
EPISTLE TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
Ir reading verse be your delight,
"Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time,
I feel a wish, by cheerful rhyme,
To sooth my friend, and had I power,
To cheat him of an anxious hour.
Not meaning (for I must confess
What 'twere but folly to suppress)
His pleasure or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
I'the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once, and who but he?
The name for setting genius free;
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeserved praise,
And he, by no uncommon lot,
Was fam'd for virtues he had not;
|