Gave to a treacherous WORLD my heart, And play'd the foolish wanton's part. Soon to these murky shades I came, To hide from the sun's light my shame. And still I haunt this woody dell, And bathe me in that healing well, Whose waters clear have influence From sin's foul stains the soul to cleanse; And, night and day, I them augment, With tears, like a true penitent, Until, due expiation made, And fit atonement fully paid, The Lord and Bridegroom me present, Where in sweet strains of high consent God's throne before, the Seraphim Shall chant the ecstatic marriage hymn."
"Now Christ restore thee soon"-I said, And thenceforth all my dream was fled.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MOTHER AND CHILD.
"O LADY, lay your costly robes aside, No longer may you glory in your pride."
Wherefore to-day art singing in mine ear Sad songs were made so long ago, my dear? This day I am to be a bride, you know, Why sing sad songs, were made so long ago?
O mother, lay your costly robes aside, For you may never be another's bride. That line I learn'd not in the old sad song.
I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue, Play with the bride-maids; and be glad, my boy. For thou shalt be a second father's joy.
One father fondled me upon his knee. One father is enough, alone, for me.
QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM.
ON a bank with roses shaded, Whose sweet scent the violets aided, Violets whose breath alone Yields but feeble smell or none, (Sweeter bed Jove ne'er reposed on When his eyes Olympus closed on,)
While o'er head six slaves did hold Canopy of cloth o' gold,
And two more did music keep, Which might Juno lull to sleep, Oriana, who was queen To the mighty Tamerlane, That was lord of all the land Between Thrace and Samarchand, While the noon-tide fervor beam'd, Mused herself to sleep, and dream'd.
Thus far, in magnific strain, A young poet soothed his vein, But he had nor prose nor numbers To express a princess' slumbers.— Youthful Richard had strange fancies, Was deep versed in old romances, And could talk whole hours upon The Great Cham and Prester John,Tell the field in which the Sophi From the Tartar won a trophyWhat he read with such delight of, Thought he could as eas'ly write ofBut his over-young invention Kept not pace with brave intention. Twenty suns did rise and set, And he could no further get; But, unable to proceed,
Made a virtue out of need,
And, his labours wiselier deem'd of, Did omit what the queen dream'd of.
In a costly palace if the child with a pin Do but chance to prick a finger, straight the doctor is called in ;
In a wretched workhouse men are left to perish For want of proper cordials, which their old age might cherish.
In a costly palace Youth enjoys his lust; In a wretched workhouse Age, in corners thrust, Thinks upon the former days, when he was well to do,
Had children to stand by him, both friends and kinsmen too.
In a costly palace Youth his temples hides With a new-devised peruke that reaches to his sides;
In a wretched workhouse Age's crown is bare, With a few thin locks just to fence out the cold air.
In peace, as in war, 'tis our young gallants pride,
To walk, each one i' the streets, with a rapier by his side,
That none to do them injury may have pretence Wretched Age, in poverty, must brook offence.
NOTING THE DIFFERENCE OF RICH AND POOR, IN THE WAYS OF A RICH NOBLE'S PALACE AND A POOR
To the Tune of the "Old and Young Courtier."
In a costly palace Youth goes clad in gold; In a wretched workhouse Age's limbs are cold: There they sit, the old men by a shivering fire, Still close and closer cowering, warmth is their desire.
In a costly palace, when the brave gallants dine, They have store of good venison, with old canary wine,
With singing and music to heighten the cheer; Coarse bits, with grudging, are the pauper's best fare.
In a costly palace Youth is still carest
By a train of attendants which laugh at my young Lord's jest ;
In a wretched workhouse the contrary prevails: Does Age begin to prattle?—no man heark'neth to his tales.
By myself walking, To myself talking, When as I ruminate On my untoward fate, Scarcely seem I Alone sufficiently, Black thoughts continually Crowding my privacy; They come unbidden, Like foes at a wedding, Thrusting their faces In better guests' places, Peevish and malecontent, Clownish, impertinent, Dashing the merriment: So in like fashions Dim cogitations Follow and haunt me, Striving to daunt me, In my heart festering, In my ears whispering,
"Thy friends are treacherous,
Thy foes are dangerous,
Thy dreams ominous."
Fierce Anthropophagi, Spectra, Diaboli,
What scared St. Anthony, Hobgoblins, Lemures, Dreams of Antipodes, Night-riding Incubi Troubling the fantasy, All dire illusions Causing confusions; Figments heretical, Scruples fantastical,
Doubts diabolical;
Abaddon vexeth me,
Mahu perplexeth me, Lucifer teareth me
Jesu! Marial liberate nos ab his diris tentationibus Inimici.
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
MAY the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,
Or a fit expression find,
Or a language to my mind,
(Still the phrase is wide or scant)
To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!
Or in any terms relate
Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimèd lovers take
'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way,
While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death.
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill fortune, that would thwart us,
Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;
While each man, through thy height'ning steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem,
And all about us does express
(Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.
Thou through such a mist dost show us, That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowèd features, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.
Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle? Some few vapours thou may'st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze, But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart.
Brother of Bacchus, later born, The old world was sure forlorn Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than before All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow,
Or judge of thee meant: only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformed god now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.
Scent to match thy rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sov'reign to the brain. Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell. Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant; Thou art the only manly scent.
Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa, that brags her foison, Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite-
Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.
"Twas but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee; Irony all, and feign'd abuse, Such as perplex'd lovers use, At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe,- Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly wot Whether it be pain or not.
Or, as men, constrain'd to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow's at the height,
Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall, On the darling thing whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.
For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, TOBACCO, I Would do anything but die,
And but seek to extend my days Long enough to sing thy praise. But, as she, who once hath been A king's consort, is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Any tittle of her state, Though a widow, or divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarr'd the full fruition Of thy favours, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odours, that give life Like glances from a neighbour's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquer'd Canaanite.
MODEL of thy parent dear, Serious infant worth a fear
In thy unfaltering visage well Picturing forth the son of TELL, When on his forehead, firm and good, Motionless mark, the apple stood; Guileless traitor, rebel mild, Convict unconscious, culprit child! Gates that close with iron roar Have been to thee thy nursery door; Chains that chink in cheerless cells Have been thy rattles and thy bells; Walls contrived for giant sin
Have hemm'd thy faultless weakness in; Near thy sinless bed black Guilt
Her discordant house hath built,
And fill'd it with her monstrous brood- Sights, by thee not understood—
Sights of fear, and of distress, That pass a harmless infant's guess!
But the clouds, that overcast Thy young morning, may not last; Soon shall arrive the rescuing hour That yields thee up to Nature's power: Nature, that so late doth greet thee, Shall in o'erflowing measure meet thee. She shall recompense with cost For every lesson thou hast lost. Then wandering up thy sire's loved hill,* Thou shalt take thy airy fill
Of health and pastime. Birds shall sing For thy delight each May morning. Mid new-yean'd lambkins thou shalt play, Hardly less a lamb than they.
Then thy prison's lengthen'd bound Shall be the horizon skirting round: And, while thou fillest thy lap with flowers, To make amends for wintry hours, The breeze, the sunshine, and the place, Shall from thy tender brow efface Each vestige of untimely care, That sour restraint had graven there;
And on thy every look impress A more excelling childishness.
So shall be thy days beguiled,
THORNTON HUNT, my favourite child.
THE Clouds are blackening, the storms threatening, And ever the forest maketh a moan: Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart aching, Thus by herself she singeth alone, Weeping right plenteously.
"The world is empty, the heart is dead surely, In this world plainly all seemeth amiss : To thy breast, holy one, take now thy little one, I have had earnest of all earth's bliss, Living right lovingly.”
DAVID IN THE CAVE OF ADULLAM.
DAVID and his three captains bold
Kept ambush once within a hold.
It was in Adullam's cave,
Nigh which no. water they could have, Nor spring, nor running brook was near
To quench the thirst that parch'd them there. Then David, king of Israël, Straight bethought him of a well, Which stood beside the city gate,
At Bethlem; where, before his state Of kingly dignity, he had
Oft drunk his fill, a shepherd lad; But now his fierce Philistine foe Encamp'd before it he does know. Yet ne'er the less, with heat opprest, Those three bold captains he addrest; And wish'd that one to him would bring Some water from his native spring. His valiant captains instantly
To execute his will did fly.
The mighty Three the ranks broke through Of armèd foes, and water drew For David, their beloved king, At his own sweet native spring. Back through their arm'd foes they haste, With the hard-earn'd treasure graced. But when the good king David found What they had done, he on the ground The water pour'd. "Because," said he, "That it was at the jeopardy
Of your three lives this thing ye did, That I should drink it, God forbid."
ONCE on a charger there was laid, And brought before a royal maid, As price of attitude and grace, A guiltless head, a holy face.
It was on Herod's natal day, Who o'er Judea's land held sway. He married his own brother's wife, Wicked Herodias. She the life Of John the Baptist long had sought, Because he openly had taught That she a life unlawful led, Having her husband's brother wed.
This was he, that saintly John, Who in the wilderness alone Abiding, did for clothing wear A garment made of camel's hair; Honey and locusts were his food, And he was most severely good. He preached penitence and tears, And waking first the sinner's fears, Prepared a path, made smooth a way, For his diviner Master's day.
Herod kept in princely state His birth-day. On his throne he sate, After the feast, beholding her Who danced with grace peculiar ; Fair Salome, who did excel
All in that land for dancing well. The feastful monarch's heart was fired, And whatsoe'er thing she desired, Though half his kingdom it should be, He in his pleasure swore that he Would give the graceful Salome. The damsel was Herodias' daughter: She to the queen hastes, and besought her To teach her what great gift to name. Instructed by Herodias, came The damsel back to Herod said, "Give me John the Baptist's head; And in a charger let it be Hither straightway brought to me." Herod her suit would fain deny, But for his oath's sake must comply.
When painters would by art express Beauty in unloveliness, Thee, Herodias' daughter, thee, They fittest subject take to be.
They give thy form and features grace; But ever in thy beauteous face They show a steadfast cruel gaze, An eye unpitying; and amaze
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