But merely to remark, that ours,
Like some of Nature's sweetest flowers,
Rose from a seed of tiny size,

That seem'd to promise no such prize;
A transient visit intervening,

And made almost without a meaning,
(Hardly the effect of inclination,
Much less of pleasing expectation,)
Produced a friendship, then begun,
That has cemented us in one;
And placed it in our power to prove,
By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken;
"A three-fold cord is not soon broken."

TO MRS. KING,

ON HER KIND PRESENT TO THE AUTHOR; A PATCHWORK COUNTERPANE OF HER OWN MAKING.

[August 14, 1790.]

THE Bard, if e'er he feel at all,
Must sure be quicken'd by a call
Both on his heart and head,
To pay with tuneful thanks the care
And kindness of a Lady fair

Who deigns to deck his bed.

A bed like this, in ancient time,
On Ida's barren top sublime,

(As Homer's Epic shows,)

Composed of sweetest vernal flowers,
Without the aid of sun or showers,
For Jove and Juno rose.

Less beautiful, however gay,

Is that which, in the scorching day,
Receives the weary swain
Who, laying his long scythe aside,
Sleeps on some bank with daisies pied,
"Till roused to toil again.

What labours of the loom I see!
Looms numberless have groan'd for me!
Should every maiden come

To scramble for the patch that bears
The impress of the robe she wears,
The bell would toll for some.

And oh, what havoc would ensue !
This bright display of every hue

All in a moment fled!

As if a storm should strip the bowers

Of all their tendrils, leaves, and flowersEach pocketing a shred.

Thanks, then, to every gentle fair
Who will not come to peck me bare
As bird of borrow'd feather;

And thanks to One above them all,
The gentle Fair of Pertenhall,
Who put the whole together.

SONNET.

TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ.

[April 16, 1792.]

THY Country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,
Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call'd
Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the enthrall'd
From exile, public sale, and Slavery's chain.
Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd,
Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain.

Thou hast achieved a part; hast gain'd the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause;

Hope smiles, Joy springs, and, though cold Caution pause And weave delay, the better hour is near

That shall remunerate thy toils severe

By peace for Afric, fenced with British laws.
Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love

From all the Just on earth, and all the Blest above

TO DR. AUSTIN,

OF CECIL STREET, LONDON.

[May 26, 1792.]

AUSTIN! accept a grateful verse from me,
The poet's treasure, no inglorious fee.
Loved by the Muses, thy ingenuous mind
Pleasing requital in my verse may find;

Verse oft has dash'd the scythe of Time aside,
Immortalizing names which else had died:

And O! could I command the glittering wealth
With which sick kings are glad to purchase health!
Yet, if extensive fame, and sure to live,

Were in the power of verse like mine to give,
I would not recompense his art with less,

Who, giving Mary health, heals my distress.

Friend of my friend!* I love thee, though unknown, And boldly call thee, being his, my own.

SONNET,

TO GEORGE ROMNEY, ESQ.

On his picture of me in Crayons, drawn at Eartham, in the 61st year of my age, and in the months of August

and September, 1792.

[October, 1792.]

ROMNEY, expert infallibly to trace

On chart or canvass, not the form alone
And semblance, but, however faintly shown,
The mind's impression too on every face—
With strokes that time ought never to erase,

Thou hast so pencil'd mine that, though I own The subject worthless, I have never known The artist shining with superior grace.

* Hayley.

But this I mark-that symptoms none of woe
In thy incomparable work appear.
Well-I am satisfied it should be so,

Since, on maturer thought, the cause is clear;
For in my looks what sorrow couldst thou see
When I was Hayley's guest, and sat to thee?

TO MRS. UNWIN.

[May, 1793.]

MARY! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from Heaven as some have feign'd they drew,
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new

And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings.
But thou hast little need. There is a book

By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

A chronicle of actions just and bright; There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,

And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.