The Flies 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 search of more.
Yet one grave fage a moment's space attends,
And the small city's leftieft point afcends,
Wipes the falt dew that trickles down his face,
And thus harangues them with the graveft grace.
Ye foolish nurflings of the fummer air,
Thefe gentle tunes and whining fongs forbear;
Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and love,
Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove;
Let Bards to business bend their vigorous wing,
And fing but feldom, if they love to fing:
Elfe, when the flowerets of the feafon fail,
And this your ferny fhade forfakes the vale,
Though one would fave you, not one grain of wheat,
Should pay fuch fongfters idling at my gate.
He ceas'd: the Flies, incorrigibly vain,
Heard the Mayor's fpeech, and fell to fing again.
AN ELEGY, TO AN OLD BEAUTY.
N 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 hair.. If truth, in spite of manners, muft bertold, Why really fifty-five is fomething old.
Once you were young; or one, whofe life 's fo long 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 damafk all thy cheek with red.;
Youth calls the Graces their to fix there reign,
And airs by thoufands fill their easy train.
So parting Summer bids her flowery prime
Attend the Sun to drefs fome. foreign clime,
While withering feafons in fucceffion, 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 exercifes o'er,
Unfurls or clofes, raps or turns the fan,
And fmiles, or blushes, at the creature man,
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass,
In fideling courtely fhe drops the glass.
With better strength, on vifit-days fhe bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.
Her mien, 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 fage, The fphere of wisdom 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 gravest ways
The foul with pleafing avocation strays.
But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wife ;
As harpers better by the lofs of eyes.
Henceforth retire, reduce your roving airs,
Haunt lefs the plays, and more the public prayers,
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 shows how much you shake);
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,
And view the shade and substance 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 yourfelf, 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 laces.
Then bends from Mars'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 :
He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirl'd by whim.
THE BOOK-WORM.
COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day,
The Book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As 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 fcuds 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,
1 took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage,
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee
my Lefbia's fparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And fpoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every fingle deed,
Relentless Juftice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my defk the shrine.
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 manufcripts 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;
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