IM PROMPT U,

On a LADY, who had paffed fome time in playing with a very young child.

WHY, on this leaft of little Miffes,

Did Celia waste so many kiffes?

Quoth Love, who stood behind and fmil'd,
She kifs'd the father in the child.

EPIGRAM,

On seeing two perfons pafs by, in very different equipages.

N modern, as in ancient days,

IN

See what the Mufes have to brag on:

The Player in his own poft-chaife;

The Poet in a carrier's waggon!

EPIGRAM,

On a certain LORD's paffion for a SINGER.

NERINA's angel-voice delights ;

Nerina's devil-face affrights :

How whimfical her Strephon's fate,
Condemn'd at once to like and hate!

But be the cruel, be the kind,

Love! ftrike her dumb, or make him blind.

A SIMILE IN PRIOR,

D

Applied to the fame Perfon.

EAR Thomas, didst thou never pop

Thy head into a tin-man's shop ? There, Thomas, didft thou never fee'Tis but by way of fimile

A squirrel spend its little rage,

In jumping round a rowling cage ?
Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes,
The foolish creature thinks it climbs;
But here or there, turn wood or wire,
It never gets two inches higher,
So fares it with this little Peer,
So busy and so bustling here;
For ever flirting up and down,
And frisking round his cage, the town.
A world of nothing in his chat,

Of who faid this, and who did that:
With fimilies, that never hit;

Vivacity, that has no wit;

Schemes laid this hour, the next forfaken;

Advice oft afk'd, but never taken :
Still whirl'd, by every rifing whim,
From that to this, from her to him;
And when he hath his circle run,
He ends-just where he first begun.

ON AN AMOROUS OLD MAN.

ST

TILL hovering round the fair at fixty-four,
Unfit to love, unable to give o'er;

A flesh-fly, that juft flutters on the wing,
Awake to buz, but not alive to fting;

Brifk where he cannot, backward where he can;
The teazing ghost of the departed man.

THE youth had wit himself, and could afford
A witty neighbour his good word.

Though fcandal was his joy, he would not fwear:
An oath had made the ladies ftare.

At them he duly dress'd, but without passion
His only miftrefs was the fashion.
Her verfe with fancy glitter'd, cold and faint;
His profe, with fenfe, correctly quaint.
Trifles he lov'd; he tafted arts:

At once a fribble, and a man of parts.

A FRA G MEN T.

F

AIR morn afcends: foft zephyr's wing
O'er hill and vale renews the spring:
Where, fown profufely, herb and flower,
Of balmy fmell, of healing power,

Their

Their fouls in fragrant dews exhale,
And breathe fresh life in every gale.
Here, fpreads a green expanse of plains,
Where, fweetly-penfive, Silence reigns;
And there, at utmost stretch of eye,
A mountain fades into the ky;
While winding round, diffus'd and deep,
A river rolls with founding fweep.

Of human art no traces near,

I feem alone with Nature here !

Here are thy walks, O facred Health!
The monarch's blifs, the beggar's wealth;
The feafoning of all good below!
The fovereign friend in joy or woe!
O thou, most courted, most despis'd,
And but in abfence duly priz`d!
Power of the foft and rofy face!
The vivid pulfe, the vermil grace,
The fpirits when they gayest shine,
Youth, beauty, pleasure, all are thine!
O fun of life! whose heavenly ray
Lights up, and chears, our various day,
The turbulence of hopes and fears,
The form of fate, the cloud of years,
Till Nature, with thy parting light,
Reposes late in Death's calm night:
Fled from the trophy'd roofs of state,
Abodes of fplendid pain and hate;
Fled from the couch, where, in sweet fleep,

Hot riot would his anguish steep,

But toffes through the midnight-fhade,
Of death, of life, alike afraid;
For ever fled to shady cell,

Where Temperance, where the Mufes dwell
Thou oft art feen, at early dawn,
Slow-pacing o'er the breezy lawn:
Or on the brow of mountain high,
In filence feafting ear and eye,

With fong and profpect, which abound
From birds, and woods, and waters round.'
But when the fun, with noontide ray,
Flames forth intolerable day;

While Heat fits fervent on the plain,
With Thirst and Languor in his train ;
All nature fickening in the blaze:
Thou, in the wild and woody maze,
That clouds the vale with umbrage deep,
Impendent from the neighbouring steep,
Wilt find betimes a calm retreat,
Where breathing coolness has her feat.
There, plung'd amid the fhadows brown,
Imagination lays him down ;

Attentive, in his airy mood,
To every murmur of the wood:
The bee in yonder flowery nook ;
The chidings of the headlong brook ;
The green leaf fhivering in the gale;
The warbling hill, the lowing vale;
The diftant woodman's echoing stroke;
The thunder of the falling oak.

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