Unpolish'd gems no ray can pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow:
Approach. Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine, without a wish for gold.
Approach ; but awful! lo! the Ægerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright name was shot through Marchmont's
soul.
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor.
TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
Oh, be thou bless'd with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure and a friend!
Not with those toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and vanities that tire.
With added years, if life bring nothing new,
But like a sieve let every blessing through.
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth day ? 'T'is, alas! too clear,
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calin every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face,
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear
Till death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstacy of joy:
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb, And wake to raptures in a life to come.
RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin, but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays:
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her barp still to his fingers.
The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild-goose and the larks!
The mushrooms show his wit was sudden!
And for his judgment, lo a puduen!
Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner:
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE
In beauty or wit,
No mortal as vet
To question your empire has dared;
But men of discerning
Have thought that in learning,
To yield to a lady was bard.
Impertinent schools,
With musty dull rules,
Have reading to females denied :
So papists refuse
The Bible to use,
Lest flocks should be wise as their guide.
'Twas a woman at first
(Indeed she was cursed)
In knowledge that tasted delight,
And sages agree
The laws should decree
To the first of possessors the right.
Then bravely, fair dame,
Resume the old claim,
Which to your whole sex does belong;
And let men receive,
From a second bright Eve,
The knowledge of right and of wrong.
But if the first Eve
Hard doom did receive,
When only one apple had she,
What a punishment new
Shall be found out for you,
Who tasting, have robb’d the whole tree!
THB FOURTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF
HORACE'S EPISTLES.
SAY, St. John who alone peruse
With candid eye, the mimic muse,
What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws !
Is then a greater work in band,
Than all the tomes of Haines' band ?
• Or shoots he folly as it flies ?
Or catches manners as they rise ?'
Or, urged by unquench'd native heat,
Does St. John Greenwich sports repeat?
Where (emulous of Chartres fame)
E’en Chartres' self is scarce a name.
you (the all-envied gift of heaven)
The indulgent gods, unask'd, has given
A form complete in every part,
And, to enjoy that gift, the art.
What could a tender mother's care
Wish better to her favourite heir,
Than wit, and fame, and lucky hours,
A stock of health, and golden showers,
And graceful Auency of speech.
Precepts before unknown to teach?
** Amidst thy various ebbs of fear,
And gleaming hope, and black despair ;
Yet let thy friend this truth impart;
A truth I tell with bleeding heart
(in justice for your labours past),
That every day shall be your last ;
every
hour
your
life renew
Is to your injured country due.
In spite of tears, of mercy spite,
My genius still must rail and write.
Haste to thy Twickenham's safe retreat,
And mingle with the grumbling great:
There, half devour'd by spleen, you'll find
The rhyming bubbler of mankind !
There (objects of our mutual hate)
We'll ridicule both church and state.
EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS, A handsome Woman with a fine Voice, but dery covetous and proud. So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along; But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, That the beasts must have starved, and the poet have
died.
On one who made long Epitaphs.
Friend, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,
Where still so much is said ;
One half will never be believed,
The other never read.
TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER, On his painting for me the Statues of Apollo, Venus, and Hercules. What god, what genius, did the pencil move
When Kneller painted these?
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