Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The wits in envious feuds engage:
And Homer (damn him!) calls.

The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed
Has yet the grace to mourn.5

My friends, by turns, my friends confound,
Betray, and are betrayed:

Poor Yrs sold for fifty pounds,6
And B――ll is a jade.7

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls, seven hours in eight,
I need but once a week?

Still idle, with a busy air,

Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,

Most thinking rake, alive.

Solicitous for other ends,

Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,

For salads, tarts, and pease!

Adieu to all, but Gay alone,

Whose soul, sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.

5 [The date of Halifax's death was May 19, 1715.]

6 [Miss Younger an actress, one of the performers in "What d'ye call it ?"]

'[Mrs. Bicknell, who was also an actress, and another of the performers in "What d'ye call it?" Steele recommended this lady in the Tatler.]

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

J

I.

IN beauty, or wit,

No mortal as yet

To question your empire has dared;
But men of discerning

Have thought that in learning,
To yield to a lady was hard.

II.

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.

V.

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?

EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES,

ON THE PICTURE OF LADY MARY W. MONTAGU, BY KNELLER.

THE
HE playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth;
So would I draw (but oh! 'tis vain to try,
My narrow genius does the power deny ;)
The equal lustre of the heavenly mind,
Where every grace with every virtue's join'd;
Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe,
With greatness easy, and with wit sincere;
With just description show the work divine,
And the whole princess in my work should shine.

TO MR. GAY,

WHO CONGRATULATED HIM ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND GARDENS.

AH, friend! 'tis true-this truth you lovers know—
In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;
In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens :
Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,
And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.
What are the gay parterre, the chequer'd shade,
The morning bower, the evening colonnade,
But soft recesses of uneasy minds,

To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds?
So the struck deer in some sequester'd part
Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
He, stretch'd unseen in coverts hid from day,
Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.

LINES WRITTEN IN WINDSOR FOREST.

["I arrived in the forest by Tuesday noon. I passed the rest of the day in those woods, where I have so often enjoyed a book and a friend; I made a hymn as I passed through, which ended with a sigh, that I will not tell you the meaning of."-Pope to Martha Blount.]

ALL

LL hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade!
Scene of my youthful loves and happier hours!
Where the kind Muses met me as I stray'd,

And gently press'd my hand, and said "Be ours!--
Take all thou e'er shalt have, a constant Muse:

At Court thou may'st be liked, but nothing gain:
Stock thou may'st buy and sell, but always lose,
And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain.”

ERINNA.

THOUGH sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,
A softer wonder my pleased soul surveys,

The mild Erinna blushing in her bays.

So while the sun's broad beam yet strikes the sight,
All mild appears the moon's more sober light;
Serene in virgin majesty she shines,
And unobserved the glaring orb declines.1

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,

COMPOSED OF MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS.

THOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,

1

[This simile the poet afterwards inserted in his Moral Essays Ep. II.]

Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow:1
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,2
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor!

ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING
PAPER.

PALLAS grew vapourish once, and odd,

She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess, or for god,

Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.

Jove frown'd, and, "Use," he cried, "those eyes
So skilful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise-"

She bow'd, obey'd him,-and cut paper.

This vexing him who gave her birth,

Thought by all heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,
Her Burlington do just the same.

1 After ver. 6, in the MS.

"You see that island's wealth, where, only free,
Earth to her entrails feels no tyranny."

2 In the MS.

"To Wyndham's breast the patriot passions stole."

[Warburton pointed out these variations, but there were others in this small piece, which seems to have been elaborated with great care. At first the poem opened with "O thou who stopp'st," &c. ; the "Egerian grot," was "th' inspiring grot," and the allusion to Marchmont and Wyndham was, "Here stole the honest tear from Marchmont's eye, Here, Wyndham, thy last sighs for liberty."

The first line recalls one in Samson Agonistes, where Milton has the "broad translucent wave."