(As Homer's Epic shows)
Composed of sweetest vernal flowers,
Without the aid of sun and 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 lumberless have groaned 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 filed!
As if a storm should strip the bowers
Of all their tendrils, leaves, and flowers
Each pocketing a shred.
Thanks, then, to every gentle fair
Who will not come to peck me bare,
As bird of borrowed feather,
And thanks, to One, above them all,
The gentle Fair of Pertenhall,
Who put the whole together.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE POETS.
Two nymphs, both nearly of an age,
Of numerous charms possessed,
A warm dispute once chanced to wage,
Whose temper was the best.
The worth of each had been complete,
Had both alike been mild:
But one, although her smile was sweet,
Frowned oftener than she smiled.
And in her humour, when she frowned,
Would raise her voice and roar,
And shake with fury to the ground
The garland that she wore.
The other was of gentler cast,
From all such frenzy clear,
Her frowns were seldom known to last,
And never proved severe.
The poets of renown in song
The nymphs referred the cause,
Who, strange to tell, all judged it wrong,
And gave misplaced applause.
They gentle called, and kind and soft,
The flippant and the scold,
And though she changed her mood so oft
That failing left untold.
No judges, sure, were e'er so mad,
Or so resolved to err
In short, the charms her sister had
They lavished all on her.
Then thus the god whom fondly they
Their great inspirer call,
Was heard, one genial summer's day
To reprimand them all :
"Since thus ye have combined," he said, "My favourite nymph to slight, Adorning May, that peevish maid,
With June's undoubted right,
"The minx shall, for your folly's sake, Still prove herself a shrew,
Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,
And pinch your noses blue."
ON M. HIGGINS, OF WESTON.
LAURELS may flourish round the conqueror's tomb,
But happiest they, who win the world to come;
Believers have a silent field to fight,
And their exploits are veiled from human sight.
They in some nook, where little known they dwell,
Kneel, pray in faith, and rout the hosts of hell;
Eternal triumphs crown their toils divine,
And all those triumphs, Mary, now are thine.
THE RETIRED CAT.
A POET's Cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould PHILOSOPHIQUE,
Or else she learned it of her master
Sometimes ascending, debonair
An apple-tree, or lofty pear,
Lodged with convenience in the fork,
She watched the gardener at his work
Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty watering pot,
There wanting nothing, save a fan,
To seem some nymph in her sedan,
Appareled in exactest sort,
And ready to be borne to court.
But love of change it seems has place
Not only in our wiser race;
Cats also feel, as well as we,
That passion's force, and so did she.
Her climbing, she began to find,
Exposed her too much to the wind,
And the old utensil of tin
Was cold and comfortless within:
She therefore wished, instead of those,
Some place of more serene repose,
Where neither cold might come, nor air
Too rudely wanton with her hair,
And sought it in the likeliest mode
With her new master's snug abode.
A drawer it chanced, at bottom lined
With linen of the softest kind,
With such as merchants introduce
From India, for the ladies' use;
A drawer impending o'er the rest,
Half open in the topmost chest,
Of depth enough, and none to spare,
Invited her to slumber there;
Puss with delight beyond expression,
Surveyed the scene and took possession.
Recumbent at her ease, ere long,
And lulled by her own humdrum song,
She left the cares of life behind,
And slept as she would sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclined,
The chambermaid, and shut it fast,
By no malignity impelled,
But all unconscious whom it held.
Awakened by the shock, (cried puss)
"Was ever cat attended thus!
The open drawer was left, I sec,
Merely to prove a nest for me,
For soon as I was well composed,
Then came the maid, and it was closed.
How smooth these 'kerchiefs, and how sweet? Oh what a delicate retreat!
I will resign myself to rest
Till Sol declining in the west,
Shall call to supper, when, no doubt,
Susan will come, and let me out."
The evening came, the sun descended,
And puss remained still unattended.
The night rolled tardily away,
(With her indeed 'twas never day)
The sprightly morn her course renewed,
The evening gray again ensued,
And puss came into mind no more,
Than if entombed the day before;
With hunger pinched, and pinched for room,
She now presaged approaching doom.
Nor slept a single wink, nor purred,
Conscious of jeopardy incurred.
That night, by chance, the poet, watching, Heard an inexplicable scratching;
His noble heart went pit-a-pat,
And to himself he said-"what's that?"
He drew the curtain at his side,
And forth he peeped but nothing spied.
Yet, by his ear directed, guessed
Something imprisoned in the chest
And, doubtful what, with prudent care
Resolved it should continue there.
At length a voice which well he knew,
A long and melancholy mew,
Saluting his poetic ears,
Consoled him and dispelled his fears,
He left his bed, he trod the floor,
He 'gan in haste the drawers explore,
The lowest first, and without stop
The rest in order to the top.
For 'tis a truth well known to most,
|