Cherish honour, virtue, truth,
So shalt thou prolong thy youth.
Wanting these, however fast
Man be fix'd, and formed to last,
He is lifeless even now,
Stone at heart, and cannot grow.
WHAT is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;
And earth a second Eden shows
Where'er the healing water flows:
But ah! if from the dykes and drains
Of sensual nature's feverish veins,
Lust, like a lawless headstrong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending fast on every side,
Once mingles with the sacred tide,
Farewell the soul-enlivening scene!
The banks that wore a smiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flowery beauties dead,
The stream polluted, dark, and dull,
Diffused into a Stygian pool,
Through life's last melancholy years
Is fed with ever-flowing tears:
Complaints supply the zephyr's part,
And sighs that heave a breaking heart.
COMPOSED FOR A MEMORIAL OF ASHLY COWPER, ESQ. IMME
DIATELY AFTER HIS DEATH, BY HIS NEPHEW WILLIAM, OF
WESTON. JUNE, 1788.
FAREWELL! endued with all that could engage
All hearts to love thee, both in youth and age!
In prime of life, for sprightliness enroll'd
Among the gay, yet virtuous as the old;
In life's last stage, (O blessings rarely found
Pleasant as youth with all its blossoms cron'd;
Through every period of this changeful state
Unchanged thyself-wise, good, affectionate!
Marble may flatter; and lest this should seem
O'ercharged with praises on so dear a theme,
Although thy worth be more than half suppress'd,
Love shall be satisfied, and veil the rest.
TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE JOHN THORN.
TON, ESQ. 1790.
POETS attempt the noblest task they can,
Praising the Author of all good in man;
And, next, commemorating worthies lost,
The dead in whom that good abounded most.
Thee, therefore, of commercial fame, but more
Famed for thy probity from shore to shore.
Thee, Thornton! worthy in some page to shine,
As honest and more eloquent than mine.
I mourn; or, since thrice happy thou must be,
The world, no longer thy abode, not thee.
Thee to deplore, were grief mispent indeed;
It were to weep that goodness has its meed,
That there is bliss prepared in yonder sky,
And glory for the virtuous when they die.
What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard,
Or spendthrift's prodigal excess afford,
Sweet as the privilege of healing wo
By virtue suffer'd combatting below?
That privilege was thine; Heaven gave the means
To illumine with delight the saddest scenes,
Till thy appearance chased the gloom, forlorn
As midnight, and despairing of a morn.
Thou hadst an industry in doing good,
Restless as his who toils and sweats for food;
Avarice, in thee, was the desire of wealth.
By rust unperishable or by stealth;
And if the genuine worth of gold depend
On application to its noblest end,
Thine had a value in the scales of Heaven,
Surpassing all that mine or mint had given.
And, though God made thee of a nature prone
To distribution boundless of thy own,
And still by motives of religious force
Impelled the more to that heroic course;
Yet was thy liberality discreet,
Nice in its choice, and of a temper'd heat,
And, though in act unwearied, secret still,
As in some solitude the summer rill
Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,
And cheers the drooping flowers, unheard, unseen.
Such was thy charity; no sudden start,
After long sleep, of passion in the heart,
But steadfast principle, and, in its kind,
Of close relation to th' Eternal mind,
Traced easily to its true source above,
To Him, whose works bespeak his nature, love.
Thy bounties all were Christian, and I make
This record of thee for the Gospel's sake;
That the incredulous themselves may see
Its use and power exemplified in thee.
ON HIS ARRIVING AT CAMBRIDGE WET, WHEN NO RAIN HAD FALLEN THERE,-1793.
IF Gideon's fleece, which drenched with dew he found,
While moisture none refresh'd the herbs around,
Might fitly represent the Church, endow'd
With heavenly gifts, to Heathens not allow'd;
In pledge, perhaps, of favours from on high,
Thy locks were wet when others' locks were dry.
Heaven grant us half the omen-may we see
Not drought on others, but much dew on thee!
TO THE MEMORY OF DR. LLOYD.
OUR good old friend is gone, gone to his rest.
Whose social converse was itself a feast.
O ye of riper age, who recollect
How once ye loved, and eyed him with respect,
Both in the firmness of his better day,
While yet he ruled you with a father's sway
And when impair'd by time and glad to rest,
Yet still with looks, in mild complaisance drest,
He took his annual seat, and mingled here
His sprightly vein with yours-now drop a tear.
In morals blameless as in manners meek,
He knew no wish that he might blush to speak;
But, happy in whatever state below
And richer than the rich in being so,
Obtain'd the hearts of all, and such a need
At length from One,* as made him rich indeed.
Hence then, ye titles, hence, not wanted here,
Go, garnish merit in a brighter sphere,
He was usher and under-master of Westminster near fifty years, and retired from his occupation when he was near seventy, with a handsome pension from the king.
'The brows of those whose more exalted lot He could congratulate, but envied not.
Light lie the turf, good Senior! on thy breast, And tranquil as thy mind was, be thy rest! Though, living, thou hadst more desert than fame, 4nd not a stone now chronicles thy name.
A DOG BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMORTON. AUGUST, 1792 THOUGH Once a puppy, and though Fop by name, Here moulders One whose bones some honour claim. No sycophant, although of spaniel race,
And though no hound, a martyr to the chase-
Ye squirrels, rabits, leverets, rejoice,
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,
He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.
'Yes,' the indignant shade of Fop replies-
And worn with vain pursuit man also dies.'
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