Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT.

SENT ON HER BIRTHDAY, JUNE 15.

O, be thou blest with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend!
Not with those toys the female race admire,

Riches that vex, and vanities that tire;
Not as the world its petty slaves rewards,
A youth of frolicks, an old age of cards ;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end;
Young without lovers, old without a friend;
A fop their paffion, but their prize a sot;
Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot!

Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calm ev'ry thought, inspirit ev'ry 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 ecstasy of joy;
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb,
And wake to raptures in a life to come!

[ocr errors][merged small]

SONG.

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY *.

I SAID to my heart, between sleeping and waking, Thou wild thing, that always art leaping or aching, What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,

By turns has not taught thee a pit-a-pat-ation?

Thus accus'd, the wild thing gave this sober reply:
See the heart without motion, tho' Celia pass by!
Not the beauty she has, or the wit that she borrows,
Gives the eye any joys, or the heart any sorrows.

When our Sappho appears, she whose wit's so refin'd,
I am forc'd to applaud with the rest of mankind;
Whatever she says, is with spirit and fire;
Ev'ry word I attend; but I only admire.

Prudentia as vainly would put in her claim,
Ever gazing on Heaven, tho' man is her aim:
'Tis love, not devotion, that turns up her eyes:
Those stars of this world are too good for the skies.

But Cloe so lively, so easy, so fair,

Her wit so genteel, without art, without care; When she comes in my way, the motion, the pain, The leapings, the achings, return all again.

O wonderful creature! a woman of reason!

Never grave out of pride, never gay out of season! When so easy to guess who this angel should be, Would one think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she?

The earl of Peterborough.

BAL

BALLA D.

OF all the girls that e'er were seen,
There's none so fine as Nelly,
For charming face and shape and mien,
And what's not fit to tell ye :

Oh! the turn'd neck, and smooth white skin

Of lovely dearest Nelly!

For many a swain it well had been

Had she ne'er pass'd by Calai-.

For when, as Nelly came to France
(Invited by her cousins)
Across the Tuilleries each glance

Kill'd Frenchmen by whole dozens;

The king, as he at dinner sate,
Did beckon to his hussar,
And bid him bring his tabby cat,
For charming Nell to buss her.

The ladies were with rage provok'd
To see her so respected:

The men look'd arch, as Nelly strok'd,
her tail erected.

And puss

But not a man did look employ,

Except on pretty Nelly :

Then said the duke de Villeroy,
Ab! qu'elle est bien jolie !

But who's that grave philosopher,

That carefully looks a'ter? By his concern it should appear,

The fair one is his daughter.

Ma

Ma foy! (quoth then a courtier sly)
He on his child does leer too;
I wish he has no mind to try

What some papas will here do.

The courtiers all with one accord
Broke out in Nelly's praises,
Admir'd her rose, and lys sans farde
(Which are your termes françoises.)
Then might you see a painted ring
Of dames that stood by Nelly:
She, like the pride of all the spring,
And they like fleurs de palais.

In Marli's gardens, and St. Clou,
I saw this charming Nelly,
Where shameless nymphs, expos'd to view,
Stand naked in each alley:

But Venus had a brazen face,
Both at Versailles and Meudon,
Or else she had resign'd her place,
And left the stone she stood on.

Were Nelly's figure mounted there,
'Twould put down all th' Italian :
Lord! how those foreigners would stare!
But I should turn Pygmalion:
For, spite of lips, and eyes, and mien,

Me nothing can delight so,

As does that part that lies between
Her left toe and her right toe.

ODE

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »