When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But, alas! recollection at hand
Soon hurries me back to despair.
But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,
And I to my cabin repair.
There's mercy in every place,
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace,
And reconciles man to his lot.
EDWARD THURLOW, ESQ.
To the Lord High Chancellorship of England.
ROUND Thurlow's head in early youth
And in his sportive days,
Fair Science pour'd the light of truth,
And Genius shed his rays.
See! with united wonder cried
The experienced and the sage,
Ambition in a boy supplied
With all the skill of age!
Discernment, eloquence, and grace
Proclaim him born to sway
The balance in the highest place,
And bear the palm away.
The praise bestow'd was just and wise;
He sprang impetuous forth,
Secure of conquest, where the prize
Attends superior worth.
So the best courser on the plain
Ere yet he starts is known,
And does but at the goal obtain
What all had deem'd his own.
COME, peace of mind, delightful guest
Return, and make thy downy nest
Once more in this sad heart:
Nor riches I nor power pursue,
Nor hold forbidden joys in view;
We therefore need not part.
Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
From avarice and ambition free,
And pleasure's fatal wiles?
For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,
The banquet of thy smiles?
The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heaven that thou alone canst make?
And wilt thou quit the stream
That murmurs through the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequester'd shed,
To be a guest with them?
For thee I panted, thee I prized,
For thee I gladly sacrificed
Whate'er I loved before;
And shall I see thee start away,
And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say—
Farewell! we meet no more!
HUMAN FRAILTY.
WEAK and irresolute is man,
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.
The bow well bent, and smart the spring
Vice seems already slain;
But Passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.
Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part;
Virtue engages his assent,
But Pleasure wins his heart.
"Tis here the folly of the wise
Through all his heart we view ;
And, while his tongue the charge denies,
His conscience owns it true.
Bound on a voyage of awful length
And dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail,
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
REBELLION is my theme all day;
I only wish 'twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may !)
A little nearer home.
Yon roaring boys who rave and fight
On t'other side th' Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.
When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
But O! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flowers she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about vour ears.
Such civil broils are my delight,
Though some folks can't endure them,
Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure them.
A rope! I wish we patriots had
Such strings for all who need 'em-
What! hang a man for going mad?
Then farewell British freedom!
ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE RECORDED IN THE
Ои, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to pe forgot!
In vain, recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethæan gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire-
There goes my lady, and there goes the 'squire,
There
goes the
the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!
REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, NOT TO BE
FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong:
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning;
While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY.
In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,
And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind.
Then holding the spectacles up to the court-
Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle
As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,
Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
Again, would your lordship a moment suppose
('Tis a case that has happen'd, and may be again)
That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,
Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?
On the whole it appears, and my argument shews,
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.
Then shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how),
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes:
But what were his arguments few people know,
For the court did not think they were equally wise.
So his lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear, without one if or but-
That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on,
By daylight or candlelight-Eyes should be shut!
ON THE BURNING OF LORD MANSFIELD'S
LIBRARY, TOGETHER WITH HIS MSS., BY
THE MOB, IN THE MONTH OF JUNE, 1780.
So then the Vandals of our isle,
Sworn foes to sense and law,
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman saw!
And Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift,
And many a treasure more,
The well-judg'd purchase and the gift
That graced his letter'd store.
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