Apollo's wit was next her prey;
Her next, the beam that lights the day;
She sang ;-amazed, the Sirens heard;
And to assert their voice appeared.

She played;-the Muses from their hill,
Wondered who thus had stole their skill.

Great Jove approved her crimes and art;
And, t'other day, she stole my heart!
If lovers, Cupid, are thy care,
Exert thy vengeance on this Fair:
To trial bring her stolen charms,

And let her prison be my arms!

C. WYNDHAM, EARL OF EGREMONT.

1117. THE WHEEDLER

IN vain, dear Chloe, you suggest
That I, inconstant, have possessed
Or loved a fairer she;

Would you with ease at once be cure
Of all the ills you've long endured,
Consult your glass and me!

If then you think that I can find
A nymph more fair, or one more kind,
You've reason for your fears;
But if impartial you will prove
To your own beauty and my love,
How needless are your tears!
If, in my way, I should by chance
Receive, or give, a wanton glance,
I like but while I view ;

How slight the glance, how faint the kiss,
Compared to that substantial bliss
Which I receive from you!

With wanton flight the curious bee
From flower to flower still wanders free;
And where each blossom blows,
Extracts the juice of all he meets,
But for his quintessence of sweets,
He ravishes the rose.

So, my fond fancy to employ
On each variety of joy

From nymph to nymph I roam;
Perhaps see fifty in a day!

Those are but visits which I pay

For Chloe is my home!

SIR W. YONGE.

1118.

PROCRASTINATION

BE wise to-day: 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage: when young, indeed,
In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;

In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves; and re-resolves; then, dies the same.

E. YOUNG (Night Thoughts).

Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born!
And fated to survive the transient sun!
By mortals and immortals seen with awe!
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,

An azure zone thy waist; clouds, in heaven's loom
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,

Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train:

Thy gloomy grandeurs-Nature's most august,
In spirit aspect !-claim a grateful verse;

And like a sable curtain starred with gold,

Drawn o'er my labours past, shall clothe the scene.
E. YOUNG (Night Thoughts)

1120. SLEEP

TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes,
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe,

And lights on lids unsullied by a tear!

E. YOUNG (Night Thoughts)

1121. AUTHORS AND CRITICS

;

WITH fame in just proportion envy grows;
The man that makes a character makes foes
Slight peevish insects round a genius rise,
As a bright day awakes the world of flies;
With hearty malice, but with feeble wing,
To show they live, they flutter and they sting:
But as by depredations wasps proclaim

The fairest fruit, so these the fairest fame.
E. YOUNG (Epistle to Pope).

1122. THE BIRKENHEAD

AMID the loud ebriety of war,

With shouts of 'la République' and 'la Gloire',
The Vengeur's crew, 'twas said, with flying flag
And broadside blazing level with the wave
Went down erect, defiant, to their grave
Beneath the sea. 'Twas but a Frenchman's brag.
Yet Europe rang with it for many a year.
Now we recount no fable: England, hear!
And when they tell thee England is a fen
Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay,
Her nerveless burghers lying an easy prey
For the first comer,' tell how the other day
A crew of half a thousand Englishmen
Went down into the deep in Simon's Bay!

Not with the cheer of battle in the throat,
Or cannon-glare or din to stir their blood,

But, roused from dreams of home to find their boat
Fast sinking, mustered on the deck they stood,
Biding God's pleasure and their chief's command.
Calm was the sea, but not less calm that band
Close ranged upon the poop, with bated breath,
But flinching not though eye to eye with death.
Heroes! Who were these heroes? Veterans steeled
To face the King of Terrors mid the scaith
Of many a hurricane and trenched field?
Far other: weavers from the stocking-frame;
Boys from the plough; cornets with beardless chin,
But steeped in honour and in discipline.

Weep, Britain, for the Cape whose ill-starred name,
Long since divorced from Hope suggests but shame,
Disaster, and thy captains held at bay

By naked hordes; but, as thou weepest, thank
Heaven for those undegenerate sons who sank
Aboard the Birkenhead in Simon's Bay!

SIR H. YULE.

1

1123. THE TWA CORBIES

As I was walking all alane

I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t'other say,

Where sall we gang and dine to-day?'

-In behint yon auld fail dyke,

I wot there lies a new-slain Knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.

'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pick out his bonny blue een:
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair

We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

'Mony a ane for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken where he is gane;
O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.'

(SCOTT's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.)

1124. FROM 'LADY ANNE BOTHWELL'S LAMENT'

BALOW, my babe! lie still and sleep,

It grieves me sair to see thee weep:
If thoust be silent, Ise be glad,
Thy maining maks my heart full sad.
Balow, my boy! thy mother's joy!
Thy father breeds me great annoy.

Balow, my babe! lie still and sleep,
It grieves me sair to see thee weep.

When he began to court my luve,
And with his sugared words to move,
His feignings false and flattering cheer
To me that time did not appear:
But now I see, most cruel he
Cares neither for my babe nor me.
Balow, my babe, &c.

Lie still, my darling! sleep awhile,
And when thou wakest, sweetly smile
But smile not as thy father did,
To cozen maids; nay, God forbid !
But yet I fear thou wilt gae near
Thy father's heart and face to bear.
Balow, my babe, &c.

I canna choose but ever will
Be luving to thy father still:
Where'er he gae, where'er he ride,
My luve with him doth still abide :
In weel or wae, where'er he gae,
Mine heart can ne'er depart him frae.

;

Balow, my babe! lie still and sleep,
It grieves me sair to see thee weep.

(PERCY'S Reliques.)

1125. THE QUEEN OF FAIRIES

COME follow, follow me,
You, fairy elves that be,
Which circle on the green ;
Come follow me, your queen.
Hand in hand, let's dance a
round,

For this place is fairy ground.

When mortals are at rest,
And snorting in their nest;
Unheard and unespied,

Through key-holes we do glide;
Over tables, stools, and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.

And, if the house be foul,
Or platter, dish, or bowl,
Up stairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep:
There we pinch their arms and
thighs-

None escapes; nor none espies.

But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And surely she is paid:
For we do use before we go,
To drop a tester in her shoe.

Upon a mushroom's head,
Our table we do spread;
A grain of rye, or wheat,
Is manchet, which we eat ;
Pearly drops of dew we drink
In acorn cups filled to the brink.

The brains of nightingales,
With unctuous dew of snails,
Between two nutshells stewed,
Is meat that's easily chewed;
And the beards of little mice
Do make a feast of wondrous price.

The grasshopper and the fly,
Serve for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile :
And when the moon doth hide her
head,

The glow-worm lights us home to
bed.

On tops of dewy grass,
So nimbly do we pass,
The young and tender stalk
Ne'er bends when we do walk;
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we, the night before, have

been.

(1658)