ON A BATTERED BEAUTY.
HAIR, wax, rouge, honey, teeth you buy,
A multifarious store!
A mask at once would all supply,
Nor would it cost you more.
My mother! if thou love me, name no more
My noble birth! Sounding at every breath
My noble birth, thou kill'st me. Thither fly,
As to their only refuge, all from whom
Nature withholds all good besides; they boast
Their noble birth, conduct us to the tombs
Of their forefathers, and, from age to age
Ascending, trumpet their illustrious race:
But whom hast thou beheld, or canst thou name,
Derived from no forefathers? Such a man
Lives not; for how could such be born at all?
And, if it chance that, native of a land
Far distant, or in infancy deprived
Of all his kindred, one, who cannot trace
His origin, exist, why deem him sprung
From baser ancestry than theirs who can?
My mother! he whom nature at his birth
Endow'd with virtuous qualities, although
An Ethiop and a slave, is nobly born.
I SLEPT when Venus enter'd: to my bed
A Cupid in her beauteous hand she led,
A bashful seeming boy, and thus she said:
"Shepherd, receive my little one! I bring
An untaught love, whom thou must teach to sing."
She said, and left him. I, suspecting nought,
Many a sweet strain my subtle pupil taught,
How reed to reed Pan first with osier bound,
How Pallas form'd the pipe of softest sound,
How Hermes gave the fute, and how the quire
Of Phoebus owe to Phoebus' self the lyre.
Such were my themes; my themes nought heeded he,
But ditties sang of amorous sort to me,
The pangs that mortals and immortals prove
From Venus' influence and the darts of love.
Thus was the teacher by the pupil taught;
His lessons I retain'd, he mine forgot.
OFT we enhance our ills by discontent,
And give them bulk beyond what nature meant.
A parent, brother, friend deceased, to cry—
He's dead indeed, but he was born to die"-
Such temperate grief is suited to the size
And burden of the loss, is just and wise.
But to exclaim, "Ah! wherefore was I born,
Thus to be left for ever thus forlorn?"
Who thus laments his loss invites distress,
And magnifies a woe that might be less.
Through dull despondence to his lot resign'd,
And leaving reason's remedy behind.
ON ONE IGNORANT AND ARROGANT.
THOU mayst of double ignorance boast,
Who know'st not that thou nothing know'st.
PRUDENT SIMPLICITY.
THAT thou mayst injure no man, dove-like be, And serpent-like, that none may injure thee!
SUNSET AND SUNRISE.
CONTEMPLATE, when the sun declines,
Thy death with deep reflection!
And when again he rising shines,
The day of resurrection!
TO A FRIEND IN DISTRESS.
I WISH thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend; For when at worst, they say, things always mend.
THE works of ancient bards divine,
Aulus, thou scorn'st to read;
And should posterity read thine,
It would be strange indeed!
WHEN little more than boy in age,
I deem'd myself almost a sage:
But now seem worthier to be styled,
For ignorance, almost a child.
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