A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY AUSTEN
[Written Dec. 17, 1781. Published by Hayley, 1803.]
DEAR Anna-between friend and friend,
Prose answers every common end;
Serves, in a plain and homely way,
T'express th' occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news;
What walks we take, what books we choose;
And all the floating thoughts we find
Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a Poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb,
Deriv'd from nature's noblest part,
The centre of a glowing heart!

And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more sublime vagaries slighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme,
To catch the triflers of the time,
And tell them truths divine and clear,

Which, couch'd in prose, they will not hear;
Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching, and that tingling,
With all my purpose intermingling,

To your intrinsic merit true,

When call'd t' address myself to you.
Mysterious are his ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds, that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more:
It is th' allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connexions;
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.

Thus we were settled when you found us,
Peasants and children all around us,

Not dreaming of so dear a friend,
Deep in the abyss of Silver-End '.
Thus Martha, e'en against her will,
Perch'd on the top of yonder hill;

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1 An obscure part of Olney, adjoining to the residence of Cowper, which faced the market-place [H.].

And you, though you must needs prefer
The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre',
Are come from distant Loire, to choose
A cottage on the banks of Ouse.
This page of Providence, quite new,
And now just op'ning to our view,
Employs our present thoughts and pains,
To guess, and spell, what it contains:
But day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark ænigma clear;
And furnish us, perhaps, at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof, that we, and our affairs
Are part of a Jehovah's cares;
For God unfolds, by slow degrees,
The purport of his deep decrees;
Sheds every hour a clearer light
In aid of our defective sight;

And spreads, at length, before the soul,
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known
The beauties of a rose full-blown,
Could you, tho' luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, descry,
Or guess, with a prophetic power,
The future splendour of the flower?
Just so th' Omnipotent, who turns
The system of a world's concerns,
From mere minutiæ can educe
Events of most important use;
And bid a dawning sky display

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The blaze of a meridian day.

The works of man tend, one and all,

As needs they must, from great to small;

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And vanity absorbs at length

The monuments of human strength.

But who can tell how vast the plan
Which this day's incident began?
Too small perhaps the slight occasion
For our dim-sighted observation;
It passed unnotic'd, as the bird
That cleaves the yielding air unheard,
And yet may prove, when understood,
A harbinger of endless good.

1 Lady Austen's residence in France [H.].
46 fairest Hayley (1806).

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Not that I deem, or mean to call
Friendship, a blessing cheap, or small :
But merely to remark, that ours,
Like some of nature's sweetest flow'rs,
Rose from a seed of tiny size,

That seem'd to promise no such prize:
A transient visit intervening,
And made almost without a meaning,
(Hardly th' effect of inclination,
Much less of pleasing expectation)
Produc'd a friendship, then begun,
That has cemented us in one;

And plac'd it in our power to prove,
By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken;

"A three-fold cord is not soon broken."

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TO MISS CREUZÉ ON HER BIRTHDAY

[Written Nov., 1780 (?); see notes: (MS. in British Museum). Published by Hayley, 1803.]

How many between East and West
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!

Not so, when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that She was born,
And wish her born once more.

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THE FLATTING MILL

[Written Dec. 20, 1781. Published by Johnson, 1815. There is a copy among the Ash MSS.]

WHEN a bar of pure silver or ingot of gold

Is sent to be flatted or wrought into length, It is pass'd between cylinders often, and roll'd In an engine of utmost mechanical strength. Thus tortur'd and squeezed, at last it appears, Like a loose heap of ribbon, a glittering show, Like music it tinkles and rings in your ears,

And warm'd by the pressure is all in a glow. 8

This process achiev'd, it is doom'd to sustain
The thump after thump of a gold-beater's mallet,
And at last is of service in sickness or pain
To cover a pill from a delicate palate.

Alas for the poet! who dares undertake
To urge reformation of national ill,
His head and his heart are both likely to ache
With the double employment of mallet and mill.

If he wish to instruct, he must learn to delight,
Smooth ductile and even his fancy must flow,
Must tinkle and glitter, like gold to the sight,
And catch in its progress a sensible glow.

After all, he must beat it as thin and as fine

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As the leaf that enfolds what an invalid swallows,

For truth is unwelcome however divine,

And unless you adorn it, a nausea follows.

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TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,
RECTOR OF ST. MARY, WOOLNOTH

[Written May 28, 1782. Published by Johnson, 1815.] SAYS the pipe to the snuff-box, I can't understand What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face, That you are in fashion all over the land,

And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

Do but see what a pretty contemplative air

I give to the company-pray do but note 'em— You would think that the wise men of Greece were

all there,

Or, at least, would suppose them the wise men of Gotham.

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My breath is as sweet as the breath of blown roses, While you are a nuisance where'er you appear; There is nothing but sniv'ling and blowing of noses, Such a noise as turns any man's stomach to hear.

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The Flatting Mill-10 thumps and the blows A. 14 urge] press A. instruct] Before he can teach A. 17-20 re-written at end of poem in A. thus: His thoughts like the gold should be sterling and true, As ductile and even his fancy should flow, Should jingle and tinkle, and shine to the view, And catch in its progress a sensible glow.

19 Must jingle and tinkle and shine to the sight A.

21 beat it

as thin and beat it and thump it and hammer and work it 4. 24 adorn] disguise A.

Then lifting his lid in a delicate way,

Andop'ning his mouth with a smile quite engaging, The box in reply was heard plainly to say,

What a silly dispute is this we are waging! If you have a little of merit to claim,

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You may thank the sweet-smelling Virginian weed, And I, if I seem to deserve any blame,

The before-mention'd drug in apology plead. Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own, No room for a sneer, much less a cachinnus, We are vehicles, not of tobacco alone,

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But of any thing else they may choose to put in us.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL

[Written June 22, 1782. Published by Johnson, 1824.]
MY DEAR FRIEND,

If reading verse be your delight,

"Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time
I feel a wish, by cheerful rhyme
To sooth my friend, and, had I pow'r,
To cheat him of an anxious hour;
Not meaning (for I must confess,
It were but folly to suppress.)
His pleasure, or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
I' th' centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeserved praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was fam'd for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,

I seem no brighter in my wits
For all the radiance he emits,

Than if I saw, through midnight vapour,
The glimm'ring of a farthing taper.
Oh for a succedaneum, then,

T'accelerate a creeping pen!