Thy streets forlorn
To wilds shall turn,
Where toads shall pant, and vultures prey
SECOND PROPHET.- RECITATIVE.
Such be her fate. But listen! from afar
The clarion's note proclaims the finished war!
Cyrus, our great restorer, is at hand,
And this way leads his formidable band.
Give, give your songs of Zion to the wind,
And hail the benefactor of mankind:
He comes, pursuant to divine decree,
To chain the strong, and set the captive free
Rise to raptures past expressing,
Sweeter from remembered woes;
Cyrus comes, our wrongs redressing,
Comes to give the world repose.
Cyrus comes, the world redressing,
Love and Pleasure in his train;
Comes to heighten every blessing,
Comes to soften every pain.
CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.
Hail to him with mercy reigning,
Skilled in every peaceful art;
Who, from bonds our limbs unchaining,
Only binds the willing heart.
But chief to Thee, our God, defender, friend,
Let praise be given to all eternity;
O Thou, without beginning, without end---
Let us and all begin and end in Thee!
THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION.
SECLUDED from domestic strife,
Jack Bookworm led a college life ;
A fellowship, at twenty-five,
Made him the happiest man alive ;
He drank his glass, and cracked his joke,
And freshmen wondered as he spoke.
Such pleasures, unalloyed with care,
Could
any accident impair ?
Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arrived at thirty-six?
O, had the archer ne'er come down
To ravage in a country town;
Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet-street shop!
O! had her eyes forgot to blaze
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.
O! — but let exclamation cease;
Her presence banished all his peace :
So, with decorum all things carried,
Miss frowned, and blushed, and then was married
Need we expose to vulgar sight
The raptures of the bridal night?
Need we intrude on hallowed ground,
Or draw the curtains closed around?
Let it suffice that each had charms :
He clasped a goddess in his arms;
And, though she felt his usage rough,
Yet in a man 't was well enough.
The honey-moon like lightning flew ;
The second brought its transports too,
A third, a fourth, were not amiss;
The fifth was friendship mixed with bliss;
But when a twelvemonth passed away,
Jack found his goddess made of clay:
Found half the charms that decked her face
Arose from powder, shreds, or lace;
But still the worst remained behind
That very face had robbed her mind.
Skilled in no other arts was she
But dressing, patching, repartee;
And, just as humor rose or fell,
By turns a slattern or a belle.
'Tis true she dressed with modern grace
Half-naked at a ball or race;
But when at home, at board or bed,
Five greasy night-caps wrapped her head.
Could so much beauty condescend
To be a dull domestic friend?
Could any curtain-lectures bring
To decency so fine a thing?
In short by night 't was fits or fretting;
By day, 't was gadding or coquetting.
Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy
Of powdered coxcombs at her levee ;
The squire and captain took their stations,
And twenty other near relations.
Jack sucked his pipe, and often broke
A sigh in suffocating smoke;
While all their hours were past between
Insulting repartee or spleen.
Thus, as her faults each day were known,
He thinks her features coarser grown:
He fancies every vice she shows.
Or thins her lip or points her nose ;
Whenever rage or envy rise,
How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes!
He knows not how, but so it is,
Her face is grown a knowing phiz
And, though her fops are wondrous civil,
He thinks her ugly as the devil.
Now, to perplex the ravelled noose,
As each a different way pursues
While sullen or loquacious strife.
Promised to hold them on for life
That dire disease, whose ruthless power
Withers the beauty's transient flower,
Lo! the small-pox - whose horrid glare
Levelled its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling every youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.
The glass, grown hateful to her sight,
Reflected now a perfect fright;
Each former art she vainly tries
To bring back lustre to her eyes;
In vain she tries her pastes and creams
To smooth her skin, or hide its seams:
Her country beaux and city cousins,
Lovers no more, flew off by dozens :
The squire himself was seen to yield ---
And even the captain quit the field.
Poor madam, now condemned to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzled to behold
Her present face surpass the old.
With modesty her cheeks are dyed;
Humility displaces pride:
For tawdry finery is seen
A person ever neatly clean :
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good nature every day:
Serenely gay, and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife-a perfect beauty.
IN THE MANNER OF SWIFT.
LONG had I sought in vain to find
A likeness for the scribbling kind-
The modern scribbling kind, who write
In wit, and sense, and nature's spite-
Till reading, I forgot what day on,
A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon,
I think I met with something there
To suit my purpose to a hair.
But let us not proceed too furious,
First please to turn to god Mercurius:
You'll find him pictured at full length
In book the second, page the tenth.
The stress of all my proofs on him I lay,
And now proceed we to our simile.
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