And be, by blessing beauty-blest.
Thus taste the feast by nature spread,
Ere youth and all its joys are fled;
Come taste with me the balm of life!
Secure from pomp, and wealth, and strife.
I boast whate'er for man was meant,
In health, in Stella, and content;
And scorn! O! let that scorn be thine!
Mere things of clay that dig the mine.
TO A YOUNG LADY,
THIS tributary verse, receive, my fair,
Warm with an ardent lover's fondest prayer---
May this returning day for ever find
Thy form more lovely, more adorned thy mind.
All pains, all cares, may favouring heaven remove,
All but the sweet solicitudes of love!
May powerful nature join with grateful art,
To point each glance, and force it to the heartj
O then when conquered crowds confess thy sway,
When e'en proud wealth and prouder wit obey,
My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust,
Alas 'tis hard for beauty to be just.
Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ;
Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy: With his own form acquaint the forward fool, Shown in the faithful glass of ridicule;
Teach mimick censure her own faults to find, No more let coquettes to themselves be blind, So shall Belinda's charms improve mankind.
Intended to have been spoken by a Lady who was to person. ate the Ghost of Hermione.
YE blooming train, who give despair or joy,
Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy;
In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait,
And with unerring shafts distribute fate;
Whose snowy breasts-whose animated eyes,
Each youth admires, though each admirer dies;
Whilst you deride their pangs in barbarous play,
Unpitying hear them weep, and hear them pray,
And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away:
For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains,
Where sable night in all her horror reigns:
No fragrant bowers, and no delightful glades
Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids:
For kind, for tender nymphs, the myrtle blooms
And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing
glooms;
Perennial roses deck each purple vale,
And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale:
Far hence are banished vapours, spleen, and tears,
Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs;
No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys,
The balmy kiss for which poor Thyrsis dies;
Formed to delight, they use no foreign arms,
Nor torturing whalebones pinch them into
No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame, For those who feel no guilt can know no shame; Unfaded still their former charms they show, Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever
But cruel virgins meet severer fates;
Expelled and exiled from the blissful seats,
To dismal realms, and regions void of peace,
Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss,
O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh,
And poisonous vapours, blackening all the sky,
With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast,
And every beauty withers at the blast:
Where'er they fly their lover's ghosts pursue,
Inflicting all those ills which once they knew;
Vexation, fury, jealousy, despair,
Their foul deformities by all descryed,
No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide.
Then melt, ye fair, while crowds around you sigh, Nor let disdain sit lowering in your eye;
With pity soften every awful grace,
And beauty smile auspicious in each face;
To ease their pain exert your milder power,
So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore.
WHEN first the peasant, long inclined to roam,
Forsakes his rural sports and peaceful home,
Pleased with the scene the smiling ocean yields;
He scorns the verdant meads and flowery fields;
Then dances jocund o'er the watery way,
While the breeze whispers, and the streamers
Unbounded prospects in his bosom roll,
And future millions lift his rising soul;
In blissful dreams he digs the golden mine,
And raptured sees the new-found ruby shine.
Joys insincere! thick clouds invade the skies,
Loud roar the billows, high the waves arise;
Sickening with fear he longs to view the shore,
And vows to trust the faithless deep no more.
So the young author, panting after fame,
And the long honours of a lasting name,
Intrusts his happiness to human kind,
More false, more cruel, than the seas or wind.
Toil on, dull crowd, in ecstacies, he cries,
For wealth or title, perishable prize;
While I those transitory blessings scorn,
Secure of praise from ages yet unborn.
This thought once formed, all counsel comes too late,
He flies to press, and hurries on his fate;
Swiftly he sees the imagined laurels spread;
And feels the unfading wreath surround his head.
Warned by another's fate, vain youth, be wise,
Those dreams were Settle's once, and Ogilby's,
The pamphlet spreads, incessant hisses rise,
To some retreat the baffled writer flies;
Where no sour criticks snarl, no sneers molest,
Safe from the tart lampoon, and stinging jest:
There begs of Heaven a less distinguished lot,
Glad to be hid, and proud to be forgot.
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