"The solitary curate too

Pipes his long sermon through the aisles; Preaches to each deserted pew;

And sees no penitence, but smiles.

"The clerk alone, a merry wight,

With shrill note bids the echoes ring; Fills every bosom with delight,

And carols louder than a king.

"Nor is he pliant to each rite:

More glad would he the tankard swill;
Attentive to some ancient fight,
Of Boyne, Belleisle, or Bunker's-hill.

Perhaps, as with sonorous shake
He startles the low-murm'ring reeds,
His thoughts excursive rove on Blake,
Or Oliver's ungracious deeds.

"The Dean, good man! is seldom here
To glaze the window's nitrous pane,,

The aged widow's cry to hear,*

Or whistle some facetious strain.

* For this sort of rhime, Dermody had the authority of Pope.

A joke on Jekyl, or some good old Whig

Who never chang'd his principle nor wig.

!

"Last week he stript my arching glass, Through which the dim sun sweetly shone ; With relics heap'd his loaded ass,

And claim'd the trophies as his own.

"Ah, that the frame whose tender light
Illum'd the nun's sequester'd cell,
Should blaze, ill-doom'd, the wintry night,
And bid its long-lost post farewell!

"The dome where sceptred monarchs knelt,
And crested chiefs with virtuous look ;
Where high-born dames persuasion felt;
Now howls o'er B- and Mrs. C-.

"How fall'n, that bumpkins should be kept In that same honour'd sacred pew Where great Macdermot pious slept,

Or Rod❜rick cough'd with Brian Borooh!

"But hark! I hear my brothers call, To raise some soul from purgatory."

Away he swept in tarnish'd pall,

And here I choose to end my story.

HYMN TO SHAKSPEARE.

SWEET offspring of nature, soft rebel to art,
Whom Fancy gave passions, and Pity a heart,
From thine Avon repair on the wings of delight,
And gild with thy glories the horrors of night.
Thy Ariel will light up his glow-worms, to shew
Thy rapturous path to a mortal below;
Thy Ob'ron will bid all his small subjects fly,
And revel and trip to the glance of thine eye;

While the weird sisters vanish from off the wild heath,
And cowslips and eglantines spring forth beneath.
The moon shall delay to illumine the East,

And thy glad inspiration reign full o'er my breast: My breast that shall glow with pure thoughts ever

more.

And the secrets of feeling, of laughter, explore;
Pour joy o'er the earth, if envigour'd by thee,
And pay every rite to thy mulberry-tree.

JOHN BAYNHAM'S EPITAPH.*

HERE lieth Hercules the Second,

A penman fine by critics reckon'd;

With back so huge, and brawny neck on't,
And shrewdish head,

Which oft to smoking hotpot beckon❜d :

John Baynham's dead.

Woes me! no more shall younkers crowd

About thy hearth, and gabble loud ;
Where thou, in magistracy proud,

Nought humbly said:

Alas! we never thought thee good

Till thou wast dead..

Though, by my soul! still sober, mellow,
I ken'd thee aye a special fellow,

Catches or psalm-staves prompt to bellow,

O pious breed!

I ween thou'rt fixt 'tween heav'n and hell: oh!

Our comfort's dead.

* This man was the parish-clerk of Killeigh, and the merry friend and sociable companion of Dermody.

But for that plaguy profligate,
We early might enjoy and late

The knowledge of thy teeming pate

From board to bed:

But now thour't 'neath a puny slate;

Droll Johnny's dead.

Full many a hard bout hast thou weather'd:
By merry Bob severely tether'd;

More sadly than if tarr'd and feather'd,

Heav'n lend thy soul its surest port,
And introduce thee to the court;
Revive again thy earthly sport,

And melt thy lead!

Alas! we mourn; for, by the mort!

John Baynham's dead.

No curate now can work thy throat,
And alter clean thy jocund note;
Charon has plump'd thee in his boat,

And run a-head:

My curse on death, the meddling sot!
Gay Johnny's dead.