With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil;
We cavy not the warmer clime, that lies;
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies;
Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,
Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads
shine;

"Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak
mountains smile.
[sight,
Others with tow'ring piles may please the
And in their proud aspiring domes delight;
A nicer touch to the stretch'd canvas give,
Or teach their animated rocks to live;
"Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate,
And hold in balance each contending state;
To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war,
And answer her afflicted neighbor's pray'r.
The Dane and Swede, rous'd up by fierce
alarms,

Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms;
Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease,
And all the northern world lies hush'd in
peace.
[dread,
Th' ambitious Gaul beholds, with secret
Her thunder aim'd at his aspiring head,
And fain her godlike sons would disunite
By foreign gold, or by domestic spite;
But strives in vain to conquer or divide,
Whom Nassau's arms defend and counsels
guide.

Fir'd with the name which I so oft have found The distant climes and different tongues resound,

I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a bolder strain.

But I've already troubled you too long,
Nor dare attempt a more advent'rous song.
My humble verse demands a softer theme,
A painted meadow, or a purling stream;
Unfit for heroes; whom immortal lays,
And lines like Virgil's or like yours, should
praise.

PARNELL.

31. An Allegory on Man.
A THOUGHTFUL being, long and spare,
Our race of mortals call him Care,
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What name the gods have call'd him too ;)
With fine mechanic genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, though no one bought.
This being, by a model bred
In Jove's eternal sable head,
Contriv'd a shape empower'd to breathe,
And be the worldling here beneath.

The man rose staring like a stake,
Wond'ring to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The business he was made to do,
That, pleas'd to see with what a grace
He gravely show'd his forward face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An under-something of the sky.

But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a poet's god

(For which his curls ambrosial shake,
And mother Earth's obliged to quake),
He saw his mother Earth arise;
She stood confess'd before his eyes;
But not with what we read she wore;
A castle for a crown before;

Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her like commodes:
As yet with wreaths alone she dress'd,
And trail'd a landscape-painted vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said,
And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honors made-Great Jove, she cried, This thing was fashion'd from my side: His hands, his heart, his head are mine; Then what hast thou to call him thine?

Nay, rather ask, the Monarch said, What boots his hand, his heart, his head, Were what I gave remov'd away? Thy part 's an idle shape of clay. Halves, more than halves! cried honest Care,

Your pleas would make your titles fair;
You claim the body, you the soul,
But I, who join'd them, claim the whole.
Thus with the gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause as man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age.

As thus they wrangled, Time came by
(There's none that paint him such as I:
For what the fabling ancients sung,
Makes Saturn old when Time was young)
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honors on his head :
He just had got his pinions free
From his old sire, Eternity.
A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth before;
By which your almanacs are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carried, where on high
A glass was fixed to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.
His vest, for day and night, was pied;
A bending sickle arm'd his side;
And Spring's new months his trade adorn;
The other Seasons were unborn.

Known by the gods, as near he draws, They make him umpire of the cause. O'er a low trunk his arm he laid, Where since his hours a dial made; Then, leaning, heard the nice debate, And thus pronounced the words of Fate.

Since body, from the parent Earth,
And soul from Jove receiv'd a birth,
Return they where they first began;
But, since their union makes the man,
Till Jove and Earth shall part these two,
To Care, who join'd them, man is due.

He said, and sprung with swift career
To trace a circle for the year;
Where ever since the Seasons wheel,
And tread on one another's heel.

"Tis well, said Jove; and, for consent,
Thund'ring he shook the firmament.
Our umpire Time shall have his way;
With Care I let the creature stay:
Let business vex him, av'rice blind,
Let doubt and knowledge rack his mind,
Let error act, opinion speak,

And want afflict, and sickness break,
And anger burn, dejection chill,
And joy distract, and sorrow kill;
Till, arm'd by Care, and taught to mow,
Time draws the long distracted blow;
And wasted man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his day,
Shall only find by this decree,
The soul flies sooner back to me.

§ 32. The Book-Worm. PARNELL.

COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day
The Book-worm, rav'ning beast of prey!
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As Fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies:
Dreadful his head with clust'ring eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of Fancy go,
To tear some modern wretch below.
On ev'ry corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.

See where his teeth a passage eat :
We'll rouse him from the deep retreat,
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
"Tis sacred Virgil, as I live ;
From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws the tadpole form along;
He mounts the gilded edge before ;
He's he scuds the cover o'er;
up,
He turns, he doubles, there he pass'd;
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse!
(Nay, never offer to deny,
I took thee in the fact to fly.)
His roses nipt in ev'ry page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd;
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay,
For all, for ev'ry single deed,
Relentless justice bids thee bleed.
Then fell a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred altar here:
Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit,
You've reach'd the plays that Dennis writ :

You've reach'd me Philips' rustic strain;
Pray take your mortal bards again.

Come, bind the victim-there he lies,
And here between his num'rous eyes
This venerable dust I lay,
From manuscripts just swept away.
The goblet in my hand I take
(For the libation 's yet to make)
A health to poets all their days,
May they have bread, as well as praise;
Sense may they seek, and less engage
In papers fill'd with party rage:
But, if their riches spoil their vein,
Ye Muses, make them poor again.

Now bring the weapon, yonder blade,
With which my tuneful pens are made.
I strike the scales that arm thee round,
And twice and thrice I print the wound;
The sacred altar floats with red,
And now he dies, and now he 's dead.

How like the son of Jove I stand,
This Hydra stretch'd beneath my hand!
Lay bare the monster's entrails here,
To see what dangers threat the year;
Ye gods! what sonnets on a wench!
What lean translations out of French!
"Tis plain this lobe is so unsound,
Sprints before the months go round.

But hold-before I close the scene,
The sacred altar should be clean.
Oh, had I Shadwell's second bays,
Or, Tate, thy pert and humble lays!
(Ye pair, forgive me, when I vow
I never miss'd your works till now,)
I'd tear the leaves to wipe the shrine
(That only way you please the Nine);
But since I chance to want these two,
I'll make the songs of Durfey do.

Rent from the corpse, on yonder pin
I hang the scales that brac'd it in;
I hang my studious morning gown,
And write my own inscription down:

"This trophy from the Python won,
This robe in which the deed was done,
These, Parnell, glorying in the feat,
Hang on these shelves, the Muses' seat
Here ignorance and hunger found
Large realms of wit to ravage round:
Here ignorance and hunger fell,
Two foes in one I sent to hell.
Ye poets, who my labors see,
Come share the triumph all with me!
Ye critics! born to vex the Muse,
To mourn the grand ally you lose."
33. Ad Amicos. R. WEST.
YES, happy youths, on Camus' sedgy side,
You feel each joy that friendship can divide;
Each realm of science and of art explore,
And with the ancient blend the modern lore,
Studious alone to learn whate'er may tend
To raise the genius, or the heart to mend ;

*Almost all Tibullus's Elegy is imitated in this little Piece, from whence his transition to Mr Pope's letter is very artfully contriv'd, and bespeaks a degres of judginent much beyond Mr. West's years.

Now pleas'd along the cloister'd walk you rove,
And trace the verdant mazes of the grove,
Where social oft, and oft alone, you choose
To catch the zephyr, and to court the Muse.
Meantime at me (while all devoid of art
These lines give back the image of my heart)—
At me the pow'r, that comes or soon or late,
Or aims, or seems to aim, the dart of fate;
From you, remote, methinks, alone I stand,
Like some sad exile in a desert land:
Around no friends their lenient care to join
In mutual warmth, and mix their heart with
mine.

Or real pains, or those which fancy raise,
For ever blot the sunshine of my days;
To sickness still, and still to grief a prey,
Health turns from me her rosy face away.
Just Heav'n! what sin, ere life begins to
bloom,

Devotes my head untimely to the tomb?
Did e'er this hand against a brother's life
Drug the dire bowl, or point the murd'rous
knife?

Did e'er this tongue the slanderer's tale proclaim,

Or madly violate my Maker's name?
Did e'er this heart betray a friend or foe,
Or know a thought but all the world might

know?

As yet, just started from the lists of time,
My growing years have scarcely told their
prime;

Useless, as yet, through life I've idly run,
No pleasures tasted, and few duties done.
Ah who, ere autumn's mellowing suns appear,
Would pluck the promise of the vernal year;
Or, ere the grapes their purple hue betray,
Tear the crude cluster from the morning
spray?

Stern power of Fate, whose ebon sceptre rules
The Stygian deserts and Cimmerian pools,
Forbear, nor rashly smite my youthful heart,
A victim yet unworthy of thy dart;
Ah, stay till age shall blast my withering face,
Shake in my head, and falter in my pace;
Then aim the shaft, then meditate the blow,
And to the dead my willing shade shall go.
How weak is Man to Reason's judging eye!
Born in this moment, in the next we die;
Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire,
Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire,
In vain our plans of happiness we raise,
Pain is our lot, and patience is our praise;
Wealth, lineage, honors, conquest, or a throne,
Are what the wise would fear to call their

own.

Health is at best a vain precarious thing, And fair-fac'd youth is ever on the wing; 'Tis like the stream beside whose wat'ry bed Some blooming plant exalts his flow'ry head; Nurs'd by the wave the spreading branches rise,

Shade all the ground, and flourish to the skies; The waves the while beneath in secret flow, And undermine the hollow bank below:

Few will lament my loss whene'er I die.
For those, the wretches I despise or hate,
I neither envy nor regard their fate.
For me,
whene'er all-conquering Death shall
spread

His wings around my unrepining head,
I care not though this face be seen no more,
The world will pass as cheerful as before;
Bright as before the day-star will appear,
The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear;
Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare,
Nor signs on earth, nor portents in the air;
Unknown and silent will depart my breath,
Nor nature e'er take notice of my death.
Yet some there are (ere spent my vital days)
Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise.
Lov'd in my life, lamented in my end,
Their praise would crown me, as their precepts
mend :
[dear;
To them may these fond lines my name en-
Not from the poet, but the friend sincere.

§ 34. An Address to Winter. COWPER. OH Winter! ruler of th' inverted year, Thy scatter'd hair with sleet like ashes fill'd, Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fring'd with a beard made white with other [clouds;

snows

Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in
A leafless branch thy sceptre; and thy throne
A sliding car indebted to no wheels,
But urg'd by storms along its slippery way;
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,
And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold'st the

sun

A pris'ner in the yet undawning east, Short'ning his journey between morn and

noon,

And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west: but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering at short notice in one group
The family dispers'd, and fixing thought,
Not less dispers'd by day-light and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening know.
No rattling wheels stop short before these
gates;

No powder'd pert, proficient in the art
Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors
Till the street rings. No stationary steeds,
Cough their own knell, while heedless of the
sound

The silent circle fan themselves, and quake;'