My copper lamps at any rate,
For being true antique, I bought,
Yet wisely melted down my plate,
On modern models to be wrought:
And trifles I alike pursue,
Because they're old, because they're new.
'Dick, I have seen you with delight
For Georgy make a paper kite,
And simple odes, too many, show ye
My servile complaisance to Chloe.
Parents and lovers are decreed
(Quoth Dick) such truths are worth receiving :' Yet still Dick look'd as not believing.
'Now, Alma, to divines and prose
I leave thy frauds, and crimes, and woes,
Nor think to-night of thy ill-nature,
But of thy follies, idle creature,
The turns of thy uncertain wing,
And not the malice of thy sting.
Thy pride of being great and wise
I do but mention, to despise ;
I view with anger and disdain
How little gives thee joy or pain:
A print, a bronze, a flower, a root,
A shell, a butterfly, can do't:
Even a romance, a tune, a rhyme,
Help thee to pass the tedious time,
Which else would on thy hand remain ;
Though flown, it ne'er looks back again:
And cards are dealt, and chess-boards brought,
To ease the pain of coward thought:
Happy result of human wit!
That Alma may herself forget.
'Dick, thus we act, and thus we are, Or toss'd by hope or sunk by care. With endless pain this man pursues What, if he gain'd, he could not use;
The son of Mr. Richard Shelton,
And t' other fondly hopes to see
What never was, nor e'er shall be.
We err by use, go wrong by rules,
In gesture grave, in action fools:
We join hypocrisy to pride,
Doubling the faults we strive to hide.
Or grant that with extreme surprise
We find ourselves at sixty wise,
And twenty pretty things are known,
Of which we can't accomplish one;
Whilst, as my system says, the Mind
Is to these upper rooms confin'd;
Should I, my friend, at large repeat
Her borrow'd sense, her fond conceit,
The bead-roll of her vicious tricks,
My poem would be too prolix:
For could I my remarks sustain,
Like Socrates, or Miles Montaigne,
Who in these times would read my books,
But Tom o' Stiles or John o' Nokes?
'As Brentford kings, discreet and wise,
After long thought and grave advice,
Into Lardella's coffin peeping,
Saw nought to cause their mirth or weeping;
So Alma, now to joy or grief
Superior, finds her late relief;
Wearied of being high or great,
And nodding in her chair of state,
Stunn'd and worn out with endless chat,
Of Will did this, and Nan said that,
She finds, poor thing, some little crack,
Which Nature forc'd by time must make,
Through which she wings her destin'd way;
Upward she soars, and down drops clay;
While some surviving friend supplies
Hie jacet, and a hundred lies.
'O Richard, till that day appears
Which must decide our hopes and fears,
Would Fortune calm her present rage,
And give us playthings for our age;
Would Clotho wash her hands in milk,
And twist our thread with gold and silk;
Would she in friendship, peace, and plenty,
Spin out our years to four times twenty;
And should we both in this condition,
Have conquer'd love, and worse ambition;
(Else those two passions, by the way,
May chance to show us scurvy play)
Then, Richard, then should we sit down,
Far from the tumult of this Town;
I, fond of my well-chosen seat,
My pictures, medals, books complete;
Or, should we mix our friendly talk,
O'ershaded in that favourite walk
Which thy own hand had whilom planted,
Both pleas'd with all we thought we wanted;
Yet then, ev'n then, one cross reflection
Would spoil thy grove and my collection:
Thy son and his ere that may die,
And time some uncouth heir supply,
Who shall for nothing else be known,
But spoiling all that thou hast done.
Who set the twigs, shall he remember
That is in haste to sell the timber?
And what shall of thy woods remain,
Except the box that threw the main?
Nay, may not time and death remove
The near relations whom I love?
And my Coz Tom, or his Coz Mary,
(Who hold the plough or skim the dairy)
My favourite books and pictures sell
To Smart, or Doiley, by the ell?
Kindly throw in a little figure,
And set their price upon the bigger?
Those who could never read their grammar,
When my dear volumes touch the hammer,
May think books best as richest bound:
My copper medals by the pound
May be with learned justice weigh'd;
To turn the balance, Otho's head
May be thrown in; and, for the mettle,
The coin may mend a tinker's kettle
Tir'd with these thoughts'- Less tir'd than I,
(Quoth Dick) with your philosophy-
That people live and die, I knew
An hour ago as well as you;
And if fate spins us longer years,
Or is in haste to take the shears,
I know we must both fortunes try,
And bear our evils wet or dry.
Yet let the goddess smile or frown,
Bread we shall eat, or white or brown,
And in a cottage or a court
Drink fine champagne or muddled port.
What need of books these truths to tell,
Which folks perceive who cannot spell?
And must we spectacles apply
To view what hurts our naked eye?
Sir, if it be your wisdom's aim,
To make me merrier than I am,
I'll be all night at your devotion
Come on, friend; broach the pleasing notion;
But if you would depress my thought,
Your System is not worth a groat--
For Plato's fancies what care I?
I hope you would not have me die,
Like simple Cato in the play,
For any thing that he can say ?
E'en let him of ideas speak
To heathens in his native Greek:
If to be sad is to be wise,
I do most heartily despise
Whatever Socrates has said,
Or Tulley writ, or Wanley read.
'Dear Driftt, to set our matters right, Remove these papers from my sight; Burn Mat's Descartes and Aristotle:Here, Jonathan, your master's bottle.'
Humphrey Wanley, the learned librarian to Lord Oxford, ↑ Adrian Drift, Esq. Mr. Prior's secretary and executor.
Upon the Model of the Nut-Brown Maid.
THOU, to whose eyes I bend, at whose command (Though low my voice, though artless be my hand)
I take the sprightly reed, and sing and play,
Careless of what the censuring world may say;
Bright Chloe! object of my constant vow,
Wilt thou a while unbend thy serious brow?
Wilt thou with pleasure hear thy lover's strains,
And with one heavenly smile o'erpay his pains?
No longer shall the Nut-brown Maid be old,
Though since her youth three hundred years have
roll'd:
At thy desire she shall again be rais'd,
And her reviving charms in lasting verse be prais'd,
No longer man of woman shall complain,
That he may love and not be lov'd again;
That we in vain the fickle sex pursue,
Who change the constant lover for the new.
Whatever has been writ, whatever said
Of female passion feign'd, or faith decay'd,
Henceforth shall in my verse refuted stand,
Be said to winds, or writ upon the sand:
And while my notes to future times proclaim,
Unconquer'd love and ever-during flame,
O, fairest of the sex! be thou my Muse;
Deign on my work thy influence to diffuse:
Let me partake the blessings I rehearse,
And grant me Love, the just reward of verse.
As Beauty's potent queen with every grace
That once was Emma's, has adorn'd thy face,
And as her son has to my bosom dealt
That constant flame which faithful Henry felt;
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