Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

"Or shew me far from human eye,
"Some cave to muse in, starve, and die,
"No weeping friend or brother near,
"My last fond, faltering words to hear!"

'Twas thus, with weight of woes opprest, I sought to ease my bruised breast: When straight more gloomy grew the shade, And lo! a tall majestic maid!

Her limbs, not delicately fair, Robust, and of a martial air; She bore of steel a polish'd shield, Where highly-sculptur'd I beheld Th' Athenian martyr smiling stand, The baleful goblet in his hand; Sparkled her eyes with lively flame, And Patience was the seraph's name; Sternly she look'd, and stern began— "Thy sorrows cease, complaining man, "Rouse thy weak soul, appease thy moan, "Soon are the clouds of sadness gone; "Tho' now in Grief's dark groves you walk, "Where grisly fiends around you stalk, "Beyond a blissful city lies,

"Far from whose gates each anguish flies: "Take thou this shield, which once of yore

"Ulysses and Alcides wore,

"And which in later days I gave

"To Regulus and Raleigh brave;

"In exile or in dungeon drear

"Their mighty minds could banish fear; "Thy heart no tenfold woes shall feel, "'Twas Virtue temper'd the rough steel, "And, by her heavenly fingers wrought, "To me the precious present brought."

ODE X.

AGAINST ILL-NATURE.

BY CHRISTOPHER SMART, M. A.

OFFSPRING of Folly and of Pride,

To all that's odious, all that's base allied;
Nurs'd up by Vice, by Pravity misled,
By pedant Affectation taught and bred :
Away, thou hideous hell-born sprite,
Go, with thy looks of dark design,
Sullen, sour, and saturnine;

Fly to some gloomy shade, nor blot the goodly light.
Thy planet was remote, when I was born;
'Twas Mercury that rul'd my natal morn,
What time the sun exerts his genial ray,

And ripens for enjoyment every growing day;
When to exist is but to love and sing,
And sprightly Aries smiles upon the spring.

There, in yon lonesome heath,

Which Flora, or Sylvanus never knew,
Where never vegetable drank the dew,
Or beast or fowl attempts to breathe ;
Where Nature's pencil has no colours laid;
But all is blank, and universal shade;
Vol. XIII.

H

Contrast to figure, motion, life, and light,
There may'st thou vent thy spite,

For ever cursing, and for ever curs'd,

Of all th' infernal crew the worst ;

The worst in genius, measure, and decree;
For envy, hatred, malice, are but parts of thee.

Or, wouldst thou change the scene, and quit thy den, Behold the heaven-deserted fen,

Where Spleen, by vapours dense begot and bred, Hardness of heart, and heaviness of head,

Have rais'd their darksome walls, and plac'd their thorny bed;

There may'st thou all thy bitterness unload,

There may'st thou croak, in concert with the toad. With thee the hollow howling winds shall join,

Nor shall the bittern her base throat deny;

The querulous frogs shall mix their dirge with thine, Th' ear piercing hern, and plover screaming high, While million humming gnats fit oestrum shall supply.

Away-away-behold an hideous band,

An herd of all thy minions are at hand:
Suspicion first with jealous caution stalks,
And ever looks around her as she walks,
With bibulous ear imperfect sounds to catch,
And prompt to listen at her neighbour's latch.
Next Scandal's meagre shade,

Foe to the virgins, and the Poet's fame,

A wither'd, time-deflower'd old maid,

That ne'er enjoy'd Love's ever sacred flame.
Hypocrisy succeeds with saint-like look,

And elevates her hands, and plods upon her book. Next comes illiberal scambling Avarice,

Then Vanity and Affectation niceSee, she salutes her shadow with a bow, As in short Gallic trips she minces by, Starting Antipathy is in her eye,

[ocr errors]

And squeamishly she knits her scornful brow.
To thee, Ill-nature, all the numerous group
With lowly reverence stoop-

They wait thy call, and mourn thy long delay:
Away-thou art infectious-haste away.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »