In a wretched workhouse the contrary prevails :
Does Age begin to prattle, no man heark'neth to his

tales.

In a costly palace if the child with a pin

Do but chance to prick a finger, straight the doctor is called in;

In a wretched workhouse men are left to perish

For want of proper cordials, which their old age might cherish.

In a costly palace Youth enjoys his lust;

In a wretched workhouse Age, in corners thrust,
Thinks upon the former days, when he was well to do,
Had children to stand by him, both friends and kinsman

too.

In a costly palace Youth his temples hides

With a new-devised peruke that reaches to his sides;
In a wretched workhouse Age's crown is bare,
With a few thin locks just to fence out the cold air.

In peace, as in war, 'tis our young gallant's pride,
To walk, each one i' the streets, with a rapier by his side,
That none to do them injury may have pretence;
Wretched age, in poverty, must brook offence.

HYPOCHONDRIACUS.

By myself walking,
To myself talking,
When as I ruminate
On my untoward fate,
Scarcely seem I
Alone sufficiently,

Black thoughts continually
Crowding my privacy;
They come unbidden,
Like foes at a wedding,
Thrusting their faces
In better guests' places,
Peevish and malecontent,
Clownish, impertinent,
Dashing the merriment:

So in like fashions
Dim cogitations

Follow and haunt me,
Striving to daunt me,
In my heart festering,
In my ears whispering,
"Thy friends are treacherous,
Thy foes are dangerous,
Thy dreams ominous."

Fierce Anthropophagi,
Spectre, diaboli,

What scared St. Antony,
Hobgoblins, lemures,
Dreams of antipodes,
Night-riding incubi
Troubling the fantasy,
All dire illusions
Causing confusions;
Figments heretical,
Scruples fantastical,
Doubts diabolical,
Abaddon vexeth me,
Mahu perplexeth me,
Lucifer teareth me-

Jesu! Maria! liberate nos ab his diris tentationibus Inimici.

A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.

MAY the Babylonish curse
Straight confound my stammering verse,

If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,

Or a fit expression find,

Or a language to my mind,

(Still the phrase is wide or scant,)

To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!

Or in any terms relate

Half my love, or half my hate :

For I hate, yet love thee so,

That, whichever thing I show,

The plain truth will seem to be,
A constrain'd hyperbole,

And the passion to proceed

More from a mistress than a weed.

Sooty retainer to the vine,
Bacchus' black servant, negro fine;
Sorcerer that mak'st us dote upon
Thy begrimmed complexion,
And, for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimed lovers take

'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay

Much too in the female way,

While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath
Faster than kisses or than death.

Thou in such a cloud dost bind us That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill-fortune, that would thwart us, Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;

While each man, through thy height'ning steam Does like a smoking Etna seem,

And all about us does express

(Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.

Thou through such a mist dost show us,
That our best friends do not know us,
And for those allowed features,
Due to reasonable creatures,
Liken'st us to fell chimeras,
Monsters that, who see us, fear us;
Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,
Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.

Bacchus we know, and we allow
His tipsy rites. But what art thou,
That but by reflex canst show
What his deity can do,

As the false Egyptian spell

Aped the true Hebrew miracle?
Some few vapours thou mayst raise,
The weak brain may serve to amaze,
But to the reins and nobler heart
Canst nor life nor heat impart.

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet forewarning?

TO CHARLES LLOYD,

AN UNEXPECTED VISITER.

ALONE, obscure, without a friend,
A cheerless, solitary thing,

Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out?
What offering can the stranger bring

Of social scenes, homebred delights,
That him in aught compensate may
For Stowey's pleasant winter nights,
For loves and friendships far away?

In brief oblivion to forego

Friends, such as thine, so justly dear,
And be a while with me content
To stay, a kindly loiterer, here:

For this a gleam of random joy
Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek;
And, with an o'ercharged, bursting heart,
I feel the thanks I cannot speak.

Oh! sweet are all the muses' lays, And sweet the charm of matin bird; 'Twas long since these estranged ears

The sweeter voice of friend had heard.

The voice hath spoke: the pleasant sounds
In mem'ry's ear in after time

Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear,
And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme.

For, when the transient charm is fled,
And when the little week is o'er,

To cheerless, friendless solitude

When I return as heretofore,