In whose eyes youth's healthful rays
Sparkle, like the di'mond's blaze;
'Mong whose locks unting'd with grey,
Loves and Cupids seem to play;
In whose form and graceful mien
Sprightly elegance is seen,
Deck'd with splendour to impart
Each embellishment of art:
Such a shape as painters give,
When the canvas seems to live,
Such a being as should seen
Angel in a poet's theme.
What is Favour? Lovers say,
Ye who languish life away,
Pining, sighing to be made
Happy with a fleeting shade.
Ye who catch the envied flame,
Most admir'd, and first in fame,
Subject of the rhymester's song,
Fed with Flatt'ry's honied tongue;
First at Pleasure's varied call,
Crowded rout, or splendid ball,
Catching oft in mazy dance
Am'rous squeeze and wanton glance;
List'ning with delighted ears
To a suitor's sighs and fears;
Sporting far as Fame allows
With a lover's pains and vows;
Roving giddy here and there,
Sipping Favour ev'rywhere.
What is Beauty? Simple maid,
List to Wisdom: she hath said,
"Tis a picture fading soon,
Changing like the waning moon;
"Tis a flow'r-the wintry night,
Age, or sickness swift shall blight;
'Tis a fruit, whose rip'ning bloom
Tempts the gazer to consume;
'Tis a lovely form of dust
Time shall wrinkle to disgust;
'Tis a varnish'd outward case,
Which the worms shall soon deface.
Perfect shape and polish'd skin
Hiding ugliness within;
Tempers base, and passions vile,
Cover'd with fallacious smile;
If no deeper charms you gain,
'Tis indeed but Beauty vain.
What is Favour? That doth spring
From so frail and weak a thing,
That which doth dependance place.
On the lustre of a face;
'Tis the admiration poor
Which satiety shall cure,
Such as feeble minds bestow
On some glitt'ring gaudy show,
Dazzled first with tinsel gay,
Then disgusted turn away.
'Tis a passion, which aspires
To degrade what it admires,
Ever eager to pursue
Fresher charms, and faces new,
She who builds her hopes thereon,
Loses all when youth is gone;
Sickness shall detect the cheat,
Sorrow prove the Love deceit.
But the maid who fears the Lord,
Reaps a sure, a full reward;
She the many shall excel,
And her works shall praise her well,
Her exalted soul shall join
Social charms with grace divine;
Heav'nly peace, that care beguiles,
Shall adorn her face with smiles;
Innocence, a vesture bright,
Clothe her in unsullied white;
Modesty, in meekness great,
Give her splendour, rank, and state.
Her industrious hands produce
Works of excellence and use;
Her devoted soul shall prove
Sacred joy and heav'nly love.
Heir of Glory! bought with blood;
Zion's daughter! child of God!
Angels on her steps attend,
Own their Sister, guard their Friend ;
And the Lamb who for her died,
Claims his Spouse, and keeps his Bride,
Written in the blank Leaf of the Pleasures of Memory.
DEAR maid! the ardent wish receive
That your long course of future days
To you may peace and comfort give,
And bear to heav'n your grateful praise.
May Mem'ry on her tablet trace
Fair scenes for cheerful age to view;
A life of innocence and grace,
A source of Pleasures ever new!
On seeing an infant, about a month old, in the arms of his lady, at whose door it had been left about 9 o'clock on Sunday evening, March 25, 1804, neatly clothed, and carefully wrapped to defend it from cold ;-accompanied also by a letter, in which were strongly portrayed the grief and distraction of the unhappy mother, on being compelled thus to abandon her child; and earnestly imploring, on its behalf, that protection which, from desertion, and distress of circumstances, it was no longer in her own power to afford.
OH! what a piteous sight is there!
The helpless victim of despair,
In Mercy's lap reclin'd':
Poor, blameless, blighted child of woe!
Thou dost not yet thy sufferings know,
Nor know thy patrons kind.
Alas! what guilt, or mis'ry hard,
Could quench a mother's fond regard,
Could sever Nature's ties ?
Could drop, forsaken and forlorn,
Her son, her suckling newly born,
To pain a stranger's eyes?
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