In vain you pour into his ear
Your own confiding grief;
In vain you claim his sympathy,
In vain you ask relief;

In vain you try to rouse him by
Joke, repartee, or quiz;

His sole reply's a burning sigh,
And "What a mind it is!"

O Lord! it is the greatest bore,
Of all the bores I know,

To have a friend who 's lost his heart
A short time ago.

I've heard her thoroughly described
A hundred times, I'm sure;
And all the while I've tried to smile,
And patiently endure;

He waxes strong upon his pangs,
And potters o'er his grog;
And still I say, in a playful way—
"Why you 're a lucky dog!"

But oh! it is the heaviest bore,
Of all the bores I know,

To have a friend who's lost his heart
A short time ago.

I really wish he'd do like me
When I was young and strong;

I formed a passion every week,
But never kept it long.

But he has not the sportive mood

That always rescued me,

And so I would all women could

Be banished o'er the sea.

For 'tis the most egregious bore,
Of all the bores I know,

To have a friend who's lost his heart
A short time ago.

PARODIES AND BURLESQUES.

PARODIES AND BURLESQUES.

WINE.

Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt,
Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.

Or happiness terrestrial, and the source

JOHN GAY.

HOR

Whence human pleasures flow, sing, heavenly Muse!
Of sparkling juices, of the enlivening grape,
Whose quickening taste adds vigor to the soul,
Whose sovereign power revives decaying nature,
And thaws the frozen blood of hoary Age,
A kindly warmth diffusing;-youthful fires
Gild his dim eyes, and paint with ruddy hue
His wrinkled visage, ghastly wan before:
Cordial restorative to mortal man,

With copious hand by bounteous gods bestow'd!
Bacchus divine! aid my adventurous song,
"That with no middle flight intends to soar:"
Inspir'd sublime, on Pegasean wing,

By thee upborne, I draw Miltonic air.

When fumy vapors clog our loaded brows

With furrow'd frowns, when stupid downcast eyes,
The external symptoms of remorse within,
Express our grief, or when in sullen dumps,
With head incumbent on expanded palm,
Moping we sit, in silent sorrow drown'd;
Whether inveigling Hymen has trepann'd
The unwary youth, and tied the gordian knot
Of jangling wedlock not to be dissolv'd;
Worried all day by loud Xantippe's din,
Who fails not to exalt him to the stars,
And fix him there among the branched crew

(Taurus, and Aries, and Capricorn,

The greatest monsters of the Zodiac),
Or for the loss of anxious worldly pelf,
Or Celia's scornful slights, and cold disdain,
Which check'd his amorous flame with coy repulse,
The worst events that mortals can befall;
By cares depress'd, in pensive hippish mood,
With slowest pace the tedious minutes roll,

Thy charming sight, but much more charming gust,
New life incites, and warms our chilly blood.
Straight with pert looks we raise our drooping fronts,
And pour in crystal pure thy purer juice ;-
With cheerful countenance and steady hand
Raise it lip-high, then fix the spacious rim
To the expecting mouth:—with grateful taste
The ebbing wine glides swiftly o'er the tongue;
The circling blood with quicker motion flies:
Such is thy powerful influence, thou straight
Dispell'st those clouds that, lowering dark, eclips'd
The whilom glories of the gladsome face;-
While dimpled cheeks, and sparkling rolling eyes,
Thy cheering virtues, and thy worth proclaim.
So mists and exhalations that arise

From "hills or steamy lake, dusky or gray,"
Prevail, till Phoebus sheds Titanian rays,
And paints their fleecy skirts with shining gold;
Unable to resist, the foggy damps,

That vail'd the surface of the verdant fields,
At the god's penetrating beams disperse!
The earth again in former beauty smiles,
In gaudiest livery drest, all gay and clear.
When disappointed Strephon meets repulse,
Scoff'd at, despis'd, in melancholic mood
Joyless he wastes in sighs the lazy hours,
Till reinforc'd by thy most potent aid

He storms the breach, and wins the beauteous fort.
To pay thee homage, and receive thy blessing,
The British seaman quits his native shore,
And ventures through the trackless, deep abyss,
Plowing the ocean, while the upheav'd oak,
"With beaked prow, rides tilting o'er the waves;"

Shock'd by tempestuous jarring winds, she rolls