Short Poems

Retired, with purpose your fair worth to praise,
'Mongst Hampton shades, and Phoebus' grove of bays,
I plucked a branch; the jealous god did frown,
And bad me lay the usurped laurel down:
Said I wronged him, and (which was more) his love.
I answered, 'Daphne now no pain can prove.'
Phoebus replied: 'Bold head, it is not she:
Cary my love is, Daphne but my tree.'

When I would know thee Goodyere, my thought looks
Upon thy well-made choice of friends, and books;
Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends
In making thy friends books, and thy books friends:
Now, I must give thy life, and deed, the voice
Attending such a study, such a choice.
Where, though't be love, that to thy praise doth move,
It was a knowledge, that begat that love.

Surly's old whore in her new silks doth swim:
He cast, yet keeps her well! No, she keeps him.

Chuff, lately rich in name, in chattels, goods,
And rich in issue to inherit all,
Ere blacks were bought for his own funeral,
Saw all his race approach the blacker floods:
He meant they thither should make swift repair,
When he made him executor, might be heir.

Gypsy, new bawd, is turned physician,
And gets more gold, than all the college can:
Such her quaint practice is, so it allures,
For what she gave, a whore; a bawd, she cures.

Guilty, because I bad you late be wise,
And to conceal your ulcers, did advise,
You laugh when you are touched, and long before
Any man else, you clap your hands, and roar,
And cry good! good! This quite perverts my sense,
And lies so far from wit, 'tis impudence.
Believe it, Guilty, if you lose your shame,
I'll lose my modesty, and tell your name.

I'll not offend thee with a vain tear more,
Glad-mentioned Roe: thou art but gone before,
Whither the world must follow. And I, now,
Breathe to expect my when, and make my how.
Which if most gracious heaven grant like thine,
Who wets my grave, can be no friend of mine.

Guilty, be wise; and though thou know'st the crimes
Be thine, I tax, yet do not own my rhymes:
'Twere madness in thee, to betray thy fame,
And person to the world; ere I thy name.

May none, whose scattered names honour my book,
For strict degrees of rank, or title look:
'Tis 'gainst the manners of an epigram:
And, I a poet here, no herald am.

Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair,
I ask no names — God's spirit dwelleth there!
The unconfounded, undivided Three,
Each for itself, and all in each, to see
In man and Nature, is Philosophy.
[1822. From MS]