English

Skoles stinks so deadly, that his Breeches loath
His dampish Buttocks furthermore to cloath:
Cloy'd they are up with Arse; but hope, one blast
Will whirle about, and blow them thence at last.

'Tis not a thousand Bullocks thies
Can please those Heav'nly Deities,
If the Vower don't express
In his Offering, Cheerfulness.

Nor is my Number full, till I inscribe
Thee sprightly Soame, one of my righteous Tribe:
A Tribe of one Lip, Leven, and of One
Civil Behaviour, and Religion.
A Stock of Saints; where ev'ry one doth weare
A stole of white, (and Canonized here)
Among which Holies, be Thou ever known,
Brave Kinsman, markt out with the whiter stone:
Which seals Thy Glorie; since I doe prefer
Thee here in my eternall Calender.

You and I, and that night, with its perfume and glory!—
The scent of the locusts—the light of the moon;
And the violin weaving the waltzers a story,
Enmeshing their feet in the weft of the tune,
Till their shadows uncertain
Reeled round on the curtain,
While under the trellis we drank in the June.

Soaked through with the midnight the cedars were sleeping,
Their shadowy tresses outlined in the bright
Crystal, moon-smitten mists, where the fountain's heart, leaping
Forever, forever burst, full with delight;

The Clover's simple Fame
Remembered of the Cow—
Is better than enameled Realms
Of notability.
Renown perceives itself
And that degrades the Flower—
The Daisy that has looked behind
Has compromised its power—

Good reader! if you e'er have seen,
When Phoebus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,
Dancing upon the western billow:
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the long spirit's vesper hymn
Floats wild along the western shore,
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green:--
If you have seen all this, and more,
God bless me, what a deal you've seen!

R OBERT POLLOK, A.M ! this work of yours
Is meant, I do not doubt, extremely well,
And the design I deem most laudable,
But since I find the book laid on my table,
I shall presume (with the fair owner's leave)
To note a single slight deficiency:
I mean, in short (since it is called a poem),
That in the course of ten successive books
If something in the shape of poetry
Were to be met with, we should like it better;
But nothing of the kind is to be found,
Nothing, alas! but words of the olden time,

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling through the cloven ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal

To live within a cave—it is most good;
——But, if God make a day,
——And some one come, and say,
“Lo! I have gathered fagots in the wood!”
——E'ndash let him stay,
And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood!

So sit till morning! when the light is grown
——That he the path can read,
——Then bid the man God-speed!
His morning is not thine: yet must thou own
They have a cheerful warmth—those ashes on the stone.

A DONIS dead, the muse of woe shall mourn;
Adonis dead, the weeping Loves return.
The Queen of Beauty o'er his tomb shall shed
Her flowing sorrows for Adonis dead;
For earth's cold lap her velvet couch forego,
And robes of purple for the weeds of woe.
Adonis dead, the muse of woe shall mourn;
Adonis dead, the weeping Loves return.
Stretch'd on this mountain thy torn lover lies;
Weep, Queen of Beauty! for he bleeds—he dies.
Ah! yet behold life's last drops faintly flow,
In streams of purple, o'er those limbs of snow!