English

TO BE WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF MR. POYNTZ

Such is thy form, O Poyntz! but who shall find
A hand or colours to express thy mind?
A mind unmov'd by ev'ry vnlgar fear
In a false world that dares to be sincere;
Wise without art, without ambition great,
Tho' firm yet pliant, active tho' sedate;
With all the richest stores of learning fraught,
Yet better still by native prudence taught;
That fond the griefs of the distress'd to heal
Can pity frailties it could never feel;

I countries chang'd, new pleasures out to finde,
But, ah! for pleasure new I found new paine;
Enchanting pleasure so did reason blind,
That father's loue and wordes I scorn'd as vaine:
For tables rich, for bed, for frequent traine
Of carefull seruants to obserue my minde,
These heardes I keepe my fellowes are assign'd,
My bed a rocke is, hearbes my life sustaine.
Now while I famine feele, feare worser harmes,
Father and Lord, I turne; thy love, yet great,
My faults will pardon, pitty mine estate.

AT OXFORD .

Say, dearest Friend! how roll thy hours away,
What pleasing study cheats the tedious day?
Dost thou the sacred volumes oft' explore
Of wife Antiquity's immortal lore,
Where virtue by the charms of wit refin'd
At once exalts and polishes the mind?
How diff'rent from our modern guilty art,
Which pleases only to corrupt the heart,
Whose curs'd refinements odious vice adorn,
And teach to honour what we ought to scorn!
Dost thou in sage historians joy to see

TO LILLO'S ELMERICK .

You who, supreme o'er ev'ry work of wit,
In judgment here, unaw'd, unbiass'd, sit
The Palatines and Guardians of the pit;
If to your minds this merely modern play
No useful sense, no gen'rous warmth, convey;
If sustian here thro' each unnat'ral scene
In strain'd conceits sound high, and nothing mean;
If lofty Dulness for your vengeance call,
Like Elmerick judge, and let the guilty fall:
But if Simplicity with force and fire,

I.

Selinda sure's the brightest Thing,
That decks our Earth, or breaths our Air,
Mild are her Looks like op'ning Spring,
And like the blooming Summer fair.

II.

But yet her Wit's so very small,
That all her Charms appear to lye
Like glaring Colours on a Wall,
And strike no further than the Eye.

III.

Our Eyes luxuriously she treats,
Our Ears are absent from the Feast;
One Sense is surfeited with Sweets,

In this vineyard a bearded and agile he-goat once stripped all the tender shoots from one of the vines, and these words came to him out of the earth: " You may devour my fruitful vine now, miserable one, but my firm-set root will produce sweet nectar for a libation at your sacrifice. "

O travellers, who use this road leading from the fields to the citadel, you will see two Gods giving ear to mortal woes: me, Hermes, and Herakles who devours all the wild pears that are placed before us. And he takes all the grapes, whether they are ripe or not. I despise gifts offered to us in common. Do not bring them for us both, but say, " This is for Hermes, this for Herakles, " and our quarrelling will cease.

I, Aristokles, a wayfarer, salute this cold spring leaping from the cleft rock, these shepherd's statues of the Nymphs, these fertile ledges, these meadows watered by your many streams, O Maidens; I give you this drinking-horn in which I quenched my thirst.

Spoken by Miss Lyddell

A brow-beat Husband, and Triumphant Wife,
Grant me ye Pow'rs, O grant me such a Life;
You nicer Dames, who think it a hard Sentence
To buy short Pleasures with such long Repentance;
Were matrimonial Broils thus always carry'd,
Tell me, Who wou'd not covet to be Marry'd?

Tho' my kind Aunt here, hardly cou'd agree,
That State was fit for one so young as me,
— As if I did not know What's What as well as She.

In a Hot Fit I boasted I could bear
A Woman's Anger, and despise the Fair:
But Coward I, am all unmann'd again;
A sudden Frenzy works my madding Brain.
Raging, I move, like whirling Tops, around,
Which sportive Boys keep giddy on the Ground.

 Punish my Pride, and teach me, by my Pain,
To use my Mistress in an humbler Strain.
Yet spare me; by our Joys I beg for Grace,
By Venus , by Thy own more lovely Face!

 For I, when wasting Sickness seiz'd my Fair,
Sav'd the Dear Suff'rer by my happy Pray'r;