Inebriety and the Candidate | Page 6

old, the
prophet and the bard;
If not, ah! shield me from the dire disgrace,

That haunts our wild and visionary race;
Let me not draw my
lengthen'd lines along,
And tire in untamed infamy of song,
Lest, in
some dismal Dunciad's future page,
I stand the CIBBER of this
tuneless age;
Lest, in another POPE th' indulgent skies
Should give
inspired by all their deities,
My luckless name, in his immortal strain,

Should, blasted, brand me as a second Cain;
Doom'd in that song to
live against my will,
Whom all must scorn, and yet whom none could
kill.
The youth, resisted by the maiden's art,
Persists, and time subdues her
kindling heart;
To strong entreaty yields the widow's vow,
As
mighty walls to bold beseigers bow;
Repeated prayers draw bounty
from the sky,
And heaven is won by importunity;
Ours, a projecting
tribe, pursue in vain,
In tedious trials, an uncertain gain;
Madly
plunge on through every hope's defeat,
And with our ruin only find
the cheat.
"And why then seek that luckless doom to share?"
Who, I?--To shun
it is my only care.
I grant it true, that others better tell
Of mighty WOLFE, who
conquer'd as he fell;
Of heroes born, their threaten'd realms to save,

Whom Fame anoints, and Envy tends whose grave;
Of crimson'd
fields, where Fate, in dire array,
Gives to the breathless the
short-breathing clay;
Ours, a young train, by humbler fountains
dream,
Nor taste presumptuous the Pierian stream;
When Rodney's
triumph comes on eagle-wing,
We hail the victor whom we fear to

sing;
Nor tell we how each hostile chief goes on,
The luckless Lee,
or wary Washington;
How Spanish bombast blusters--they were beat,

And French politeness dulcifies--defeat.
My modest Muse forbears
to speak of kings,
Lest fainting stanzas blast the name she sings;

For who--the tenant of the beechen shade,
Dares the big thought in
regal breasts pervade?
Or search his soul, whom each too-favouring
god
Gives to delight in plunder, pomp, and blood?
No; let me free
from Cupid's frolic round,
Rejoice, or more rejoice by Cupid bound;

Of laughing girls in smiling couplets tell,
And paint the
dark-brow'd grove, where wood-nymphs dwell;
Who bid invading
youths their vengeance feel,
And pierce the votive hearts they mean
to heal.
Such were the themes I knew in school-day ease,
When
first the moral magic learn'd to please,
Ere Judgment told how
transports warm'd the breast,
Transported Fancy there her stores
imprest;
The soul in varied raptures learn'd to fly,
Felt all their force,
and never question'd why;
No idle doubts could then her peace molest,

She found delight, and left to heaven the rest;
Soft joys in
Evening's placid shades were born;
And where sweet fragrance
wing'd the balmy morn,
When the wild thought roved vision's circuit
o'er,
And caught the raptures, caught, alas! no more:
No care did
then a dull attention ask,
For study pleased, and that was every task;

No guilty dreams stalk'd that heaven-favour'd round,

Heaven-guarded, too, no Envy entrance found;
Nor numerous wants,
that vex advancing age,
Nor Flattery's silver tale, nor Sorrow's sage;

Frugal Affliction kept each growing dart,
To o'erwhelm in future
days the bleeding heart.
No sceptic art veil'd Pride in Truth's disguise,

But prayer unsoil'd of doubt besieged the skies;
Ambition, avarice,
care, to man retired,
Nor came desires more quick than joys desired.
A summer morn there was, and passing fair,

Still was the breeze, and
health perfumed the air;
The glowing east in crimson'd splendour
shone,
What time the eye just marks the pallid moon,
Vi'let-wing'd
Zephyr fann'd each opening flower,
And brush'd from fragrant cups

the limpid shower;
A distant huntsman fill'd his cheerful horn,
The
vivid dew hung trembling on the thorn,
And mists, like creeping
rocks, arose to meet the morn.
Huge giant shadows spread along the
plain,
Or shot from towering rocks o'er half the main,
There to the
slumbering bark the gentle tide
Stole soft, and faintly beat against its
side;
Such is that sound, which fond designs convey,
When, true to
love, the damsel speeds away;
The sails unshaken, hung aloft unfurl'd,

And simpering nigh, the languid current curl'd;
A crumbling ruin,
once a city's pride,
The well-pleased eye through withering oaks
descried,
Where Sadness, gazing on time's ravage, hung,
And
Silence to Destruction's trophy clung -
Save that as morning songsters
swell'd their lays,
Awaken'd Echo humm'd repeated praise:
The lark
on quavering pinion woo'd the day,
Less towering linnets fill'd the
vocal spray,
And song-invited pilgrims rose to pray.
Here at a
pine-press'd hill's embroider'd base
I stood, and hail'd the Genius of
the place.
Then was it doom'd by fate, my idle heart,
Soften'd by Nature, gave
access to Art;
The Muse approach'd, her syren-song I heard,
Her
magic felt, and all her charms revered:
E'er since she rules in absolute
control,
And Mira only dearer to my soul.
Ah! tell me not these
empty joys to fly,
If they deceive, I would deluded die;
To the fond
themes my heart so early wed,
So soon in life to blooming visions led,

So prone to run the vague uncertain course,
'Tis more than death to
think of a divorce.
What wills the poet of the favouring gods,
Led to their shrine, and
blest in their abodes?
What when he fills the glass, and to each youth

Names his loved maid, and glories in his truth?
Not India's spoils,
the splended nabob's pride,
Not the full trade