D'ye now remember, youth, the time
Thou'st rattled off sweet chinking rhime,
Till, rapt in doggerel sublime,

Thou staid'st all night out.

While Mumpus * rang'd from clime to clime,

Raising a right rout?

Peace to thy manes, lad of wax !

Free from all venomous attacks,

Thou liest in harbour snug: what lacks`

Thy heart on high?

Would that thy friends here could go snacks,
And mount the sky!

AN ODE TO MYSELF.

THRICE hail, thou prince of jovial fellows,
Tuning so blithe thy lyric bellows,
Of no one's brighter genius jealous;

Whose little span

Is spent 'twixt poetry and alehouse,

'Twixt quill and cann!.

* One of his associates at John Baynham's.

Reckless howe'er the world may fadge,
Variety thy only badge :

Now courting Susan, Kate, or Madge,

Or black-ey'd Molly;

For living in one sullen lodge

Is downright folly.

by classics sleeping on the shelf, Thou'rt muse and patron to thyself: Aye frolic when profuse of pelf;

Grim as the gallows When dunn'd by that obstreperous elf,

False-scoring Alice.

Long may'st thou punch ambrosial swill,
Drinking no water from that hill

By temperate bards recorded still

In tasteless rhime;

For noble punch shall sweetly fill

The thought sublime.

Ever. So Milton:

And hear the Muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing.

By many wrong'd, gay bloom of song,
Thou yet art innocent of wrong,
Virtue and truth to thee belong,

Virtue and truth;

Though Pleasure led thy step along,

And trapp'd thy youth.

With Baynham, social spring* of wit,
Thou hadst full many a merry fit;

And whether haply thou shalt sit

With clown or peer,

Never shall lingering honour quit

Thy heart sincere.

* So Falstaff: "I am not only witty myself, but the cause of wit in others.

MY OWN EPITAPH.

Guiltless he met grim Death, and sporting;
The farce is finish'd, drop the curtain;
The bubble's burst, the whim is ended,
The rattle either lost or mended..

HERE Dermody, oddest of odd compositions;
By Virtue and Vice, two contending physicians,
Most strangely work'dup; who of each wore the fetter;
Just loos'd from this world, lies in hopes of a better:
If no blessing ensue he can't suffer a curse;
As Fortune and Fate could not find out a worse.
All formal rule slighting of plain mortals above;
The pole-star of friendship, the comet of love;
Though sadly distrest, a vile squand'rer of pelf,
For others he felt what be felt not for self.

Most injur'd by folks whom he most wish'd to please;
To preferment no foe, but a friend to his ease;
Unnotic'd for talents he had, and forgot,

But most famously notic'd for faults he had not;

Though meek as a lamb, deem'd the lion of satire;
The madman of rage and the fool of good-nature;
Whenever to praise he sometimes condescended,
They squeez'd out sly rubs which were never intended:
No deist, no drunkard, no rake at a gypsy;
Yet often both swearing, and courting, and tipsy.
As an author, conceited when once he began ;
Facetious, and social, and free, as a man:

As a man, did I say? when death shifted the scene,
A giant of genius, he was not fifteen.

Him whom living you nourish'd with ink and with bays,

To others the profit, to him the mere praise,

Sage critics and cavilers, take it in head

To burden with praise and with profit when dead ; Oh! now that you fear nor his smiles nor his lashes, Be candid for once, and disturb not his ashes.