Then look'd so wise, before he knew The business he was made to do;` That, pleas'd to see with what a grace He gravely show'd his forward face, Jove talk'd of breeding him on high, An under-something of the sky.

But ere he gave the mighty nod,
Which ever binds a poet's god,
(For which his curls ambrosial shake,
And mother Earth's obliged to quake,)
He saw old mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A castle for a crown before,

Nor with long streets and longer roads
Dangling behind her, like commodes:
As yet with wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a landscape-painted vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, as Ovid said,
And thrice she bow'd her weighty head.

Her honors made, "Great Jove," she cried, "This thing was fashion'd from my side: His hands, his heart, his head are mine; Then what hast thou to call him thine ?"

66

Nay, rather ask," the monarch said,
"What boots his hand, his heart, his head,
Were what I gave remov'd away,
Thy part's an idle shape of clay."

"Halves, more than halves!" cried honest Care, "Your pleas would make your titles fair. You claim the body, you the soul,

But I, who join'd them, claim the whole."

Thus with the gods debate began,
On such a trivial cause as man.
And can celestial tempers rage?
Quoth Virgil, in a later age?

As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the fabling ancients sung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young).
As yet his winters had not shed
Their silver honors on his head;
He just had got his pinions free,
From his old sire, Eternity.

A serpent girdled round he wore,
The tail within the mouth, before;
By which our almanacs are clear
That learned Egypt meant the year.
A staff he carried, where on high
A glass was fix'd to measure by,
As amber boxes made a show
For heads of canes an age ago.
His vest, for day and night, was py'd;
A bending sickle arm'd his side;
And Spring's new months his train adorn:
The other seasons were unborn.

Known by the gods, as near he draws,
They make him umpire of the cause.
O'er a low trunk his arm he laid,
Where since his hours a dial made;
Then leaning heard the nice debate,
And thus pronounc'd the words of Fate:
"Since body from the parent Earth,
And soul from Jove receiv'd a birth,
Return they where they first began;
But since their union makes the man,
Till Jove and Earth shall part these two,
To Care who join'd them, man is due."
He said, and sprung with swift career
To trace a circle for the year;

Where ever since the seasons wheel,
And tread on one another's heel.

""Tis well," said Jove, and for consent Thundering he shook the firmament. "Our umpire Time shall have his way, With Care I let the creature stay: Let business vex him, avarice blind, Let doubt and knowledge rack his mind, Let error act, opinion speak,

And want afflict, and sickness break,
And anger burn, dejection chill,
And joy distract, and sorrow kill,
Till, arm'd by Care, and taught to mow,
Time draws the long destructive blow;
And wasted man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his day,
Shall only find by this decree,
The soul flies sooner back to me."

THE BOOK-WORM.

COME hither, boy, we'll hunt to-day,
The book-worm, ravening beast of prey,
Produc'd by parent Earth, at odds,
As Fame reports it, with the gods.
Him frantic hunger wildly drives
Against a thousand authors' lives:
Through all the fields of wit he flies;
Dreadful his head with clustering eyes,
With horns without, and tusks within,
And scales to serve him for a skin.
Observe him nearly, lest he climb
To wound the bards of ancient time,
Or down the vale of fancy go
To tear some modern wretch below.
On every corner fix thine eye,
Or ten to one he slips thee by.
See where his teeth a passage eat:
We'll rouse him from the deep retreat.-
But who the shelter's forc'd to give?
"Tis sacred Virgil, as I live!

From leaf to leaf, from song to song,
He draws the tadpole form along,
He mounts the gilded edge before,
He's up, he scuds the cover o'er,
He turns, he doubles, there he past,
And here we have him, caught at last.
Insatiate brute, whose teeth abuse
The sweetest servants of the Muse-
(Nay never offer to deny,

I took thee in the fact to fly).
His roses nipt in every page,
My poor Anacreon mourns thy rage;
By thee my Ovid wounded lies;
By thee my Lesbia's sparrow dies;
Thy rabid teeth have half destroy'd
The work of love in Biddy Floyd,
They rent Belinda's locks away,
And spoil'd the Blouzelind of Gay.
For all, for every single deed,
Relentless Justice bids thee bleed.
Then fall a victim to the Nine,
Myself the priest, my desk the shrine.
Bring Homer, Virgil, Tasso near,
To pile a sacred altar here;
Hold, boy, thy hand outruns thy wit,
You reach'd the plays that Dennis writ
You reach'd me Philips' rustic strain
Pray take your mortal bards again.

Though through the wide world I should range, "Tis in vain from my fortune to fly; Twas hers to be false and to change, "Tis mine to be constant and die.

If while my hard fate I sustain,
In her breast any pity is found,

Let her come with the nymphs of the plain,
And see me laid low in the ground.
The last humble boon that I crave,

Is to shade me with cypress and yew; And when she looks down on my grave, Let her own that her shepherd was true.

"Then to her new love let her go,

And deck her in golden array, Be finest at every fine show,

And frolic it all the long day; While Colin, forgotten and gone,

No more shall be talk'd of, or seen, Unless when, beneath the pale Moon, His ghost shall glide over the green."

THE CONTENTED SHEPHERD.

TO MRS. A D

As on a summer's day
In the greenwood shade I lay,
The maid that I lov'd,
As her fancy mov'd,
Came walking forth that way.

And as she passed by, With a scornful glance of her eye, "What a shame," quoth she, "For a swain must it be, Like a lazy loon for to die!

"And dost thou nothing heed, What Pan our God has decreed; What a prize to-day

Shall be given away,

To the sweetest shepherd's reed!

"There's not a single swain
Of all this fruitful plain,

But with hopes and fears
Now busily prepares

The bonny boon to gain.

" Shall another maiden shine

In brighter array than thine?
Up, up, dull swain,

Tune thy pipe once again, And make the garland mine."

"Alas! my love," he cried,

"What avails this courtly pride? Since thy dear desert

Is written in my heart, What is all the world beside?

"To me thou art more gay, In this homely russet grey, Than the nymphs of our green, So trim and so sheen;

Or the brightest queen of May.

* Afterwards his wife.

What though my fortune frown, And deny thee a silken gown;

My own dear maid,

Be content with this shade, And a shepherd all thy own."