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I think it strange that Guion sage,
Should grow that very culprit,
To worship those who hate the stage,
And lash it from the pulpit.1

DAMON TO HIS FRIENDS.

A BALLAD.

THE billows of life are supprest,
Its tumults, its toils disappear,
To relinquish the storms that are past,
I think on the sunshine that's near.

Dame Fortune and I are agreed;
Her frowns I no longer endure;

For the goddess has kindly decreed,
That Damon no more shall be poor.

Now riches will ope the dim eyes,

To view the increase of my store; And many my friendship will prize Who never knew Damon before.

But those I renounce and abjure,

Who carried contempt in their eye:

May poverty still be their dower

That could look on misfortune awry!

1 The above Epigram was written on reading several very encomiastic Verses on Dr. Webster, which appeared in the Scots Magazine for July 1772, &c. Guion was equally an admirer of Fergusson.

Ye powers that weak mortals govern,

Keep pride at his bay from my mind; O let me not haughtily learn

To despise the few friends that were kind!

For theirs was a feeling sincere ;

'Twas free from delusion and art; O may I that friendship revere, And hold it yet dear to my heart!

By which was I ever forgot?

It was both my physician and cure, That still found the way to my cot, Although I was wretched and poor.

'Twas balm to my canker-tooth'd care,
The wound of affliction it heal'd;
In distress it was Pity's soft tear,
When naked, cold Poverty's shield.

Attend, ye kind youth of the plain!
Who oft with my sorrows condoled;

You cannot be deaf to the strain,
Since Damon is master of gold.

1

I have chose a soft sylvan retreat,

Bedeck'd with the beauties of spring; Around my flocks wander 2 and bleat, While the musical choristers sing.

I force not the waters to stand
In an artful canal at my door,

1 Var. sweet.

2 Var. nibble.

But a river at Nature's command,

Meanders both limpid and pure.

She's the goddess that darkens my bowers
With tendrils of ivy and vine;

She tutors my shrubs and my flowers,
Her taste is the standard of mine.

What a pleasing diversified group

Of trees has she spread o'er my ground! She has taught the grave larix to droop, And the birch to deal odours around.

For whom has she perfumed my groves? For whom has she cluster'd my vine? If friendship despise my alcoves,

They'll ne'er be recesses of mine.

He who tastes his grape juices by stealth,
Without chosen companions to share,
Is the basest of slaves to his wealth,
And the pitiful minion of care.

O come! and with Damon retire

Amidst the green umbrage embower'd! Your mirth and your songs to inspire, Shall the juice of his vintage be pour'd.

O come, ye dear friends of his youth!
Of all his good fortune partake;
Nor think 'tis departing from truth,

To say 'twas preserved for your sake.

THE CANONGATE PLAY-HOUSE IN RUINS.

A BURLESQUE POEM.

[This Theatre' stood behind the south line of the street, opposite to the head of New Street. It was founded in 1746 by Ryan of Covent Garden, London: but was only first used under the royal licence on 9th December, 1767. A new 'Theatre' being built in 1768 in the New Town, the humble 'Canongate' was almost immediately after left to ruin. It was in this "Theatre' that the 'Gentle Shepherd' of Ramsay was first publicly represented, and where subsequently Home's ‘Douglas' was first privately represented with such a Corps Dramatique as is unlikely ever to "tread the Stage again."]

YE few, whose feeling hearts are ne'er estranged
From soft emotions! ye who often wear
The eye of pity, and oft vent her sighs,
When sad Melpomene, in woe-fraught strains,
Gains entrance to the breast; or often smile
When brisk Thalia gayly trips along
Scenes of enlivening mirth; attend my song.
And Fancy! thou whose ever-flaming light
Can penetrate into the dark abyss

Of chaos, and of hell-O! with thy blazing torch
The wasteful scene illumine, that the Muse,
With daring pinions, may her flight pursue,
Nor with timidity be known to soar
O'er the theatric world, to chaos changed.
Can I contemplate on those dreary scenes
Of mould'ring desolation, and forbid
The voice elegiac and the falling tear!
No more from box to box the basket piled
With oranges as radiant as the spheres,

Shall with their luscious virtues charm the sense

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Of taste and smell. No more the gaudy beau,
With handkerchief in lavender well drench'd,
Or bergamot, or rose-watero pure,

With flavoriferous sweets shall chase away
The pestilential fumes of vulgar cits,
Who, in impatience for the curtain's rise,
Amused the lingering moments, and applied
Thirst-quenching porter to their parched lips.
Alas! how sadly alter'd is the scene!

For lo! those sacred walls, that late were brush'd
By rustling silks and waving capuchins,

Are now become the sport of wrinkled time!
Those walls, that late have echoed to the voice
Of stern King Richard, to the seat transform'd
Of crawling spiders and detested moths,
Who in the lonely crevices reside;

Or gender in the beams, that have upheld
Gods, demi-gods, and all the joyous crew
Of thunderers in the galleries above.

O Shakspeare! where are all thy tinsell'd kings,
Thy fawning courtiers, and thy waggish clowns?
Where all thy fairies, spirits, witches, fiends,
That here have gamboll'd in nocturnal sport,
Round the lone oak, or sunk in fear away
From the shrill summons of the cock at morn?
Where now the temples, palaces, and towers?
Where now the groves that ever-verdant smiled?
Where now the streams that never ceased to flow?
Where now the clouds, the rains, the hails, the winds,
The thunders, lightnings, and the tempests strong?

Here shepherds, lolling in their woven bowers,
In dull recitativo often sung

Their loves accompanied with clangour strong
From horns, from trumpets, clarionets, bassoons;

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