CATHARINA:

THE SECOND PART: ON HER MARRIAGE TO GEORGE

COURTENAY, ESQ.

BELIEVE it or not, as you choose,
The doctrine is certainly true,
That the future is known to the muse,
And poets are oracles too.

I did but express a desire

To see Catharina at home,

At the side of my friend George's fire,
And lo-she is actually come.

Such prophecy some may despise,
But the wish of a poet and friend
Perhaps is approved in the skies,

And therefore attains to its end.
'Twas a wish that flew ardently forth
From a bosom effectually warm'd
With the talents, the graces, and worth
Of the person for whom it was form'd.

Maria** would leave us, I knew,

To the grief and regret of us all, But less to our grief, could we view Catharina the Queen of the Hall.

* Lady Throckmorton.

And therefore I wish'd as I did,

And therefore this union of hands
Not a whisper was heard to forbid,
But all cry-Amen-to the bans.

Since, therefore, I seem to incur
No danger of wishing in vain
When making good wishes for her,
I will e'en to my wishes again-
With one I have made her a wife,
And now I will try with another,
Which I cannot suppress for my

life

How soon I can make her a mother.
June, 1792.

EPITAPH ON FOP, A DOG BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMORTON.

THOUGH Once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one whose bones some honour claim.
No sycophant, although of spaniel race,
And though no hound, a martyr to the chase-
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice,
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice;
This record of his fate exulting view,

He died worn out with vain pursuit of you.

"Yes," the indignant shade of Fop replies-"And worn with vain pursuit man also dies."

August, 1792.

SONNET TO GEORGE ROMNEY, ESQ.

On his Picture of me in Crayons, drawn at Eartham in the 61st year of my age, and in the months of August and September 1792.

ROMNEY, expert infallibly to trace

On chart or canvass, not the form alone And semblance, but, however faintly shown, The mind's impression too on every faceWith strokes that time ought never to erase Thou hast so pencil'd mine, that though I own The subject worthless, I have never known The artist shining with superior grace. But this I mark-that symptoms none of woe In thy incomparable work appear.

Well I am satisfied it should be so,

Since, on maturer thought, the cause is clear; For in my looks what sorrow couldst thou see When I was Hayley's guest, and sat to thee?

October, 1792.

MARY AND JOHN.

IF John marries Mary, and Mary alone, 'Tis a very good match between Mary and John. Should John wed a score, Oh, the claws and the scratches!

It can't be a match :-'tis a bundle of matches.

EPITAPH ON MR. CHESTER, OF CHICHELEY.

[lies,

TEARS flow, and cease not, where the good man
Till all who knew him follow to the skies.
Tears therefore fall where Chester's ashes sleep;
Him wife, friends, brothers, children, servants,

weep

And justly-few shall ever him transcend
As husband, parent, brother, master, friend.
April 1793.

TO MY COUSIN, ANNE BODHAM,

ON RECEIVING FROM HER A NETWORK PURSE, MADE BY
HERSELF.

My gentle Anne, whom heretofore,
When I was young, and thou no more
Than plaything for a nurse,

I danced and fondled on my knee,

A kitten both in size and glee,

I thank thee for my purse.

Gold

pays the worth of all things here;
But not of love;-that gem's too dear
For richest rogues to win it;
I, therefore, as a proof of love,
Esteem thy present far above
The best things kept within it.
May 4, 1793.

INSCRIPTION FOR A HERMITAGE IN THE

AUTHOR'S GARDEN.

THIS cabin, Mary, in my sight appears,
Built as it has been in our waning years,
A rest afforded to our weary feet,
Preliminary to-the last retreat.
May, 1793.

HEC

TO MRS. UNWIN.

100

MARY! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they
drew,

An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings.

But thou hast little need There is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright;

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee
mine.

May, 1793.