WRITTEN FOR A GRAPHICAL DESIGN.
OOR Sarah, ere the day was clos❜d, Her half-meal'd infants hush'd to bed, Her aged father too repos'd,
Sat near her wheel, and weeping said— "O Nature! spare this aching heart
"The bitterest pang a heart can know; "O spare-lest want's convulsing smart My trembling reason overthrow.
"And yet, ah me!-a drooping sire,
"A husband distant far at sea,
"Children too young to work for hire ;-
"What can betide-but penury?”.
"Avast there! (cried a neighbour-tar
"Who heard this deeply-utter'd moan)
"Here, take my prize-rewards of war,
"Till Dick, your husband, brings his own.".
Rescued from all that anxious dread
Which hardly lets the sufferer live,
When infant hunger craves the bread
Which parent love has not to give;
Poor Sarah feels her heart expand
With more than mother's wonted joy,
And blessing oft an unseen hand,
Prompts the same lesson to her boy.
ON MRS. BROOKE, THE MOTHER OF MRS. IRWIN, DUBLIN, 1791.
Low may, from Nature's hand, Affection warm,
The pencil, to depict her daughter, steal;
Revive the charms, peculiar to her form,
Or teach the portrait with her nerve to feel! From chaste Simplicity her manners flow'd,
From dove-ey'd Candour, each unblemish'd thought; To mild Religion, pure content she ow'd,
And Virtue, for its own effulgence sought!
Then drop the purpose-thou! whose busy breast
Swells with a loss, too mighty for thy art:
How lov'd ELIZA was, her lot, how blest!
Ye wives! and parents! if, like her, impart!
SORDID CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.
LIVES there the man, who never sighs
Far off, his natal spot to see?
may be rich-he may be wise-
But is, in sooth, no friend to me.
And breathes there one, whose frowns repel
The prattling child, that clasps his knee?
The world his worth may blazon well;
But he is not a friend to me.
And doth he live, who, stern and cold,
His kinsfolk shuns of low degree?
Though on his sideboard glitter gold,
No friend is such a wretch to me!
And, who forsook the dying couch
Of old companion can there be?
His virtues rare may all avouch,
He never was a friend to me.
Such have I seen attract the gaze
Of thousands to their pageantry-
But they and I go different ways-
Avaunt!-they are no friends to me!-
Left in a romantic Summer House, built on the Banks of a beautiful little river, in South Wales.
FAIREST of nymphs! who, as in murmurs low
Through these blest seats thy bubbling streamlets flow,
Hauntest some grot, upon whose mossy green
The print of mortal footstep ne'er was seen;
While loftier bards, with lyre more nobly strung,
Thy flowery banks, thy whispering rills have sung;
Ah scorn not one, who, of far humbler flight,
Views but with distant gaze the' Aonian height;
Content as yet to cull those flowerets sweet
Which bloom unfading at its hallow'd feet!
*To her, whose hands with unobtrusive art
Fresh grace to thy transparent streams impart,
In cadence soft these grateful lays rehearse,
Nor let disdain reject the humble verse!
Oft as she seeks thy banks with pensive tread,
A calm, before unknown, around her shed;
And as she strays at evening's twilight hour,
Let Elves lead up the dance around this bower;
Let harps unnumber'd, hid from mortal sight,
Charm her enraptured soul with soft delight;
* The lady who built the summer house, VOL. VIII.
Then, while around the' unearthly strains combine
Her thoughts to swell with ecstasy divine,
Let Fancy whisper to her wond'ring mind,
That she has left the world, the busy world behind!
FROM THE FRENCH OF ST. GELAIS.
Ar market once, a Mountebank aloud
Proclaim'd he'd show the Devil to the crowd:
The wondrous news strait through the village flew ;
Men, women, children, round the booth it drew:
Not one there was, though old or lame were he,
Who did not hurry the foul fiend to see.
Forth stalk'd the Mountebank with gravest look ;
An open purse, with downward mouth, he shook.
"Now stretch your eyes, my friends; look sharp," he
cried;
"And tell me truly, see you aught inside?"
"There's nought," they bawl'd, "there's nothing in "the bag!"
"I've kept my promise, then," exclaim'd the wag: "For 'tis the Devil, you all must own this minute, "One's purse to open, and find nothing in it."
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