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Health, whose bright glow on roseate vigour bloom'd;
Pure innocence, whose smile each look illumin'd;
Gay sprightliness, from vivid wonder sprung;
Fancy, that sparkl❜d life's new scenes among;
Dreams of delight, where rapt illusion wrought
A golden age, more fair than poets taught;
Pensive I bid your fleeting charms farewell,
And breathe a sigh o'er the dissolving spell.
Though youth, at times, not unchastis'd by woe,
Has wander'd in the gloomy vale below;
Yet back, returning still, its journey lay
Through life's illumin'd path and flow'ry way.
Bright on each year the sun of hope arose,
And meek content smil'd peaceful at its close.
Then, while I pause upon the awful doom
That waits me, bending downward to the tomb,
Check'd be the thought, that, not without a crime,
Saddens o'er boded misery ere its time.

Still be firm faith and meek submission mine,

To bear the lot of man at life's decline.

So shall I not when Nature claims her debt,

Mourn o'er past youth with vain and weak regret ;
Nor perish my unprofitable birth,

Like a fleet shadow passing o'er the earth.

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GRUDGE leaves the poor his whole possessions nearly:He means his next of kin should weep sincerely.

IMITATION OF MARTIAL.

FRIBBLE, while you with pride advance
Your long establishment in France,
By Paris air and taste refin'd
To something of the monkey kind;
Whene'er we gossip, why lug in
Some term significant of kin?
Why brother countryman, I'd know,
To me, John Bull from top to toe?
Say, where does the resemblance strike,
And how are we so very like?

A score of curls in fluttering state
Embellish your luxuriant pate:
My close-shorn poll and scanty scut,
Affect the smug Tom Onslow cut;
Your powders, essences, and slops,

From twenty advertising shops,

Creams, pastes, pomades, and drugs, would pose The veriest perfumer's nose.

My sole cosmetic soap, I ween,

I ply the pump, and think I'm clean:

Your languishing falsetto note

Scarce steals in whispers from your throat;

My boisterous voice from leathern lungs,

Outbawls a dozen fishmen's tongues.
Hence we're no more alike, I gather,
Than Pacchierotti and his father.

But if we must alliance claim,
Because our native soil's the same,
And you persist, howe'er absurd,
To brother me at every word,
I'll call you, set your mind at ease,
My sister, Fribble, when you please,

N. B. HALHED, ESQ.

İMITATION OF MARTIAL.

DEAR Sam, who the camp and the pulpit have tried, You ask me what system of life I should choose: To manage my own little farm is my pride,

And to lounge where I like in my dirty old shoes. In a patron's chill vestibule why should I freeze,

Why dance up and down at the doors of the great; When to warm my own hearth I can clip my own trees, And pursue my own game on my own small estate? Who would angle for meals that can catch his own fish? As the honey unbought what desert half so sweet ? Give me eggs of my own, in a clean wooden dish,

And my hind's lusty daughter to cook up the treat. While for health I can plough, and for exercise dig, May the wretch who dislikes me, my system forbear; May he veil his grey locks in an alderman's wig, Grow gouty while Sheriff, and die when Lord Mayor!

VOL. VIII.

Ee

N. B. HALHED, ESQ.

SONNET

ON THE AUTHOR'S BIRTH-DAY.

Now from the orient o'er the laughing earth
The sun obliquely darts his ruddy ray,
And in unclouded glory leads the day,
That first auspicious dawn'd upon my birth:
Yet not with songs of joy and festive mirth
Can I this rising day salute, as they,

Who, when they turn their actions to survey,

With every added year see added worth.

Mẹ, as my noon of manhood hastens on,

Fierce and more fierce, the heats of passion burn; In vain with many a fleeting cloud o'ercast;

For soon the transitory gloom is gone,

And soon, forth-breaking bright, those heats return, Till the cool eve of westering age to last.

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SONNET

To MRS. H. ON THE BIRTH OF A SON.

FIERCE are the pangs that rend the tortured frame,
When from the lab'ring womb, the encreasing throes
To life at length the struggling birth disclose:
To woman such the doom eternal came.
But who the counsels of the All-wise shall blame?
From pleasure pain, from pain too pleasure flows.
And now the joy which in thy bosom glows,
Fix'd on that infant form, thy eyes proclaim.
O may that joy the test of
years abide;

May never siren Vice's flattering strain,
Turn him from Virtue's steady course aside!
May he with pious hand thy age sustain,
Like her, who now in beauty's opening pride,
With ready duty cheers this hour of pain.

*

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* A daughter of Mrs. H. since married to an Officer, now in the East-Indies.

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