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Adieu! Be this my Jenny's boast,

E'en from the friends who lov'd her most

She pilfer'd all she could:

As Bess was gentle and resign'd;
Chearful as Willy, Harriet kind,
As either Parent good.

Domestic thus when least at home,

Her kindred heart, where'er she roam,

Shall tell us whence she came ;

And Phoebus, as her just reward,
Will sure inspire a better Bard

To celebrate her fame.

TO THE SAME.

My dear Miss Jenny, once before
I penn'd some fifty lines or more

Of mighty serious matter,

To please your ladyship at Hayes;
But careless now of sober lays,
I only mean to chatter.

So pray with patient ear attend
To nonsense such as I can send

In idleness and haste;

I have no time to bite my thumb
Till blood or poetry shall come,

To please a lady's taste.

Plague on this stanza,-I'd as soon
Indite a sonnet to the moon,

As rack my brains or vex my noddle
To suit this antiquated model;

Pack up my wit in form as neat
As fruit in boxes to keep sweet,

And check my flying gray-goose feather
To tack a third and sixth together.

I cannot say how mighty dull

It is to scribble thus by rule;

When one must weigh the words before, As just so many and no more

Can find a lodging in this stanza,

Whate'er the poet's wit or fancy.
Whilst now confin'd by rhymes alone,
From line to line I wander on;
And roving, idle, unconfined,
Can scribble nonsense to my mind;
One gingling verse creates another,
At once a father and a brother.
But now to business.-First, my dear,
You will be glad to know I'm here.

And where is here? Why in this town.
A mighty good description:-

As good as Paddy's, when his rap
Came rattling like a thunder clap:

"Whose that, that knocks so lustily?
"Who's that, I say?" Quoth Paddy, “I.”

And by the great St. Patrick's knee,

And who are you? Quoth Paddy, “me.”
However, to relieve your doubts,

I'll tell at least the whereabouts:
A city sacred to the nine,

(Witness the music of my line,)

And dearer to the tuneful Maids

Than Cyrrha's brow or Tempe's glades.
For here (while pensive o'er the urns

Of

many a bard Achaia mourns;

And mindful of her better days,

Those towers with weeping eye surveys,

Where Plato taught, or Cimon trod,

Crushed by a tyrant's iron rod;)—

Here, Isis' hallow'd banks along,

Thalia thrills her sprightly song,

While Nymphs and Graces sporting round, Print with light feet the classic ground.

But what is this to you, my dear?

Who know perhaps no more of her,

D

Than I of hemming, knitting, darning,
And all the store of lady-learning.

Yet would you know who, what, and where,
Thalia, Cyrrha, Tempe are,

And all the other names I prate on,

Ask the good Doctor of Low Leyton.

Well, now to business, as I swore

To do some twenty lines before;
First of myself, (as all agree

To love that little word called me:)
I now am sitting all alone,

Writing to you in Worcester town;
The day is Saturday, the hour
Some ten o'clock, or rather more;
The place a bed-room, pretty good,
(I'd have a better if I could;)

Two nymphs divine the house supply,
By men called Hooper, but on high
Angels or daughters of the sky.
But one is dead and gone, alas!
And t'other's older than she was;
A lady's age I dread to guess,
Because one's sure to find it less;
Yet, if for once I might be bold,
Some threescore suns her years have told,

May you be never near so old!

But still as long as you're alive,
Be twenty-five, and twenty-five,
And so, like every girl that's clever,
Continue twenty-five for ever.

A CHARADE,

Addressed to a Party of Young Ladies.

FOR ever arm'd my first you see,

To hurl the quiv'ring dart;

My second all can never be,

By nature or by art.

My whole (nay frown not at my theme,

'Tis hardly worth your care,)

Is what a thousand wish to seem,

And all who hear me are.

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