SEE old Anacreon hither reels;
His tatter'd garment sweeps his heels;
One careless slipper left behind
Betrays the wandering of his mind:
In transport, lo! he strikes the strings;
Of wine, and potent love he sings.
Haste, Bacchus, haste! attend my call;
Or soon your favourite Bard will fall.
ON LEONIDAS AND HIS 300 SPARTANS.
From the Greek.
To stop the Persian monarch's way,
In vain the swelling ocean rose;
In vain, his progress to delay,
The lofty mountains interpose.
Roused by the Spartan chief to fight,
When, lo! his slender band obeys,
These turn'd th' unnumber'd hosts to flight:
Blush, then, ye mountains and ye seas!
ON AN EMPTY MONUMENT RAISED TO THEMISTOCLES.
From the Greek.
To brave Themistocles, of deathless fame,
Magnesia's grateful sons this marble raise :
His mighty arm, and far-extended name,
Bade Freedom's sacred flame more brightly blaze.
To some remoter clime, and happier shore,
Envy the Hero's ashes has convey'd:
Magnesia's race with pious grief deplore
These empty honours to such valour paid!
ON A PICTURE OF PHILOCTETES BY PARRHASIUS.
From the Greek.
YOUR art, ingenious painter, can renew,
The hero's sorrows, and his death-like hue,
Trace in the hollow eye the lingering tear,
That speaks in silence all his inward care.
Cease, artist, though thy skill we all commend,
Must Philoctetes' misery never end?
ON PHILIP, FATHER OF ALEXANDER,
From the Greek.
HERE rest I, Philip, on th' Egean shore,
Who first to battle led mathia's pow'r,
And dared what never monarch dared before :
If there be man who boasts he more has done,
To me he owes it, for he was my son.
ON THE STATUE OF ALEXANDER.
THE sculptor's art can brass with life inspire,
Show Alexander's features and his fire :
The statue seems to say, with upcast eye,
Beneath my rule the globe of earth shall lie ;
Be thou, O Jove, contented with thy sky.
ON PLUTARCH'S STATUE.
From the Greek.
WISE, honest Plutarch! to thy deathless praise,
The sons of Rome this grateful statue raise:
For why? both Greece and Rome thy fame have shared,
Their heroes written, and their lives compared.
But thou thyself couldst never write thy own;
Their lives had parallels-but thine has none.-Dryden.
FINE lectures Attalus rehearses,
Pleads finely, writes fine tales and verses;
Fine epigrams, fine farces vie
With grammar and astrology;
He finely sings and dances finely,
Plays tennis, fiddles most divinely.
All finely done and nothing well;
Then if a man the truth may tell,
This all-accomplish'd punchinello,
Is a most busy, idle fellow.-Elton.
ON AN ELEPHANT KNEELING TO CESAR.
NONE taught him homage, but by instinct he
Kneel'd down to you because a deity.-Pecke.
IN all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee or without thee.
THY nags (the leanest things alive)
So very hard thou lov'st to drive,
I heard thy anxious coachman say,
It cost thee more in whips than hay.- Prior.
'To this night's masquerade,' quoth Dick,
By Pleasure I am beckon'd,
And think 'twould be a pleasant trick
To go as Charles the Second.'
Tom felt for repartee a thirst,
And thus to Richard said:
'You'd better go as Charles the First,
For that requires no head.'
REASON FOR THICK ANKLES.
HARRY, I cannot think,' says Dick,
'What makes my ankles grow so thick?'
'You do not recollect,' says Harry,
'How great a calf they have to carry!'
HERE lies a man who into highest station,
By dint of bribes and arts, contrived to slide;
And ne'er one service render'd to the nation,
Except the lucky day on which he died.
CORINNA'S quite a fright to me,
While Ned can only beauty see,
With every grace her form adorning.
We both are wrong, and both are right;
Ned sees her still by candle-light,
But I have seen her in the morning!
A BACHELOR.
From the French.
HERE lies a man who never married,
He to the world, alas! was known
By folly and by vice alone.
Ah! on the tomb to which his sire was carried,
Well had it been could all have read
This short memorial of the dead,-
Here lies a man who never married!
Whose monument was raised by a music subscription.
HERE, beneath this cold stone,
Lies harmonious John,
Who judiciously could impart
Sounds adapted to move
Or, grief, rapture, or love,
Depress, raise, or ravish the heart.
Nor let ancient songs claim
To themselves all the fame,
Comparisons leave them no room :
Their harmonious powers
Built but walls and high towers,
We've raised with our music this tomb.
UBIQUITOUS JACK.
OF all the men one meets about,
There's none like Jack, he's everywhere; At church, park, auction, dinner, rout,
Go where and when you will, he's there. Try the West End, he's at your back;
Meets you, like Eurus, in the East: You're call'd upon for 'How do, Jack?' One hundred times a-day, at least.
A friend of his one evening said,
As home he took his pensive way,
Upon my soul, I fear Jack's dead,
I've seen him but three times to-day.'
PLEASANT, airy, and gay, my laughter exciting,
Is the poet who pour'd forth these numbers;
While this, cold and heavy, coy Somnus inviting,
Has the power of promoting my slumbers:
The one at my breakfast is constantly read,
And the other I take when I'm going to bed.
YOUNG Courtly takes me for a dunce,
For all night long I spoke but once :
On better grounds I think him such,
He spoke but once, yet once too much.
ON SOLOMON MENDEZ, ESQ.
HERE lies a man who never lived,
Yet still from death was flying;
Who, if not sick, was never well,
And died for fear of dying!
|