The fops are painted butterflies,
That flutter for a day;
First from a worm they take their rise,
And in a worm decay.
The flatterer an earwig grows;
Thus worms suit all conditions: Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaus,
And death-watches physicians.
That statesmen have the worm, is seen
By all their winding play;
Their conscience is a worm within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah, Moore! thy skill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rise,
If thou couldst make the courtier void
The worm that never dies.
O learned friend of Abchurch-lane,
Who sett'st our entrails free;
Vain is thy art, thy powder vain,
Since worms shall eat e'en thee.
Our fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
E'en Button's wits to worms shall turn,
Who maggots were before.
SONG, BY A PERSON OF QUALITY;
Written in the year 1733.
FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming,
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Mæander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela drooping,
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Junó stooping:
Melody resigns to fate.
ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.
I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon ; (Envy, be silent and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.
Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour;
Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly;
And equal mixture of good-humour,
And sensible soft melancholy.
• Has she no faults, then 'Envy says, ' sir?'
- Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.
ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,
Composed of Marble, Spars, Gems, Ores, and Minerals.
THOU who shalt drop, where Thames translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shady cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,
Unpolish'd gems no ray can pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow:
Approach Great Nature studiously behold!
And eye the mine, without a wish for gold.
Approach; but awful! lo! the Egerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country, and be poor.
TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
Он, be thou bless'd with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure and a friend!
Not with those toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and vanities that tire.
With added years, if life bring nothing new,
But like a sieve let every blessing through.
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er,
And all we gain, some sad reflection more;
Is that a birth day? "Tis, alas! too clear,
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
Let joy or ease, let affluence or content,
And the gay conscience of a life well spent,
Calin every thought, inspirit every grace,
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face,
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a pain, a trouble, or a fear
Till death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft dream, or ecstacy of joy,
Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb,
And wake to raptures in a life to come.
RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin, but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays
A table, with a cloth of bays:
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild-goose and the larks!
The mushrooms show his wit was sudden !
And for his judgment, lo a puduen!
Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner:
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE:
IN beauty or wit,
No mortal as yet
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