FAIR flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white arrayed,

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died- nor were those flowers more

gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came;

If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.

The nymph who boasts no borrowed charms,

Whose sprightly wit my fancy warms,
What though she tends this country inn,
And mixes wine, and deals out gin?
With such a kind, obliging lass,
I sigh to take the parting glass.

With him who always talks of gain
(Dull Momus, of the plodding train),
The wretch who thrives by others' woes,
And carries grief where'er he goes,
With people of this knavish class
The first is still my parting glass.

With those that drink before they dine,
With him that apes the grunting swine,
Who fills his page with low abuse,
And strives to act the gabbling goose
Turned out by fate to feed on grass
Boy, give me quick, the parting glass.

Has left at length his wonted stand,

And greets the weary guest no more.

Old creeping Time, that brings decay, Might yet have spared these mouldering walls,

Alike beneath whose potent sway
A temple or a tavern falls.

Is this the place where mirth and joy,
Coy nymphs, and sprightly lads were
found?

Indeed! no more the nymphs are coy,

No more the flowing bowls go round.

Is this the place where festive song
Deceived the wintry hours away ?
No more the swains the tune prolong,
No more the maidens join the lay.

Is this the place where Nancy slept
In downy beds of blue and green ?
Dame Nature here no vigils kept,

No cold unfeeling guards were seen.

His soul extracted from the public sink, For discord born he splasht around his ink;

In scandal foremost, as by scandal fed,
He hourly rakes the ashes of the dead.

Secure from him no traveller walks the streets,

His malice sees a foe in all he meets;
With dark design he treads his daily rounds,
Kills where he can, and, where he cannot,

wounds.

TO A CATY-DID

IN/a branch of willow hid
Sings the evening Caty-did:
From the lofty locust bough
Feeding on a drop of dew,
In her suit of green arrayed
Hear her singing in the shade
Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did!

While upon a leaf
you tread,
Or repose your little head
On your sheet of shadows laid,
All the day you nothing said:
Half the night your cheery tongue
Revelled out its little song,
Nothing else but Caty-did.

From your lodging on the leaf Did you utter joy or grief? Did you only mean to say,

THOU, born to sip the lake or spring, Or quaff the waters of the stream,