MITHRIDATES. I CANNOT spare water or wine, All between that works or grows, Every thing is kin of mine. Give me agates for my meat; Give me cantharids to eat; From air and ocean bring me foods, From all zones and altitudes ; From all natures, sharp and slimy, Ivy for my fillet band; Too long shut in strait and few, I will use the world, and sift it, O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry! O all you virtues, methods, mights, Means, appliances, delights, Reputed wrongs and braggart rights, TO J. W. SET not thy foot on graves; Hear what wine and roses say; The mountain chase, the summer waves, Set not thy foot on graves; Nor seek to unwind the shroud Which charitable Time And Nature have allowed To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. Set not thy foot on graves; Care not to strip the dead Of his sad ornament, His myrrh, and wine, and rings, His sheet of lead, And trophies buried: Go, get them where he earned them when alive; As resolutely dig or dive. Life is too short to waste Quarrel or reprimand: DESTINY. THAT you are fair or wise is vain, Well may Jove and Juno scorn. Which drives me mad with sweet desire, What all the goods thy pride which lift, If thou pine for another's gift? Alas! that one is born in blight, Victim of perpetual slight: When thou lookest on his face, Thy heart saith, Brother, go thy ways! None shall ask thee what thou doest, Or care a rush for what thou knowest, Or listen when thou repliest, Or remember where thou liest, Or how thy supper is sodden;' To make the sun forgotten. Surely he carries a talisman Broad his shoulders are and strong; I hold it of little matter Whether your jewel be of pure water, But whether it dazzle me with light. I care not how you are dressed, Nor whether your name is base or brave: Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me, And dress up Nature in your favor. That one thing is Success, Dear to the Eumenides, And to all the heavenly brood. Who bides at home, nor looks abroad, VOL. IX. GUY. MORTAL mixed of middle clay, 3 Guy possessed the talisman That all things from him began; Chained the sunshine and the breeze, In strange junctures, felt, with awe, His eye the eye 't was seeking found. It seemed his Genius discreet To speed his sails, to dry his hay; |