LXVI.

Here lies our honest friend Sam Parr,
A better man than most men are.
So learned, he could well dispense
Sometimes with merely common sense:
So voluble, so eloquent,

You little heeded what he meant:

Jack Campbell! if few are
So stealthy as you are,

Few steal with so honest a face:

But recollect, when

You pluck a fresh pen,

That where the soil's richest is deepest the trace. Beware lest Macaulay,

Hard-fisted, should maul ye

When he catches you sucking his Bacon.
At Lister's church-yard

There is station'd no guard;
Creep over; his spoils may be taken.

LXVIII.

Blythe bell, that calls to bridal halls,
Tolls deep a darker day;

The very shower that feeds the flower
Weeps also its decay.

LXIX.

TO AN OLD MULBERRY-TREE.

Old mulberry! with all thy moss around,
Thy arms are shatter'd, but thy heart is sound:
So then remember one for whom of yore
Thy tenderest boughs the crimson berry bore;
Remember one who, trusting in thy strength,
Lay on the low and level branch full length.
No strength has he, alas! to climb it now,
Nor strength to bear him, if he had, hast thou.

LXX.

Hasten, O hasten, poet mine!
To give the hoarsest of the Nine
Her usual syrop; let her go
To sleep, as she lets others do.

LXXI.

Weak minds return men hatred for contempt, Strong ones contempt for hatred. Which is best?

LXXII.

In port, beyond the swell of winds and tides,
My little skiff the Independence rides.

Scanty, tho' strong and hearty is her crew,
So, come aboard; she can find room for you.

LXXIII.

THE DUKE OF YORK'S STATUE.

Enduring is the bust of bronze,
And thine, O flower of George's sons,
Stands high above all laws and duns.

As honest men as ever cart
Convey'd to Tyburn took thy part
And raised thee up to where thou art.

LXXIV.

Why do the Graces now desert the Muse?
They hate bright ribbons tying wooden shoes.

LXXV.

When a man truly loves he is at best

A frail thermometer to the beloved:

His spirits rise and fall but at her breath,

And shower and sunshine are divined from her.

LXXVI.

Better to praise too largely small deserts,
Than censure too severely great defects.

LXXVII.

Hungarians! raise your laurel'd brows again,
Ye who can raise them from amid the slain,

And swear we hear but fables, and the youth
Who sways o'er Austria never "swerv'd from truth."

LXXVIII.

Bidden by Hope the sorrowful and fond
Look o'er the present hour for hours beyond.

Some press, some saunter on, until at last

They reach that chasm which none who breathe hath past. Before them Death starts up, and opens wide

His wings, and wafts them to the farther side.

LXXIX.

Ireland never was contented ..
Say you so? you are demented.
Ireland was contented when
All could use the sword and pen,
And when Tara rose so high
That her turrets split the sky,
And about her courts were seen
Liveried Angels robed in green,
Wearing, by St. Patrick's bounty,
Emeralds big as half a county.

LXXX.

LADY HAMILTON.

Long have the Syrens left their sunny coast,
The Muse's voice, heard later, soon was lost:
Of all the Graces one remains alone,
Gods call her Emma; mortals, Hamilton.

LXXXI.

There is a time when the romance of life
Should be shut up, and closed with double clasp :

Better that this be done before the dust

That none can blow away falls into it.

LXXXII.

Nay, thank me not again for those
Camelias, that untimely rose;

But if, whence you might please the more
And win the few unwon before,

I sought the flowers you loved to wear,
O'erjoy'd to see them in your hair,
Upon my grave, I pray you, set
One primrose or one violet.

...

Stay . . . I can wait a little yet.

LXXXIII.

Expect no grape, no fig, no wholesome fruit
From Gaul engrafted upon Corsican.

LXXXIV.

AN IRISHMAN TO FATHER MATHEW.

O Father Mathew!
Whatever path you
In life pursue,

God grant your Reverence
May brush off never hence
Our mountain dew!

LXXXV.

A Paraphrase on Job" we see

By Young: it loads the shelf:
He who can read one half must be
Patient as Job himself.

LXXXVI.

Meyrick! surrounded by Silurian boors,
Against that rabble shut your castle-doors;
I mean that coarser rabble which aspires
To square its shoulders in the squad of squires;
Which holds the scholar under heavy ban,
And, drunk or sober, spurns the gentleman.
Meyrick! how wide your difference! hardly wider
Your mellow claret and their musty cider.

LXXXVII.

It often happens a bad pun

Goes farther than a better one.
A miss is often not a bit

Less startling than the fairest hit:

This (under high-raised eyebrows seen)
Poor Goldsmith proved on Turnham-green.

LXXXVIII.

The ancient Faith brings recreant Gauls
In guise of friends to scale the walls
Of manful Rome: as false their word
and more foul the sword.

As ever,

LXXXIX.

"What is my faith?" I do believe
That ladies never would deceive,
And that the little fault of Eve

Is very easy to retrieve.

"She lost us immortality!"

"Well, so she might; and what care I?
Eden and Paradise are nigh

As ever should we pass them by?"

XC.

TO JOHN FORSTER.

Censured by her who stands above
The Sapphic Muse in song and love,
"For minding what such people do,"
I turn in confidence to you.
Now, Forster, did you never stop
At orange-peel or turnip-top,

To kick them from your path, and then
Complacently walk on again?

XCI.

In summer when the sun's mad horses pass
Thro' more than half the heavens, we sink to rest

In Italy, nor tread the crackling grass,

But wait until they plunge into the west:

And could not you, Mazzini! wait awhile?

The grass is wither'd, but shall spring again;

The Gods, who frown on Italy, will smile
As in old times, and men once more be men.

VOL. VIII.

XCII.

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers
O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours.
A hundred lights in every temple burn,
And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.

N