Spread out his plumes, and heard him crow
To his lean pullets croucht below.
"Wretches! ye raise your throats to men
Who pry into your father's pen;
Look at your betters, do as they do,
And be content to chant a credo."

CXXI.

'Twas far beyond the midnight hour
And more than half the stars were falling,
And jovial friends, who lost the power
Of sitting, under chairs lay sprawling ;

Not Porson so; his stronger pate

Could carry more of wine and Greek
Than Cambridge held; erect he sate;
He nodded, yet could somehow speak.
""Tis well, O Bacchus! they are gone,
Unworthy to approach thy altar!
The pious man prays best alone,
Nor shall thy servant ever falter."

Then Bacchus too, like Porson, nodded,
Shaking the ivy on his brow,

And graciously replied the godhead,
"I have no votary staunch as thou."

CXXII.

Will nothing but from Greece or Rome
Please me? is nothing good at home?
Yes; better; but I look in vain
For a Moliere or La Fontaine.

Swift, in his humour, was as strong,

But there was gall upon

his tongue.

Bitters and acids may excite,

Yet satisfy not appetite.

CXXIII.

Some, when they would appear to mourn,
The tomb like drawing-room adorn ;
And foreign flowers of richest scents
Bestrew the way to compliments.
Grief never calls on Grace or Muse,
Nor dares the Fates and Stars accuse,

Demanding clamorously why
They doom'd one so beloved to die.
In her dim chamber solitary

She sits; her low tones little vary;
Now on the earth her eyes are bent,
Now heavenward raised implore content.

CXXIV.

Awaiting me upon a shore

Which friends less loved had reacht before
Stood one my well-known voice drew nigh,
And said.. but said it with low sigh,
Lest Proserpine might hear afraid . .

"Ah! were we somewhat more than shade!" I threw my arms her neck around,

I woke; it was an empty sound.

In groves, in grots, on hills, on plains,
With me that Vision still remains.

CXXV.

Let me look back upon the world before
I leave it, and upon some scatter'd graves,
Altho' mine eyes are dim with age and tears,
And almost all those graves lie far remote.
Memory! thou hast not always been so kind
As thou art now; at every step I come
Nigher to those before me: part I owe
To thee, and part to age: I ask no more,
For I have seen enough, and go to rest.

CXXVI.

Ah, wherefore should you so admire
The flowing words that fill my song?
Why call them artless, yet require
"Some promise from that tuneful tongue?"
Doubt only whether Fate could part
A tuneful tongue and tender heart.

CXXVII.

Soon does the lily of the valley die,
Later the rose droops o'er her family,
Fresh children press about her couch of moss,
And she forgets, as they repair, her loss.
The hapless lily none such comfort knows,
But sinks the paler at the sight of rose.

CXXVIII.

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.

CXXIX.

When from above the busy crowd I see,
The great and little seem one-sized to me.

CXXX.

A FRENCH POET ON LOUIS XVIII.

Descend, ye Muses, one and all,
Obedient to a Frenchman's call.
Which of you e'er refused to sing
The feats of a most christian king,
Or help to raise the Oriflamme
Above the towers of Notre-Dame?
Three cities, three without one blow,
Fell at the trumpet of Boileau:
He would have play'd without a line
The devil with the Philistine,
No need, against him to prevail,
The weightier broadsword of Corneille.
Voltaire struck down with flash of pen
The League, the Iberian, and Mayenne,
And, if ye help me, with a touch
I doubt not I can do as much.
Then shall ye see the lilies bloom
Upon the seven hills of Rome.
Our Louis never shows the scars
His doublet suffer'd under Mars,
Tho' many creatures daily fell
Before him ere the vesper bell,
He said, on looking down his file
Of steel and silver with a smile,
Far better thus than bid our men go
For empty glory to Marengo.

CXXXI.

Shelley and Keats, on earth unknown
One to the other, now are gone
Where only such pure Spirits meet
And sing before them words as sweet.

CXXXII.

ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS.

Porson was askt what he thought of hexameters written in English: "Show me," said he, any five in continuance true to the metre, Five where a dactyl has felt no long syllable puncht thro' his

midrif, Where not a trochee or pyrric has stood on one leg at the entrance Like a grey fatherly crane keeping watch on the marsh at Cayster. Zounds! how they hop, skip, and jump!

Old Homer, uplifting his eyebrows, Cries to the somnolent gods. . 'O ye blessed who dwell on Olympos !

What have I done in old-age? have I ever complain'd of my blindness?

Ye in your wisdom may deem that a poet sings only the better
(Some little birds do) for that; but why are my ears to be batter'd
Flat to my head as a mole's or a fish's, if fishes have any?
Why do barbarians rush with a fury so headstrong against me?
Have they no poet at home they can safely and readily waylay?'"
Then said a youth in his gown, "I do humbly beg pardon,
Professor,

But are you certain that you, to whom all the wide Hellas is open,
Could make Homer, who spoke many dialects with many nations,
Speak, as we now have attempted to teach him, our pure Anglo-
saxon."

Then the Professor, "I wager a dozen of hock or of claret Standing on only one foot I can throw off more verses and better Than the unlucky, that limp and halt and have no foot to stand on."" "Pon my word, as I live!" said a younger, "I really think he has done it.

CXXXIII.

TIBULLUS.

Only one poet in the worst of days
Disdain'd Augustus in his pride to praise.
Ah Delia! was it wantonness or whim
That made thee, once so tender, false to him?
To him who follow'd over snows and seas
Messala storming the steep Pyrenees.
But Nemesis avenged him, and the tear
Of Rome's last poet fell upon his bier.

CXXXIV.

Lately our songsters loiter'd in green lanes,
Content to catch the ballads of the plains;

I fancied I had strength enough to climb
A loftier station at no distant time,
And might securely from intrusion doze
Upon the flowers thro' which Ilissus flows.
In those pale olive grounds all voices cease,
And from afar dust fills the paths of Greece.
My slumber broken and my doublet torn,
I find the laurel also bears a thorn.

CXXXV.

Venour, my brave boy-guardian, who at school
Taught me the grammar he had lately learnt,
And led me over noun and five-barr'd verb,
Where is he? There he sleeps below the waves
Of the Atlantic, there where all creation

Is mute, nor hears the voice that calls his name;
But others shall, and far and wide beyond.
When older prest around him and declared
He could not sail, for sure the Admiral
Knew not Calypso's state, he thus replied,
My orders are to sail: he sail'd . . and sank.
Short is my story: I could be prolix,

But the small casket holds things valued most.

CXXXVI.

The scentless laurel a broad leaf displays,
Few and by fewer gather'd are the bay's;
Yet these Apollo wore upon his brow
The boughs are bare, the stem is twisted now.

CXXXVII.

The Muses at the side may move

But can not hold the wings of Love.

Lesbia was faithless to Catullus,

And Delia wandered from Tibullus,

Who closer when Death came would stand,

And yield to him alone her hand.

The tender heart is ever true

And all its world contains but two,
Inseparable those, nor cold

Until they mingle with the mould.

CXXXVIII.

I do not think that praises ever
Derange a sound and healthy liver,