REMEMBRANCE of COLLINS, Written upon the Thames near Richmond. Glide gently, thus for ever glide, O Thames! that other Bards may see As now, fair River! come to me. O glide, fair Stream! for ever so, Till all our minds for ever flow As thy deep waters now are flowing. Vain thought!....Yet be as now thou art, That in thy waters may be seen The image of a poet's heart, How bright, how solemn, how serene! Such as did once the Poet bless, Who, pouring here a later* ditty, Could find no refuge from distress But in the milder grief of pity. Now let us, as we float along, For him suspend the dashing oar; And pray that never child of Song * Collins's Ode on the death of Thomson, the last written, I believe, of the poems which were published during bis lifetime. This Ode is also alluded to in the next stanza. THE TWO THIEVES, Or The last Stage of AVARICE. O now that the genius of Bewick were mine, What feats would I work with my magical hand! Book learning and books should be banished the land: And for hunger and thirst and such troublesome calls! Every Ale-house should then have a feast on its walls. The Traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair Little Dan is unbreeched, he is three birth-days old; His Grandsire that age more than thirty times told; There are ninety good seasons of fair and foul weather Between them, and both go a-stealing together. With chips is the Carpenter strewing his floor? Old Daniel begins, he stops short-and his eye Dan once had a heart which was moved by the wires Of manifold pleasures and many desires : And what if he cherished his purse? 'Twas no more Than treading a path trod by thousands before. 'Twas a path trod by thousands; but Daniel is one gray hairs. The Pair sally forth hand in hand: ere the sun They hunt through the streets with deliberate tread, And each in his turn is both leader and led ; And, wherever they carry their plots and their wiles, Every face in the village is dimpled with smiles. |