Works

(Grandpapa Loquitur.)


You don't know Froissart now, young folks.
This age, I think, prefers recitals
Of high-spiced crime, with "slang" for jokes,
And startling titles;
...

"Non injussa cano."
Virg.


POET. I sing of POPE--

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard,
Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard!
POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo,...

To the Burden of "Rogues All."


Come hither ye gallants, come hither ye maids,
To the trim gravelled walks, to the shady arcades;
Come hither, come hither, the nightingales call;--...

Green growths of mosses drop and bead
Around the granite brink;
And 'twixt the isles of water-weed
The wood-birds dip and drink.

Slow efts about the edges sleep;
Swift-darting water-flies...

As I went a-walking on Lavender Hill,
O, I met a Darling in frock and frill;
And she looked at me shyly, with eyes of blue,
"Are you going a-walking? Then take me too!"
...

"There's nothing new"--Not that I go so far
As he who also said "There's nothing true,"
Since, on the contrary, I hold there are
Surviving still a verity or two;
But, as to novelty, in my conviction,...

"At the Sign of the Lyre,"
Good Folk, we present you
With the pick of our quire,
And we hope to content you!

Here be Ballad and Song,
The fruits of our leisure,
Some short and some long--...

Many days have come and gone,
Many suns have set and shone,
HERRICK, since thou sang'st of Wake,
Morris-dance and Barley-break;--
Many men have ceased from care,
Many maidens have been fair,...

"For old sake's sake!" 'Twere hard to choose
Words fitter for an old-world Muse
Than these, that in their cadence bring
Faint fragrance of the posy-ring,
And charms that rustic lovers use.
...

(Published at Madrid, by Francisco de Robles, January 1605)

"Para mi sola nacio don Quixote, y yo para el."--CERVANTES.


Advents we greet of great and small;
Much we extol that may not live;...

(After Anthony Hamilton.)

To G. S.


She that I love is neither brown nor fair,
And, in a word her worth to say,
There is no maid that with her may
Compare.
...

(HORACE, III. 7.)

"Quid fles, Asterie, quem tibi candidi
Primo restituent vere Favonii--
Gygen?"


Come, Laura, patience. Time and Spring
Your absent Arthur back shall bring,...

In the year Seventeen Hundred and Seventy and Three,
When the GEORGES were ruling o'er Britain the free,
There was played a new play, on a new-fashioned plan,...

Too oft we hide our Frailties' Blame
Beneath some simple-sounding Name!
So Folks, who in gilt Coaches ride,
Will call Display but Proper Pride;
So Spendthrifts, who their Acres lose,...

"Emam tua carmina sanus?"--MARTIAL.

F. OF H. I want a verse. It gives you little pains;--
You just sit down, and draw upon your brains.

Come, now, be amiable.

R. To hear you talk,...

A Proper New Ballad Of The Country And The Town.

"Phyllida amo ante alias."
Virg.


The ladies of St. James's
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them,...

(For A Fresco.)


Firstly thou, churl son of Janus,
Rough for cold, in drugget clad,
Com'st with rack and rheum to pain us;--
Firstly thou, churl son of Janus.
Caverned now is old Sylvanus;...

Across the grass I see her pass;
She comes with tripping pace,--
A maid I know,--and March winds blow
Her hair across her face;--
With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,...

"What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?
Where's Troy, and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"
Bramston's "Art of Politicks."


It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,...

"Ille terrarum mihi pr'ter omnes
Angulus Ridet."
--Hor. ii. 6.


It was an elm-tree root of yore,
With lordly trunk, before they lopped it,
And weighty, said those five who bore...