Works

"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,...

He. Whither away, fair Neat-herdess?
She. Shepherd, I go to tend my kine.
He. Stay thou, and watch this flock of mine.
She. With thee? Nay, that were idleness.
He. Thy kine will pasture none the less....

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...

"Flee fro the PREES, and dwelle with sothfastnesse."--CHAUCER, Balade de Bon Conseil.


The Press is too much with us, small and great:
We are undone of chatter and on dit,...

"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,...

"Le temps le mieux employe est celui qu' on perd."
|Claude Tillier|.

I'd read three hours. Both notes and text
Were fast a mist becoming;
In bounced a vagrant bee, perplexed,...

"--the music of the moon
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale."
Aylmer's Field.


Five geese,--a landscape damp and wild,--
A stunted, not too pretty, child,
Beneath a battered gingham;...

Him best in all the dim Arthuriad,
Of lovers of fair women, him I prize,--
The Pagan Palomydes. Never glad
Was he with sweetness of his lady's eyes,
Nor joy he had.
...

To One who asked why he wrote it.


You ask me what was his intent?
In truth, I'm not a German;
'Tis plain though that he neither meant
A Lecture nor a Sermon.
...

Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."
How strange now it seems,--
"Old" Loves and "old" dreams!
Yet we once wrote you reams
Maude, Alice, and Gracie!
Old Loves and old dreams,--...

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,...

Even as one in city pent,
Dazed with the stir and din of town,
Drums on the pane in discontent,
And sees the dreary rain come down,
Yet, through the dimmed and dripping glass,...

By A Gentleman Of The Temple.


While cynic CHARLES still trimm'd the vane
'Twixt Querouaille and Castlemaine,
In days that shocked JOHN EVELYN,
My First Possessor fixed me in....

Monsieur the Cur' down the street
Comes with his kind old face,--
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.

You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place,"...

A Suggestion From Hogarth.


One knows the scene so well,--a touch,
A word, brings back again
That room, not garnished overmuch,
In gusty Drury Lane;
...

"Hoc est vivere."--MARTIAL.


The Printer's is a happy lot:
Alone of all professions,
No fateful smudges ever blot
His earliest "impressions."

The outgrowth of his youthful ken...

AN EPILOGUE TO ANY BOOK

"Hic Finis chartaeque viaeque."

"FINIS at last--the end, the End, the END!
No more of paragraphs to prune or mend;
No more blue pencil, with its ruthless line,...

"Ce sont les amours
Qui font les beaux jours."


What is a Patron? JOHNSON knew,
And well that lifelike portrait drew.
He is a Patron who looks down
With careless eye on men who drown;...

(Whose name is Amanda.)

With Apologies to the Shade of Christopher Marlowe.


Come live with me and be my Dear;
And till that happy bond shall lapse,
I'll set your Poutings in Brevier,[l]...

If those who wield the Rod forget,
'Tis truly--Quis custodiet?


A certain Bard (as Bards will do)
Dressed up his Poems for Review.
His Type was plain, his Title clear;...