And, check'd awhile, suspend the bitter cup,

Lest Socrates himself should drain it up.

Nor turn away, even when hard words she use, Nor always quite refined, our moral muse.

If busied oft amid the worthless brood,

Her best-loved themes are still the wise and good;

And strained, betimes, to weave satiric lays,

She strikes her favourite lyre to virtue's praise.

Just so, within that loathsome prison gate 2,
'Mid guilt and crime, and ribald laugh and hate,
Yon female saint, with steadfast footsteps, moves,
And bears the ill, because the good she loves;

Untainted walks amid that tainted leaven,

Sees earth's worst part, and communes still with heaven.

And thou, my master-bard, to whom belong

The heights, at once, of satire and sweet song;

C

Whom, as I read, my humbled hopes incline

Still but to read, and blot each verse of mine;

Though in thy strain harsh notes erewhile prevail, "Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail;"

Yet, led by thee, what purest thoughts engage

With thee I rock a mother's cradled age 3,

Or following Harley to his dungeon cell,

"When the last lingering friend hath bade farewell"," There learn, contemptuous of all meaner fame, That poesy and virtue are the same 5.

B. So stout your plea-almost I deem that you,

In nature's spite, would join the scribbling crew.

A.-Ironic, flout not thus the race sublime,

Founders of souls-immortal heirs of time;

When laws are changed, when dynasties are gone,
Names that shall live transcendent and alone.

When ruin drives, as ruin oft hath driven,

O'er realms, the favoured realms long deemed of heaven;

Thy peopled shores, my more than native land,

Far be the day, like Tyre's, a desert strand;

Yet then-if prophet thought unscorned may press
Through time's far scope, nor faint beneath the stress-
O'er southern isles, now struggling from the deep,
When busy sounds of population sweep,

To dusky tribes shall these their power impart,
And of new clustering nations build the heart ;
Whilst coral reefs, where now but sea-birds throng,
Learn Bacon's sense and echo Milton's song.

Proud lot is his, whose comprehensive soul,

Keen for the parts, capacious for the whole,
Thought's mingled hues can separate, dark from bright,

Like the fine lens that sifts the solar light;

Then recompose again th' harmonious rays,

And pour them powerful in collected blaze

c 2

Wakening, where'er they glance, creations new,
In beauty steeped, nor less to nature true.

With eloquence that hurls from reason's throne.
A voice of might, or pleads in pity's tone;

To agitate, to melt, to win, to soothe,
Yet kindling ever on the side of truth;

Or swerving, not by interest warped awry,

But erring in his heart's deep fervency;

Genius for him asserts the unthwarted claim,

With these to mate the sacred Few of fame

Explore, like them, new regions for mankind, And leave, like theirs, a deathless name behind.

But ne'er for me 'twas meant, with daring prow, To cleave wide oceans, unexplored till now; And having gained some yet sea-shrouded clime, Scale with intrepid foot its cliffs sublime; Then point to some untravelled upland's brow,

Or green savannah, sweetly spread below;

Or, gaily plunging thro' some fresh-found glade,

Invite the rest "to choice of sun and shade;"

Strange stream to track, that plays 'mid unnam'd flowers,

Of sweeter scent, or brighter hue than ours;

Or taste the fruit, yet plucked by none but me,

Or the wild honey, spoil of forest bee.

Enough for me, to whom benignant heaven,

That still dooms best, far humbler lot hath given ;
Enough for me, remote from tracks of praise,

To stray through well-known fields by trodden ways;
Musing of things, tho' neither new nor deep,

Well pleased to smile, and not too cold to weep;
Content, tho' conscious of no lofty call,

And if not high, thence fearless of a fall.

Yet in our Carib isle, young savage yet,
-My earliest playmates of the race of jet;
With whom, unclad, I climb'd and crawl'd at will,
And loved them then-and love in memory still;