Thy appetites in easy tides

(As reason's luminary guides)

Soft flow-no wind can work them to a storm,

Correctly quick, dispassionately warm.

Yet if a transport thou canst feel,

'Tis only for thy neighbour's weal;

Great, generous acts thy ductile passions move,
And smilingly thou weep'st with joy and love.

Mild is thy mind to cover shame,

Averse to envy, slow to blame,

Bursting to praise, yet still sincere, and free

From flattery's fawning tongue and bending

Extensive, as from west to east,
Thy love descends from man to beast,

[knee.

[worm.

Nought is excluded, little or infirm,
Thou canst with greatness stoop to save a

Come, goddess, come with all thy charms
(For oh! I love thee) to my arms-

All, all my actions guide, my fancy feed,
So shall existence then be life indeed.

Smart,

ON ILL-NATURE.

OFFSPRING of folly and of pride,
To all that's odious, all that's base allied;
Nurs'd up by vice, by pravity misled,
By pedant affectation taught and bred;

Away, thou hideous hell-born sprite,
Go, with looks of dark design,
Sullen, sour, and saturnine;

Fly to some gloomy shade, nor blot the goodly light.
Thy planet was remote when I was born:
'Twas Mercury that rul'd my natal morn,
What time the Sun exerts his genial ray,
And ripens for enjoyment every growing day;
When to exist is but to love and sing,
And sprightly Aries smiles upon the spring.
There in yon lonesome heath,
Which Flora or Sylvanus never knew,
Where never vegetable drank the dew,
Or beast or fowl attempts to breathe;
Where Nature's pencil has no colours laid;
But all is blank, and universal shade;
Contrast to figure, motion, life, and light,
There may'st thou vent thy spite,
For ever cursing, and for ever curs'd,
Of all th' infernal crew the worst;

The worst in genius, measure, and degree;
For envy, hatred, malice, are but parts of thee.

Or would'st thou change the scene, and quit the den Where spleen, by vapours dense begot and bred, Hardness of heart, and heaviness of head, Have rais'd their darksome walls, and plac'd their

thorny bed;

There may'st thou all thy bitterness unload, There may'st thou croak in concert with the toad, With thee the hollow howling winds shall join, Nor shall the bittern her base throat deny,

The querulous frogs shall mix their dregs with thine,

Th' ear-piercing hern, the plover screaming high, Millions of humming gnats fit æstrum shall supply.

Away-away--behold an hideous band,

An herd of all thy minions are at hand; Suspicion first with jealous caution stalks,

And ever looks around her as she walks, With bibulous ear imperfect sounds to catch, And proud to listen at her neighbour's latch Next, Scandal's meagre shade, Foe to the virgin's and the poet's fame, A wither'd time-deflower'd old maid, That ne'er enjoy'd love's ever-sacred flame. Hypocrisy succeeds with saint-like look, And elevates her hands, and plods upon her book. Next comes illiberal scrambling Avarice, Then Vanity, and Affectation nice-See, she salutes her shadow with a bow, As in short Gallic trips she minces by, Starting antipathy is in her eye,

And squeamishly she knits her scornful brow. To thee, Ill-Nature, all the numerous group With lowly reverence stoopThey wait thy call, and mourn thy long delay, Away--thou art infectious-haste away.

Smart

TO HOSPITALITY.

DOMESTIC POwer! erewhile rever'd
Where Syria spread her palmy plain,
Where Greece her tuneful Muses heard,
Where Rome beheld her patriot-train;

Thou to Albion too wert known,
Midst the moat and moss-grown wall,

That girt her Gothic-structur'd hall
With rural trophies strown.

The traveller, doubtful of his way,
Upon the pathless forest wild;
The huntsman, in the heat of day,
And with the tedious chase o'ertoil'd;
Wide their view around them cast,
Mark'd the distant rustic tower,
And sought and found the festive bower,
And shar'd the free repast.

E'en now, on Caledonia's shore,

When Eve's dun robe the sky arrays, Thy punctual hand unfolds the door, Thy eye the mountain road surveys; Pleas'd to spy the casual guest, Pleas'd with food his heart to cheer, With pipe or song to sooth his ear, And spread his couch for rest.

Nor yet ev'n here disdain'd thy sway,
Where Grandeur's splendid modern seat
Far o'er the landscape glitters gay;
Or where fair Quiet's lone retreat
Hides beneath the hoary hill,
Near the dusky upland shade,
Between the willow's glossy glade,
And by the tinkling rill.

There thine the pleasing interviews
That friends and relatives endear,
When scenes, not often seen, amuse;
When tales, not often told, we hear;

There the scholar's liberal mind
Oft instruction gives and gains,
And oft the lover's lore obtains
His fair-one's audience kind.

O gentle power! where'er thy reign,
May Health and Peace attend thee still;
Nor Folly's presence cause the pain,
Nor vice reward thy good with ill:
Gratitude thy altar raise,
Wealth to thee her offerings pay,
And Genius wake his tuneful lay
To celebrate thy praise.

Scott.

TO MIRTH.

PARENT of joy! heart-easing Mirth! Whether of Vénus or Aurora born ; Yet goddess sure of heavenly birth, Visit benign a son of Grief forlorn: Thy glittering colours gay, Around him, Mirth, display; And o'er his raptur'd sense Diffuse thy living influence : So shall each hill in purer green array'd And, flower-adorn'd, in new-born beauty glow; The grove shall smooth the horrors of the

shade,

And streams in murmurs shall forget to flow. Shine, goddess, shine with unremitted ray, And gild (a second sun) with brighter beam our day.