"WH

FABLE VII.

THE WALL-FLOWER.

HY loves my flower, the sweetest flower That swells the golden breast of May, Thrown rudely o'er this ruin'd tower,

To waste her solitary day?

"Why, when the mead, the spicy vale,

The grove and genial garden call,
Will she her fragrant soul exhale,
Unheeded on the lonely wall?
"For never sure was beauty born

To live in death's deserted shade!
Come, lovely flower, my banks adorn,

My banks for life and beauty made."
Thus Pity wak'd the tender thought,
And by her sweet persuasion led,
To seize the hermit-flower I sought,
And bear her from her stony bed.
I sought-but sudden on mine ear

A voice in hollow murmurs broke,
And smote my heart with holy fear-
The Genius of the Ruin spoke.
"From thee be far th' ungentle deed,
The honours of the dead to spoil,
Or take the sole remaining meed,

The flower that crowns their former toil!

"Nor deem that flower the garden's foe, Or fond to grace this barren shade;

'Tis Nature tells her to bestow

Her honours on the lonely dead.

"For this, obedient zephyrs bear

Her light seeds round yon turret's mould,
And undispers'd by tempests there,
They rise in vegetable gold.

"Nor shall thy wonder wake to see

Such desert scenes distinction crave; Oft have they been, and oft shall be

Truth's, Honour's, Valour's, Beauty's grave. "Where longs to fall that rifted spire, As weary of th' insulting air; The poet's thought, the warrior's fire, The lover's sighs are sleeping there. "When that too shakes the trembling ground, Borne down by some tempestuous sky, And many a slumbering cottage round Startles how still their hearts will lie! "Of them who, wrapt in earth so cold,

No more the smiling day shall view,
Should many a tender tale be told;

For many a ter.der thought is due.
"Hast thou not seen some lover pale,
When evening brought the pensive hour,
Step slowly o'er the shadowy vale,

And stop to pluck the frequent flower?
"Those flowers he surely meant to strew
On lost affection's lowly cell;
Tho' there, as fond remembrance grew,
Forgotten, from his hand they fell.
"Has not for thee the fragrant thorn
Been taught her first rose to resign?
With vain but pious fondness borne

To deck thy Nancy's honour'd shrine !

"'Tis Nature pleading in the breast,

Fair memory of her works to find; And when to fate she yields the rest,

She claims the monumental mind. "Why, else, the o'ergrown paths of time Would thus the letter'd sage explore, With pain these crumbling ruins climb, And on the doubtful sculpture pore? "Why seeks he with unwearied toil Through death's dim walks to urge his way, Reclaim his long-asserted spoil,

And lead oblivion into day?

"Tis Nature prompts, by toil or fear

Unmov'd, to range through death's domain

The tender parent loves to hear

Her children's story told again.

"Treat not with scorn his thoughtful hours,
If haply near these haunts he stray;
Nor take the fair enlivening flowers
That bloom to cheer his lonely way."

FABLE VIII.

THE TULIP AND THE MYRTLE. 'TWAS

WAS on the border of a stream

A gaily-painted Tulip stood,

And, gilded by the morning beam,
Survey'd her beauties in the flood.

And sure, more lovely to behold,
Might nothing meet the wistful eye,
Than crimson fading into gold,

In streaks of fairest symmetry.
The beauteous flower, with pride elate,
Ah me! that pride with beauty dwells!
Vainly affects superior state,

And thus in empty fancy swells: "O lustre of unrivall'd bloom!

Fair painting of a hand divine! Superior far to mortal doom,

The hues of Heav'n alone are mine!

"Away, ye worthless, formless race!

Ye weeds, that boast the name of flowers? No more my native bed disgrace,

Unmeet for tribes so mean as yours!

"Shall the bright daughter of the Sun
Associate with the shrubs of Earth?
Ye slaves, your sovereign's presence shun!
Respect her beauties and her birth.
"And thou, dull, sullen ever-green!
Shalt thou my shining sphere invade ?
My noon-day beauties beam unseen,
Obscur'd beneath thy dusky shade!"
"Deluded flower!" the Myrtle cries,

Shall we thy moment's bloom adore?
The mean'st shrub that you despise,
The meanest flower has merit more.
"That daisy, in its simple bloom,

Shall last along the changing year; Blush on the snow of Winter's gloom,

And bid the smiling Spring appear.

"The violet, that, those banks beneath, Hides from thy scorn its modest bead, Shall fill the air with fragrant breath,

When thou art in thy dusty bed.
"E'en I, who boast no golden shade,
Am of no shining tints possess'd,
When low thy lucid form is laid,

Shall bloom on many a lovely breast.
"And he, whose kind and fostering care
To thee, to me, our beings gave,
Shall near his breast my flowrets wear,
And walk regardless o'er thy grave.
"Deluded flower, the friendly screen

That hides thee from the noon-tide ray, And mocks thy passion to be seen,

Prolongs thy transitory day.

"But kindly deeds with scorn repaid,
No more by virtue need be done :
I now withdraw my dusky shade.

And yield thee to thy darling Sun."
Fierce on the flower the scorching beam

With all its weight of glory feil; The flower exulting caught the gleam, And lent its leaves a bolder swell. Expanded by the searching fire,

The curling leaves the breast disclos'd; The mantling bloom was painted higher, And every latent charm expos'd. But when the Sun was sliding low

And ev❜ning came, with dews so cold; The wanton beauty ceas'd to blow,

And sought her bending leaves to fold. Those leaves, alas! no more would close; Relax'd, exhausted, sick'ning, pale,

They left her to a parent's woes,
And fled before the rising gale.

FABLE IX.

THE BEE FLOWER'.

COME, let us leave this painted plain;
This waste of flowers that palls the eye:
The walks of Nature's wilder reign

Shall please in plainer majesty.

Through those fair scenes, where yet she owes
Superior charms to Brockman's art,
Where, crown'd with elegant repose,
He cherishes the social heart-

2

This is a species of the orchis, which is found in the barren and mountainous parts of Lincolnshire, Worcestershire, Kent, and Herefordshire. Nature has formed a bee apparently feeding on the breast of a flower with so much exactness, that it is impossible at a very small distance to distinguish the imposition. For this purpose she has observed an economy different from what is found in most other flowers, and has laid the petals horizontally. The genius of the orchis, or satyrion,she seems professedly to have made use of for her paintings, and on the different species has drawn the perfect forms of different insects, such as bees, flies, butterflies, &c.

Through those fair scenes we'll wander wild,
And on yon pastur'd mountains rest;
Come, brother dear! come, Nature's child!
With all her simple virtues blest.

The Sun far-seen on distant towers,

And clouding groves and peopled seas, And ruins pale of princely bowers

On Beachb'rough's airy heights shall please. Nor lifeless there the lonely scene;

The little labourer of the hive,
From flower to flower, from green to green,
Murmurs and makes the wild alive.

See, on that flowret's velvet breast

How close the busy vagrant lies!
His thin-wrought plume, his downy breast,
Th' ambrosial gold that swells his thighs!
Regardless, while we wander near,
Thrifty of time, his task he plies;
Or sees he no intruder near?
And rest in sleep his weary eyes?
Perhaps his fragrant load may bind
His limbs ;-we'll set the captive free--
I sought the living Bee to bind,
And found the picture of a Bee.
Attentive to our trifling selves,

From thence we plan the rule of all;
Thus Nature with the fabled elves

We rank, and these her sports we call.
Be far, my friend, from you, from me,

Th' unhallow'd term, the thought profane,
That life's majestic source may be
In idle fancy's trifling vein.
Remember still, 'tis Nature's plan
Religion in your love to find;
And know, for this, she first in man
Inspir'd the imitative mind.

As conscious that affection grows,
Pleas'd with the pencil's mimic power
That power with leading hand she shows,
And paints a Bee upon a flower.
Mark, how that rooted mandrake wears
His human feet, his human hands!
Oft, as his shapely form he rears,
Aghast the frighted ploughman stands.
See where, in yonder orient stone,

She seems e'en with herself at strife,
While fairer from her hand is shown
The pictur'd, than the native life.
Helvetia's rocks, Sabrina's waves,

Still many a shining pebble bear, Where oft her studious hand engraves

The perfect form, and leaves it there. O long, my Paxton3, boast her art;

And long her laws of love fulfil : To thee she gave her hand and heart,

To thee, her kindness and her skill!

2 The well-known fables of the Painter and the Statuary that fell in love with objects of their own creation, plainly arose from the idea of that attachment, which follows the imitation of agreeable objects, to the objects imitated.

3 An ingenious portrait-painter in Rathbone Place.

t

FABLE X.

THE WILDING AND THE BROOM. IN yonder green wood blows the broom;

Shepherds we'll trust our flocks to stray.
Court Nature in her sweetest bloom,

And steal from care one summer-day.
From him 'whose gay and graceful brow
Fair-handed Hume with roses binds,
We'll learn to breathe the tender vow,
Where slow the fairy Fortha winds.
And oh! that he whose gentle breast
In Nature's softest mould was made,
Who left her smiling works imprest

In characters that cannot fade;
That he might leave his lowly shrine,
Tho' softer there the seasons fall-
They come, the sons of verse divine,
They come to Fancy's magic call.

"What airy sounds invite
My steps not unreluctant, from the depth
Of Shene's delightful groves? Reposing there
No more I hear the busy voice of men
Far-toiling o'er the globe-save to the call
Of soul-exalting poetry, the car

Of death denies attention. Rous'd by her,
The genius of sepulchral silence opes
His drowsy cells, and yields us to the day.
For thee, whose hand, whatever paints the
Spring,

Or swells on Summer's breast, or loads the lap
Of Autumn, gathers heedful-Thee whose rites
At Nature's shrine with holy care are paid
Daily and nightly, boughs of brightest green,
And every fairest rose, the god of groves,
The queen of flowers, shall sweeter save for thee.
Yet not if beauty only claim thy lay,
Tunefully trifling. Fair philosophy,
And Nature's love, and every mortal charm
That leads in sweet captivity the mind
To virtue-ever in thy nearest cares
Be these, and animate thy living page
With truth resistless, beaming from the source
Of perfect light immortal-Vainly boasts
That golden Broom its sunny robe of flowers:
Fair are the sunny flowers; but, fading soon
And fruitless, yield the forester's regard
To the well-loaded wilding-Shepherd, there
Behold the fate of song, and lightly deem
Of all but moral beauty."

Whatever charms the ear or eye,
All beauty and all harmony;
If sweet sensations these produce,
I know they have their moral use;

I know that Nature's charms can move
The springs that strike to virtue's love."

FABLE XI.

THE MISLETOE AND THE PASSIONFLOWER.

IN this dim cave a druid sleeps,

Where stops the passing gale to moan;
The rock he hollow'd o'er him weeps,
And cold drops wear the fretted stone.
In this dim cave, of diff'rent creed,
An hermit's holy ashes rest:
The school-boy finds the frequent bead,
Which many a formal matin blest.
That truant-time full well I know,
When here I brought, in stolen hour,
The druid's magic misletoe,

The holy hermit's passion-flower.
The offrings on the mystic stone

Pensive I laid, in thought profound.
When from the cave a deep'ning groan
Issued, and froze me to the ground.

I hear it still-dost thou not hear?
Does not thy haunted fancy start?
The sound still vibrates through mine ear,
The horrour rushes on my heart.

Unlike to living sounds it came,

Unmix'd, unmelodis'd with breath;
But, grinding through some scrannel frame,
Creak'd from the bony lungs of death.

I hear it still" Depart," it cries;
"No tribute bear to shades unblest:
Know, here a bloody druid lies,

Who was not nurs'd at Nature's breast. "Associate he with demons dire,

O'er human victims held the knife,
And pleas'd to see the babe expire,
Sinil'd grimly o'er its quiv'ring life.
"Behold his crimson-streaming hand
Erect!-his dark, fix'd, murd'rous eye!"
In the dim cave I saw him stand;

And my heart died-I felt it die.

I see him still-Dost thou not see

The haggard eye-ball's hallow glare? And gleams of wild ferocity

Dart through the sable shade of hair? What meagre form behind him moves,

With eye that rues th' invading day; And wrinkled aspect wan, that proves

The mind to pale remorse a prey?
What wretched-Hark-the voice replies,
"Boy, bear these idle honours hence!
For, here a guilty hermit lies,

Untrue to Nature, Virtue, Sense.
"Though Nature lent him powers to aid
The moral cause, the mutual weal;
Those powers he sunk in this dim shade,
The desp'rate suicide of zeal.
G g

"Go, teach the drone of saintly haunts,
Whose cell's the sepulchre of time;
Though many a holy hymn he chants,
His life is one continu'd crime.

"And bear them hence, the plant, the flower

No symbols those of systems vain!

They have the duties of their hour;
Some bird, some insect to sustain."

THE COUNTRY JUSTICE.

BY ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTY OF SOMERSET.

PART THE FIRST.

TO RICHARD BURN, LL. D.

ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTIES OF WESTMORLAND AND CUMBERLAND.

DEAR SIR,

A POEM written professedly at your request, naturally addresses itself to you. The distinction you have acquired on the subject, and your taste for the arts, give that address every kind of propriety. If I have any particular satisfaction in this publication, beside what arises from my compliance with your commands, it must be in the idea of that testimony it bears to our friendship. If you believe that I am more concerned for the duration of that than of the Poem itself, you will not be mistaken; for I am,

IN Richard's days, when lost his pastur'd plain,
The wand'ring Briton sought the wild wood's
With great disdain beheld the feudal hord,[reign,
Poor life-let vassals of a Norman lord;
And, what no brave man ever lost, possess'd
Himself for Freedom bound him to her breast.

Lov'st thou that Freedom? By her holy shrine,
If yet one drop of British blood be thine,
See, I conjure thee, in the desert shade,
His bow unstrung, his little household laid,
Some brave forefather; while his fields they

share,

By Saxon, Dane, or Norman, banish'd there!
And think he tells thee, as his soul withdraws,
As his heart swells against a tyrant's laws,
The war with fate, though fruitless to maintain,
To guard that liberty he lov'd in vain.
Were thoughts like these the dreams of ancient
Peculiar only to some age, or clime? [time?
And does not Nature thoughts like these impart,
Breathe in the soul, and write upon the heart?
Ask on their mountain yon deserted band,
That point to Paoli with no plausive hand;

Despising still, their freeborn souls unbroke,
Alike the Gallic and Ligurian yoke.

Yet while the patriot's gen'rous rage we share,
Still civil safety calls us back to care ;—
To Britain lost in either Henry's day,

Her woods her mountains one wild scene of prey! Fair Peace from all her bounteous vallies fled, And Law beneath the barbed arrow bled.

In happier days, with more auspicious fate, The far-fam'd Edward heal'd his wounded state; Dread of his foes, but to his subjects dear, These learn'd to love, as those are taught to fear, Their laurell'd prince with British pride obey, His glory shone their discontent away.

With care the tender flower of love to save, And plant the olive on Disorder's grave, For civil storms fresh barriers to provide, He caught the fav'ring calm and falling tide.

THE APPOINTMENT, AND ITS PURPOSES. The social laws from insult to protect; To cherish peace, to cultivate respect; The rich from wanton cruelty restrain, To smooth the bed of penury and pain; The hapless vagrant to his rest restore, The maze of fraud, the haunts of theft explore The thoughtless maiden, when subdu'd by art, To aid, and bring her rover to her heart; Wild riot's voice with dignity to quell, Forbid unpeaceful passions to rebel, Wrest from revenge the meditated harm, For this fair Justice rais'd her sacred arm; For this the rural magistrate, of yore, Thy honours, Edward, to his mansion bore.

ANCIENT JUSTICE'S HALL

Oft, where old Air in conscious glory sails, On silver waves that flow thro' smiling vales, In Harewood's groves, where long my youth was laid,

Unseen beneath their ancient world of shade, With many a groupe of antique columns crown'd, In Gothic guise such mansion have I found.

Nor lightly deem, ye apes of modern race, Ye cits that sore bedizen Nature's face, Of the more manly structures here ye view; They rose for greatness that ye never knew! With Venus, and the Graces on your green! Ye reptile cits, that oft have mov'd my spleen, Let Plutus, growling o'er his ill-got wealth, Let Mercury, the thriving god of stealth, The shopman, Janus, with his double looks, Rise on your mounts, and perch upon your books! But, spare my Venus, spare each sister Grace, Ye cits, that sore bedizen Nature's face.

Would lay the reaims of Sense and Nature Ye royal architects, whose antic taste,

waste;

Forgot, whenever from her steps ye stray,
That folly only points each other way;
Here, tho' your eye no courtly creature sees;
Snakes on the ground, or monkies in the trees;
Yet let not too severe a censure fall,
On the plain precincts of the ancient ball.

For tho' no sight your childish fancy meets,
Of Thibet's dogs, or China's perroquets;
Tho' apes, asps, lizards, things without a tail,
And all the tribes of foreign monsters fail;

Here shall ye sigh to see, with rust o'ergrown,
The iron griffin and the sphynx of stone;
And mourn, neglected in their waste abodes.
Fire-breathing drakes, and water-spouting gods.
Long have these mighty monsters known dis-
grace,

Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place;
Where, round the hall, the oak's high surbase

rears

The field-day triumphs of two hundred years.
Th' enormous antlers here recall the day
That saw the forest-monarch forc'd away;
Who, many a flood, and many a mountain past,
Nor finding those, nor deeming these the last,
O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepar'd to fly,
Long ere the death-drop fill'd his failing eye!
Here, fam'd for cunning, and in crimes grown
old,

Hangs his grey brush, the felon of the fold.
Oft, as the rent feast swells the midnight cheer.
The maudling farmer kens him o'er his beer,
And tells his old, traditionary tale,
Tho' known to every tenant of the vale.

Here, where, of old, the festal ox has fed, Mark'd with his weight, the mighty horns are spread :

Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine,
Where the vast master with the vast sirloin
Vied in round magnitude-Respect I bear
To thee, tho' oft the ruin of the chair.

These, and such antique tokens, that record
The manly spirit, and the bounteous board,
Me more delight than all the gew-gaw train,
The whims and zigzag of a modern brain,
More than all Asia's marmosets to view
Grin, frisk, and water, in the walks of Kew,

CHARACTER OF A COUNTRY JUSTICE.

Thro' these fair vallies, stranger, hast thou stray'd,

By any chance to visit Harewood's shade,
And seen with honest, antiquated air,
In the plain hall the magistratial chair?
There Herbert sate-the love of human kind,
Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind,
In the free eye the featur'd soul display'd,
Honour's strong beam, and Mercy's melting
shade;

Justice, that, in the rigid paths of law,
Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw,
Bend o'er her urn with many a gen'rous fear,
Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear;
Fair Equity, and Reason, scorning art,
And all the sober virtues of the heart-
These sate with Herbert, these shall best avail,
Where statutes order, or where statutes fail.

GENERAL MOTIVES FOR LENITY.

Be this, ye rural Magistrates, your plan: Firm be your justice, but be friends to man. He whom the mighty master of this ball, We fondly deem, or farcically call, To own the patriarch's truth however loth, Holds but a mansion crush'd before the moth. Frail in his genius, in his heart, too, frail,

. Born but to err, and erring to bewail; Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore, And give to life one human weakness more?

APOLOGY FOR VAGRANTS.

THE GYPSEY-LIFE.

The gypsey-race my pity rarely move;
Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love.
Not Wilkes, our freedom's holy martyr, more ;
Nor his firm phalanx, of the common shore..

For this in Norwood's patrimonial groves,
The tawny father with his offspring roves;
When summer suns lead slow the sultry day,
In mossy caves, where welling waters play,
Fann'd by each gale that cools the fervid sky,
With this in ragged luxury they lie.
Oft at the sun the dusky elfins strain
The sable eye, then, snugging, sleep again;
Oft, as the dews of cooler evening fall,
For their prophetic mother's mantle call.

Far other cares that wandering mother wait,
The mouth, and oft the minister of Fate !
From her to bear, in evening's friendly shade,
Of future fortune, flies the village-maid,
Draws her long-hoarded copper from its hold;
And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold.

But, ah! ye maids, beware the gypsey's lures! She opens not the womb of Time, but yours. Oft has her hands the hapless Marian wrung, Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung!