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The parson's maid-sore cause had she to rue
The gypsey's tongue; the parson's daughter too,
Long had that anxious daughter sighed to know
What Vellum's sprucy clerk, the valley's beau,
Meant by those glances, which at church he stole,
Her father nodding to the psalms slow drawl;
Long had she sigh'd, at length a prophet came,
By many a sure prediction known to fame,
To Marian known, and all she told, for true :
She knew the future, for the past she knew.
Where, in the darkling shed, the Moon's dim

rays

Beam'd on the ruins of a one-horse chaise,
Villaria sate, while faithful Marian brought
The wayward prophet of the woe she sought.
Twice did her hands, the income of the week,
On either side, the crooked sixpence seek;
Twice were those bands withdrawn from either
side,

To stop the titt'ring laugh, the blush to hide.
The wayward prophet made no long delay,
No novice she in Fortune's devious way!
"Ere yet,
"she cried, "ten rolling months are
o'er,

Must ye be mothers; maids at least no more.
With you shall soon,
O lady fair, prevail

A gentle youth, the flower of this fair vale.
To Marian, once of Colin Clout the scorn,
Shall bumpkin come, and bumpkinets be born"
Smote to the heart, the maidens marvell'd

sore,

Than ten short months had such events in store; But holding firm, what village-maids believe,

That strife with fate is milking in a sieve ;" To prove their prophet true, tho' to their cost, They justly thought no time was to be lost. These foes to youth, that seek, with dang'rous To aid the native weakness of the heart; [art, These miscreants from thy harmless village drive, As wasps felonious from the lab'ring hive.

THE COUNTRY JUSTICE.
PART II.

TO ROBERT WILSON CRACROFT, ESQ.

BORN with a gentle heart, and born to please

With native goodness, of no fortune vain,

The social aspect of inviting ease,

The kind opinion, and the sense humane; To thee, my Cracroft, whom, in early youth, With lenient hand, and anxious love I led Thro' paths where science points to manly truth: And glory gilds the mansions of the dead: To thee this offering of maturer thought,

That since wild Fancy flung the lyre aside, With heedful hand the moral Muse hath wrought, That Muse devotes, and bears with honest pride.

Yet not that period of the human year,
When Fancy reign'd, shall we with pain review,
All Nature's seasons different aspects wear,

And now her flowers, and now her fruits are due: Not that in youth we rang'd the smiling meads, On Essex' shores the trembling angle play'd, Urging at noon the slow boat in the reeds,

That wav'd their green uncertainty of shade;

Nor yet the days consum'd in Hackthorn's vale,
Should we with stern severity bewail,
That lonely on the heath's wide bosom lies,

And all the lighter hours of life despise.
For Nature's seasons different aspects wear,

And now her flowers, and now her fruits are due;
Awhile she freed us from the scourge of Care,
But told us then-for social ends we grew.
To find some virtue trac'd on life's short page,
Some mark of service paid to human kind,
Alone can cheer the wintry paths of age,
Alone support the far-reflecting mind.

Oh often thought-when Smith's discerning care
To further days prolong'd this failing frame!
To die, was little-But what heart could bear
To die, and leave an undistinguish'd naine
Blagdon House,

Feb. 22, 1775.

PROTECTION OF THE POOR.

YET', while thy rod restrains the needy crew,
Remember that thou art their monarch too.
King of the beggars!-Lov'st thou not the name?
O, great from Ganges to the golden Tame!
Far-ruling sovereign of this begging ball,
Low at thy footstool other thrones shall fall
His alms to thee the whisker'd Moor convey 2,
And Prussia's sturdy beggar own thy sway;
Courts, senates-all to Baal that bend the knee,
King of the beggars, these are fiefs to thee!

But still, forgot the grandeur of thy reign,
Descend to duties meaner crowns disdain;
That worst excrescency of power forego,
That pride of kings, humanity's first foe.

Let age no longer toil with feeble strife, Worn by long service in the war of life; Nor leave the head, that time hath whiten'd, bare To the rude insults of the searching air; Nor bid the knee, by labour harden'd, bend, O thou, the poor man's hope, the poor man's friend!

If, when from Heav'n severer seasons fall, Fled from the frozen roof, and mouldering wall, Each face the picture of a winter-day, [tray;More strong than Teniers' pencil could pourIf then to thee resort the shivering train, Of cruel days, and cruel man complain, Say to thy heart (remembering him who said) These people come from far, and have no bread."

Nor leave thy venal clerk empower'd to hear; The voice of want is sacred to thy ear. He, where no fees his sordid pen invite, Sports with their tears, too indolent to write; Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain To hear more helpless animals complain.

But chief thy notice shall one monster claim, A monster furnish'd with a human frame,

1 Refers to the conclusion of the first part.

2 The Mahometan princes seem to have a regular system of begging. Nothing so common as to hear that the dey of Algiers, &c. &c. are dissatisfied with their presents. It must be owned, it would be for the welfare of the world, if princes in general would adhere to the maxim, that it is better to beg than to steal." Tu poscis vilia rerum, Quamvis fers te nullius egentem.

3

The parish-officer!-tho' verse disdain

Terms that deform the splendour of the strain;
It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe
On the sly, pilfering, cruel overseer;
The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust,
Ruthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust!

When the poor hind, with length of years de-
cay'd,

Leans feebly on his once subduing spade,
Forgot the service of his abler days,
His profitable toil, and honest praise,

Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread, This slave, whose board his former labours spread?

When harvest's burning suns and sick'ning air From labour's unbrac'd hand the grasp'd hook tear,

Where shall the hapless family be fed,
That vainly languish for a father's bread?
See the pale mother, sunk with grief and care,
To the proud farmer fearfully repair;
Soon to be sent with insolence away,
Referr'd to vestries, and a distant day!
Referr'd-to perish-Is my verse severe?
Unfriendly to the human character?
Ah! to this sigh of sad experience trust:
The truth is rigid, but the tale is just.

If in thy courts this caitiff wretch appear,
Think not that patience were a virtue here.
His low-born pride with honest rage control,
Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul.
But, hapless! oft thro' fear of future woe,
And certain vengeance of th' insulting foe,
Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their pray'r,
The last extremes of penury they bear.
Wouldst thou then raise thy patriot office
higher,

To something more than magistrate aspire?
And, left each poorer, pettier chace behind,
Step nobly forth, the friend of human kind?
The game I start courageously pursue!
Adieu to fear! to indolence adieu!

And, first we'll range this mountain's stormy
side,
[ride,
Where the rude winds the shepherd's roof de-
As meet no more the wintry blast to bear,
And all the wild hostilities of air.
-That roof have I remember'd many a year;
It once gave refuge to a hunted deer-
Here, in those days, we found an aged pair;-
But Time untenants-Hah! what seest thou

there?

"Horrour!-By Heav'n, extended on a bed Of naked fearn, two human creatures dead! Embracing as alive!-ah, no!—no life! Cold, breathless!".

-

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Sooth'd by his pity, by his bounty fed,
The sick found med'cine, and the aged bread,
He left their interest to no parish-care,
No bailiff urg'd his little empire there:
No village-tyrant starv'd them, or oppress'd;
He learnt their wants, and he those wants re-
dress'd.

E'en these, unhappy! who, beheld too late,
Smote thy young heart with horrour at their fate,
His bounty found, and destin'd here to keep
A small detachment of his mountain sheep.
Still pleas'd to see them from the annual fair
Th' unwritten history of their profits bear;
More nobly pleas'd those profits to restore,
And, if their fortuue fail'd them, make it more.

When Nature gave her precept to remove His kindred spirit to the realms of love, Afar their anguish from thy distant ear, No arm to save, and no protection near, Led by the lure of unaccounted gold, Thy bailiff seiz'd their little flock, and sold. Their want contending parishes survey'd, And this disown'd, and that refus'd to aid: A while, who should not succour them, they tried, And in that while the wretched victims died. "I'll scalp that bailiff-sacrifice-"

In vain

To rave at mischief, if the cause remain.
O days long lost to man in each degree!
The golden days of hospitality!
When liberal fortunes vied with liberal strife
To fill the noblest offices of life;
[gate
When Wealth was Virtue's handmaid, and her
Gave a free refuge from the wrongs of fate;
The poor at hand their natural patrons saw,
And lawgivers were supplements of law.

Lost are those days, and Fashion's boundless
Has borne the guardian magistrate away: [sway
Save in Augusta's streets, on Gallia's shore,
The rural patron is beheld no more.
No more the poor his kind protection share,
Unknown their wants, and unreceiv'd their
pray'r.

Yet has that Fashion, long so light and vain, Reform'd at last, and led the moral train? Have her gay vot'ries nobler worth to boast For Nature's love, for Nature's virtue lost? No-fled from these, the sons of fortune find What poor respect to wealth remains behind. The mock regard alone of menial slaves, The worship'd calves of their outwitting knaves! Foregone the social, hospitable days, When wide vales echo'd with their owner's Of all that ancient consequence bereft, [praise, What has the modern man of fashion left?

Does he, perchance, to rural scenes repair, And "waste his sweetness" on the essenc'd air? Ah! gently lave the feeble frame he brings, Ye scouring seas! and ye sulphureous springs!

And thou, Brightelmstone, where no cits annoy (All borne to Margate, in the Margate-hoy,) Where, if the hasty creditor advance, Lies the light skiff, and ever-bailing France, Do thou defend him in the dog-day suns; Secure in winter from the rage of duns! While the grim catchpole, the grim porter

swear,

One that he is, and one, he is not there, The tortur'd us'rer, as he murmurs by, Eyes the Venetian blinds, and heaves a sigh

O, from each title folly ever took,
Blood! Maccarone! Cicisbeo! or Rook!
From each low passion, from each low resort,
The thieving alley, nay, the righteous court,
From Bertie's, Almack's, Arthur's, and the nest
Where Judah's ferrets earth with Charles un-
blest!

From these and all the garbage of the great,
At Honour's, Freedom's, Virtue's call-retreat!
Has the fair vale, where rest, conceal'd in
flowers,

Lies in sweet ambush for thy careless hours;
The breeze, that, balmy fragrance to infuse,
Bathes its soft wing in aromatic dews; [breast,
The stream, to soothe thine ear, to cool thy
That mildly murmurs from its crystal rest ;-
Have these less charms to win, less power to
please,

Than haunts of rapine, harbours of disease?

Will no kind slumbers o'er thine eyelids creep,
Save where the sullen watchman growls at sleep?
Does morn no sweeter, purer breath diffuse,
Than streams thro' alleys from the lungs of Jews?
And is thy water, pent in putrid wood,
Bethesda-like, when troubled only good?

Is it thy passion Linley's voice to hear,
And has no mountain-lark detain'd thine ear?
Song marks alone the tribes of airy wing;
For, trust me, man was never meant to sing:
And all bis mimic organs e'er exprest
Was but an imitative howl at best.

Is it on Garrick's attitude you doat;
See on the pointed cliff yon lordly goat!
Like Lear's, his beard descends in graceful snow,
And wild he looks upon the world below.

Superior here the scene in every part!
Here reigns great Nature, and there little art!
Here let thy life assume a nobler plan,
To Nature faithful, and the friend of man!

Unnumber'd objects ask thy honest care,
Beside the orphan's tear, the widow's pray'r.
Far as thy power can save, thy bounty bless,
Unnumber'd evils call for thy redress.

[torn?

Seest thou afar yon solitary thorn, Whose aged limbs the heath's wild winds have While yet to cheer the homeward shepherd's eye, A few seem straggling in the ev'ning sky! Not many suns have hasten'd down the day, Or blushing moons immers'd in clouds their way, Since there a scene, that stain'd their sacred

light,

With horrour stopp'd a felon in his flight;
A babe just born that signs of life exprest,
Lay naked o'er the mother's lifeless breast.
The pitying robber, conscious that, pursu'd,
He had no time to waste, yet stood and view'd;
To the next cot the trembling infant bore;
And gave a part of what he stole before;
Nor known to him the wretches were, nor dear;
He felt as man, and dropp'd a human tear.

Far other treatment she who breathless lay Found from a viler animal of prey.

Worn with long toil on many a painful road, That toil increas'd by nature's growing load, When ev'ning brought the friendly hour of rest, And all the other throng'd about her breast, The ruffian officer oppos'd her stay, And, cruel, bore her in her pangs away; So far beyond the town's last limits drove, That to return were hopeless, had she strove.

Abandon'd there-with famine, pain and cold,
And anguish, she expir'd-the rest I've told.
"Now let me swear-For, by my soul's last
sigh,

That thief shall live, that overseer shall die."
Too late!-His life the gen'rous robber paid,
Lost by that pity which his steps delay'd!
No soul-discerning Mansfield sate to bear,
No Hertford bore his prayer to mercy's ear;
No lib'ral justice first assign'd the jail,
Or urg'd, as Camplin would have urg'd, his tale.
The living object of thy honest rage,
Old in parochial crimes, and steel'd with age,
The grave church-warden! unabash'd he bears
Weekly to church his book of wicked prayers,
And pours, with all the blasphemy of praise,
His creeping soul in Sternhold's creeping lays!

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O, No!-sir John-the Muse's gentle art
Lives not to blemish, but to mend the heart.
While Gay's brave robber grieves us for his fate,
We hold the harpies of his life in hate.
Ingenuous youth, by Nature's voice addrest,
Finds not the harden'd, but the feeling breast;
Can form no wish the dire effects to prove
Of lawless valour, or of venal love,
Approves the fondness of the faithful maid,
And mourns a gen'rous passion unrepaid.

Yet would I praise the pious zeal that saves
Imperial London from her world of knaves;
Yet would I count it no inglorious strife
To scourge the pests of property and life.

Come then, long skill'd in theft's illusive ways, Lord of the clue that threds her mighty maze! Together let us beat all Giles's fields,

Try what the night-house, what the round-house yields,

Hang when we must, be candid when we please, But leave no bawd, unlicens'd, at her ease.

Say first, of thieves above, or thieves below, What can we order till their haunts we know? Far from St. James's let your Nimrods stray, But stop and call at Stephen's in their way. That ancient victualler, we've been told, of late, Has kept bad hours, encourag'd high debate? That those without still pelting those within, Have stunn'd the peaceful neighbours with their That if you close his private walls invest, [din; 'Tis odds, you meet with some unruly guestGood Lord, sir John, how would the people stare, To see the present and the late lord mayor', Bow to the majesty of Bow-street chair!

1 This was written about the year 1776.

Illustrious chiefs! can I your haunts pass by, Nor give my long-lov'd liberty a sigh? That heav'nly plant which long unblemish'd Dishonour'd only, only hurt by you! [blew, Dishonour'd, when with harden'd front you claim To deeds of darkness her diviner name! For you grim Licence strove with hydra breath To spread the blasts of pestilence and death: Here for poor rice, for dark ambition there, She scatter'd poison thro' the social air.

Yet here, in vain-Oh, had her toil been vain, When with black wing she swept the western When with low labour, and insidious art, [main; She tore a daughter from her parent's heart!

Oh, patriots, ever patriots out of place,
Fair honour's foil, and liberty's disgrace!
With spleen I see your wild illusions spread
Thro' the long region of a land misled ;
See commerce sink, see cultivation's charms
Lost in the rage of anarchy and arms!

And thou, O Chm, once a nation's pride,
Borne on the brightest wave of glory's tide!
Hast thou the parent spurn'd, the erring child
With prospects vain to ruin's arms beguil'd?
Hast thou the plans of dire defection prais'd
For the poor pleasure of a statue rais'd?

Oh, patriots, ever patriots out of place, From Charles quite graceless, up to Grafton's grace!

Where forty-five once mark'd the dirty door, And the chain'd knife invites the paltry whore ; Tho' far, methinks, the choicest guests are fled, And Wilkes and Humphrey number'd with the dead,

Wilkes, who in death would friendship's vows fulfil,

still

True to his cause, and dines with Humphrey Where sculks each dark, where roams each desp'rate wight,

Owls of the day and vultures of the night,-
Shall we, O Knight, with cruel pains explore,
Clear these low walks, and think the bus'ness
o'er?

No-much, alas! for you, for me remains,
Where Justice sleeps, and Depredation reigns.
Wrapt in kind darkness, you no spleen betray,
When the gilt Nabob lacqueys all the way:
Harmless to you his towers, his forests rise,
That swell with anguish my indignant eyes;
While in those towers raz'd villages I see,
And tears of orphans watering every tree.
Are these mock-rains that invade my view?
These are the entrails of the poor Gentoo.
That column's trophied base his bones supply;
That lake the tears that swell'd his sable eye!
Let here, O Knight, their steps terrific steer
Thy hue and cry, and loose thy bloodhounds here.
Oh, Merey thron'd on His eternal breast,
Who breath'd the savage waters into rest;
By each soft pleasure that thy bosom smote,
When first creation started from his thought;
By each warm tear that melted o'er thine eye,
When on his works was written "These must die;"
If secret slaughter yet, nor cruel war
Have from these mortal regions forc'd thee far,
Still to our follies, to our frailties blind,
Oh, stretch thy healing wings o'er human kind!

'Chain'd to the table, to prevent depredations.

-For them I ask not, hostile to thy sway,
Who calmly on a brother's vitals prey;
For them I plead not, who, in blood embru'd,
Have ev'ry softer sentiment subdu'd.

PRISONS.

Yet, gentle power, thy absence I bewail, When seen the dank, dark regions of a jail; When found alike in chains and night enclos'd, The thief detected, and the thief suppos'd! Sure, the fair light and the salubrious air Each yet-suspected prisoner might share. -To lie, to languish in some dreary cell, Some loathed hold, where guilt and horrour dwell, Ere yet the truth of seeming facts be tried, Ere yet their country's sacred voice decide Britain, behold thy citizens expos'd, And blush to think the Gothic age unclos'd!

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FILIATION.

Oh, more than Goths, who yet decline to raze
That pest of James's puritanic days,
The savage law 'that barb'rously ordains
For female virtue lost a felon's pains!
Dooms the poor maiden, as her fate severe,
To toil and chains a long-enduring year.

Th' unnatural monarch, to the sex unkind,
An ow! obscene, in learning's sunshine blind!
Councils of pathies, cabinets of tools,
Benches of knaves, and parliaments of fools,
Fanatic fools, that, in those twilight times,
With, wild religion cloak'd the worst of crimes!-
Hope we from such a crew, in such a reign,
For equal laws, or policy humane ?

Here, then, Justice! thy own power forbear;
The sole protector of th' unpitied fair.
Tho' long entreat the ruthless overseer;
Tho' the loud vestry tease thy tortur'd ear;
Tho' all to acts, to precedents appeal,
Mute be thy pen, and vacant rest thy seal.

Yet shalt thou know, nor is the diff'rence nice,
The casual fall, from impudence of vice.
Abandon'd guilt by active laws restrain,
But pause.....if virtue's slightest spark re-
main.

Left to the shameless lash, the hardning jail,
The fairest thoughts of modesty would fail.

The down-cast eye, the tear that flows amain,
As if to ask her innocence again;
The plaintive babe, that slumb'ring seem'd to lie
On her soft breast, and wakes at the heav'd sigh;
The cheek that wears the beauteous robe of
shame;

How loth they leave a gentle breast to blame! Here, then, Justice! thy own power forbear ;

The sole protector of th' unpitied fair!

THE ORIGIN OF THE VEIL. WARM from this heart while flows the faithful line, The meanest friend of beauty shall be mine. What Love, or Fame, or Fortune could bestow, The charm of praise, the ease of life, I owe To beauty present, or to beauty fled, To Hertford living, or Caernarvon dead,

1

17 Jac. c. 4.

To Tweedale's taste, to Edgecumbe's sense

serene,

And (Envy spare this boast) to Britain's queen;
Kind to the lay that all unlabour'd flow'd,
What Fancy caught, where Nature's pencil
glow'd',

She saw the path to new, tho' humble fame,
Gave me her praise, and left me fools to blame.
Strong in their weakness are each woman's
charms,

Dread that endears, and softness that disarms.
The tim'rous eye retiring from applause,
And the mild air that fearfully withdraws,
Marks of our power these humble graces prove,
And, dash'd with pride, we deeper drink of love.

Chief of those charms that hold the heart in
At thy fair shrine, O Modesty, we fall. [thrall,
Not Cynthia rising o'er the wat'ry way,
When on the dim wave falls her friendly ray;
Not the pure ether of Eolian skies,

That drinks the day's first glories as they rise;
Not all the tints from evening-clouds that break,
Burn in the beauties of the virgin's cheek;
When o'er that cheek, undisciplin'd by art,
The sweet suffusion rushes from the heart.

Yet the soft blush, untutor'd to control,
The glow that speaks the susceptible soul,
Led by nice honour, and by decent pride,
The voice of ancient virtue taught to hide;
Taught beauty's bloom the searching eye to shun,
As early flowers blow fearful of the Sun.

Far as the long records of time we trace⚫ Still flow'd the veil o'er modesty's fair face: The guard of beauty, in whose friendly shade, Safe from each eye the featur'd soul is laid,— The pensive thought that paler looks betray, The tender grief that steals in tears away, The hopeless wish that prompts the frequent sigh Bleeds in the blush, or melts upon the eye.

The man of faith thro' Gerar doom'd to stray, A nation waiting his eventful way, His fortune's fair companion at his side, The world his promise, Providence his guide; Once, more than virtue dar'd to value life, And call'd a sister whom he own'd a wife. Mistaken father of the faithful race, Thy fears alone could purchase thy disgrace. "Go" to the fair, when conscious of the tale, Said Gerar's prince, "thy husband is thy veil

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O ancient faith! O virtue mourn'd in vain! When Hymen's aitar never held a stain; When his pure torch shed undiminish'd rays, And fires unholy died beneath the blaze! For faith like this fair Greece was early known, And claim'd the veil's first honours as her own.

The Fables of Flora.

2 Plato mentions two provinces in Persia, one of which was called the Queen's Girdle, the other the Queen's Veil, the revenues of which, no doubt, were employed in purchasing those parts of her majesty's dress. It was about the middle of the third century, that the eastern women, on taking the vow of virginity, assumed that veil which had before been worn by the Pagan priestesses, and which is used by the religious among the Romanists now.

3" He is the veil of thine eyes to all that are with thee, and to all others."-Gen. xx. 16. Vet. Trans.

Ere half her sons, o'er Asia's trembling coast Arm'd to revenge one woman's virtue lost; Ere he, whom Circe sought to charm in vain, Follow'd wild fortune o'er the various main, In youth's gay bloom he plied th' exulting car, From Ithaca's white rocks to Sparta's shore: Free to Nerician gales the vessel glides, And wild Eurotas smoothes his warrior tides; For am'rous Greece, when Love conducts the way, Beholds her waters, and her winds obey. No object hers but Love's impression knows, No wave that wanders, and no breeze that blows, Her groves, her mountains have his power confest,

And Zephyr sigh'd not but for Flora's breast. 'Twas when his sighs in sweetest whispers

stray'd

Far o'er Laconia's plains from Eva's shade!
When soft-ey'd Spring resum'd his mantle gay,
And lean'd luxurious on the breast of May,
Love's genial banners young Ulysses bore
From Ithaca's white rocks to Sparta's shore.
With all that soothes the heart, that wins, or

warms,

All princely virtues, and all manly charms,
All love can urge, or eloquence persuade,
The future hero woo'd his Spartan maid.
Yet long he woo'd-in Sparta, slow to yield,
Beauty, like valour, long maintain'd the field.

"No bloom so fair Messene's banks disclose,
No breath so pure o'er Tempe's bosom blows;
No smile so radiant throws the genial ray
Thro' the fair eye-lids of the op'ning day;
But deaf to vows with fondest passion prest,
Cold as the wave of Hebrus' wint'ry breast,
Penelope regards her lover's pain,
And owns Ulysses eloquent in vain.

"To vows that vainly waste their warmth in
air,

Insidious hopes that lead but to despair,
Affections lost, desires the heart must rue,
And love, and Sparta's joyless plains, adieu !

"Yet still this bosom shall one passion share,
Still shall my country find a father there.
Ev'n now the children of my little reign
Demand that father of the faithless main,
Ev'n now, their prince solicitous to save,
Climb the tall cliff, and watch the changeful

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