That garment best the winter's rage defends,
Whose ample form without one plait depends;
By various names in various counties known,
Yet held in all the true surtout alone;
Be thine of kersey firm, though small the cost,
Then brave unwet the rain, unchilled the frost.
If the strong cane support thy walking hand,
Chairmen no longer shall the wall command;
Even sturdy carmen shall thy nod obey,
And rattling coaches stop to make thee way:
This shall direct thy cautious tread aright,
Though not one glaring lamp enliven night.
Let beaux their canes, with amber tipt, produce;
Be theirs for empty show, but thine for use.
In gilded chariots while they loll at ease,
And lazily insure a life's disease;
While softer chairs the tawdry load convey
To court, to White's, assemblies, or the play,
Rosy-complexioned Health thy steps attends,
And exercise thy lasting youth defends.
Imprudent men Heaven's choicest gifts profane;
Thus some beneath their arm support the cane;
The dirty point oft checks the careless pace,
And miry spots the clean cravat disgrace.
O, may I never such misfortune meet!
May no such vicious walkers crowd the street!
May Providence o'ershade me with her wings,
While the bold Muse experienced danger sings!
BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET.
LINES ON THE DEATH OF DR. LEVETT.
YONDEMNED to hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blast or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year, See Levett to the grave descend; Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind,
Nor, lettered arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting nature called for aid,
And hovering death prepared the blow,
The vigorous remedy displayed,
The power of art, without the show.
In misery's darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh;
Where hopeless anguish poured his groan,
And lonely want retired to die.
No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gain disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.
His virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the eternal Master found
The single talent well employed.
The busy day, the peaceful night,
Unfelt, uncounted, glided by:
His frame was firm, his powers were bright,
Though now his eightieth year was nigh.
Then with no throb of fiery pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.
T the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud,—it has sung for
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
"T is a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven; but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade:
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colors have all passed away from her eyes!
ARK house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand, —
A hand that can be clasped no more,
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly through the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
IFE in its many shapes was there,
The busy and the gay;
Faces that seemed too young and fair
To ever know decay.
Wealth, with its waste, its pomp and pride,
Led forth its glittering train;
And Poverty's pale face beside
Asked aid, and asked in vain.
The shops were filled from many lands,
Toys, silks, and gems, and flowers;
The patient work of many hands,
The hope of many hours.
Yet, mid life's myriad shapes around
There was a sigh of death;
There rose a melancholy sound,
The bugle's wailing breath.
They played a mournful Scottish air,
That on its native hill
Had caught the notes the night-winds bear From weeping leaf and rill.
'T was strange to hear that sad wild strain Its warning music shed,
Rising above life's busy train,
In memory of the dead.
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