Flat on his face the naked Doctor lies
And on the swampy ground his patience tries,
Of which our Stoic would so often boast:
Musquitos, Ants and Gnats, begin
With Fire-flies to assail his skin,
Of Gallinippers too a monstrous host.
These Gallinippers are a noble breed
Sent down on earth to buz and feed,
With monstrous paunches, and with wings of lace :
Who toil not for themselves, or earn their food,
But suck the hungry peasant's blood,
'Mongst tiny gnats a giant race.
In vain they sting and bite and buz;
Our hero stood it like the man of Uz,
And like the man of Uz had held it out;
Had there not 'mongst them been a wicked wight,
To put his School philosophy to flight,
And all his high flown fancies to the rout.
The wag who this way hop'd to cozen
The Doctor of his Rump and Dozen,
Snatch'd from a neighbouring forge a red-hot nail, And placed it where it chanced to reach
A nerve that pass'd along his naked breech;
And now his patience could no more avail.
Touch'd to the quick in his most tender part,
Nor longer able to endure the smart,
Behold him, active as a high-rope skipper
Make from his marshy bed a monstrous jump,
And roar "I've lost my dozen and my rump!
"Curse on the fangs of that last Gallinipper!"
On Viewing the MONASTERY
Lately erected at _LULWORTH.*
Perish the bigot gloom of antient years,
That whelm'd the world in darkness and in tears!
Shall Superstition, clad in Monkish Cowl,
Spread her pale terrors o'er the shrinking soul?
And still to Reason deaf, to Nature blind,
Diffuse her empire o'er the abject mind?
Shall Man the social scenes of life resign,
To wet with ceaseless tears Religion's shrine?
Live in a world of beauty and of love,
Unblessing and unblest, and Heaven approve ?
* The Monks of this Monastery profess themselves of the rigid order of the Carthusians. They eat nothing but vegetables and black bread; sleep on a hard board, in the cold weather, in their clothes, which they seldom pull off; and devote themselves to strict silence.
O Thou who bendest from yon azure sky
Down on these realms thy never slumbering eye,
Didft thou for this thy bounteous arm extend,
And thy own beauty to creation lend?
For this bid smile all nature at her birth,
And ever-varying charms enrich the earth?
O no, Religion, offspring of the skies,
Breathes the blest sounds of social charities;
She speaks of hope, she softens human woes,
And soft persuasion from each accent flows;
She shuns the grandeur of the Gothic pile,
The high-arch'd roof, and monumental aisle ;
The perfumed altar, and time-moulder'd cells,
And cloysters pale, where Superstition dwells;
Roams free as air all Nature's haunts among,
Where pour the woodland choir their artless song;
At Sabbath dawn a sober joy she feels,
To hear the village bells responsive peals;
With grateful heart, and eyes suffus'd in tears,
She views the thousand forms that nature wears,
The laughing morn with orient colours glow,
The sun's last blushes tinge the mountain's brow;
Eve's sober shadows o'er the landscape rise,
And the night's starry splendour deck the skies.
Far from the busy world's infected pale,
With Peace she sojourns in the cottaged vale;
Helpless and wan, where loath'd distemper lies,
Where, in dumb anguish, grief's pale votary sighs,
Thither she speeds with angel look serene,
And soothes with words of hope each saddening scene.
Now she delights to view, sublime of soul,
The ocean flood, or hear the thunder roll;
Now wandering slow the river's winding shore,
Or o'er the woodlands wild, and mountains hoar;
Now at the holy hour of parting day
Wends thro' the long-stretch'd vale her thoughtless way;
Still listening to the tuneful melody
Of Nature's ever-changing minstrelsy:
Where'er she goes, whate'er her eye surveys,
In Nature's works she reads her Maker's praise,
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