He has shown off his tricks in France, Italy, Spain;
And Germany too knows his legerdemain ;
So hearing John Bull has a taste for strange sights,
He's coming to London to put us to rights.
To encourage his puppets to venture this trip,
He has built them such boats as can conquer a ship;
With a gun of good metal, that shoots out so far,
It can silence the broadsides of three men of war.
This new Katterfelto, his show to complete,
Means his boats should all sink as they pass by our fleet;
Then, as under the ocean their course they steer right on,
They can pepper their foes from the bed of old Triton.
Derry down.
If this project should fail, he has others in store;
Wooden horses, for instance, may bring them safe o'er;
Or the genius of France (as the Moniteur tells)
May order balloons, or provide diving bells.
When Philip of Spain fitted out his Armada,
Britain saw his designs, and could meet her invader;
But how to greet Bonny she never will know,
If he comes in the style of a fish or a crow.
Now if our rude tars will so crowd up
That his boats have not room to go down when they please,
Can't he wait till the channel is quite frozen over,
And a stout pair of skates will transport him to Dover.
How welcome he'll be, it were needless to say;
Neither he nor his puppets shall e'er go away;
I am sure at his heels we shall constantly stick,
Till we know he has played off his very last trick.
Derry down, down, high derry down.
AND canst thou, Mother, for a moment think
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honors on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away,
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought!—where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home;
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
SWEET to the gay of heart is summer's smile,
Sweet the wild music of the laughing Spring;
But ah! my soul far other scenes beguile,
Where gloomy storms their sullen shadows fling.
Is it for me to strike the Idalian string-
Raise the soft music of the warbling wire,
While in my ears the howls of furies ring,
And melancholy wastes the vital fire?
Away with thoughts like these. To some lone cave
Where howls the shrill blast, and where sweeps the
Direct my steps; there, in the lonely drear,
I'll sit remote from worldly noise, and muse
Till through my soul shall Peace her balm infuse.
And whisper sounds of comfort in mine ear.
QUICK o'er the wintry waste dart fiery shafts-
Bleak blows the blast-now howls-then faintly dies-
And oft upon its awful wings it wafts
The dying wanderer's distant, feeble cries.
Now, when athwart the gloom gaunt horror stalks,
And midnight hags their damned vigils hold,
The pensive poet 'mid the wild waste walks,
And ponders on the ills life's paths unfold.
Mindless of dangers hovering round, he goes,
Insensible to every outward ill;
Yet oft his bosom heaves with rending throes,
And oft big tears adown his worn cheeks trill.
Ah! 'tis the anguish of a mental sore,
Which gnaws his heart and bids him hope no more.
This poem was begun either during the publication of CLIFTON GROVE, or shortly afterwards. The author never laid aside the intention of completing it, and some of the detached parts were among his latest productions.
GENIUS of musings, who, the midnight hour
Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,
Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,
Thy dark eye fixed as in some holy trance;
Or, when the volleyed lightnings cleave the air,
And Ruin gaunt bestrides the wingéd storm,
Sitt'st in some lonely watch-tower-where thy lamp,
Faint-blazing, strikes the fisher's eye from far,
And 'mid the howl of elements, unmoved
Dost ponder on the awful scene, and trace,
The vast effect to its superior source,-
Spirit, attend my lowly benison!
For now I strike to themes of import high
The solitary lyre; and borne by thee
Above this narrow cell, I celebrate.
The mysteries of Time!
Was ere these worlds were fashioned,-ere the sun
Sprang from the east, or Lucifer displayed
His glowing cresset on the arch of morn,
Or Vesper gilded the serener eve.
Yea, He had been for an eternity!
Had swept unvarying from eternity
The harp of desolation,-ere his tones.
At God's command, assumed a milder strain,
And startled on his watch, in the vast deep,
Chaos's sluggish sentry, and evoked
From the dark void the smiling universe.
Chained to the grovelling frailties of the flesh
Mere mortal man, unpurged from earthly dross,
Cannot survey, with fixed and steady eye,
The dim uncertain gulf, which now the Muse
Adventurous, would explore;-but dizzy grown,
He topples down the abyss.-If he would scan
The fearful chasm, and catch a transient glimpse
Of its unfathomable depths, that so,
His mind may turn with double joy to God,
His only certainty and resting place;
He must put off a while this mortal vest,
And learn to follow, without giddiness,
To heights where all is vision, and surprise,
And vague conjecture. He must waste by night
The studious taper, far from all resort
Of crowds and folly, in some still retreat;
High on the beetling promontory's crest,
Or in the caves of the vast wilderness,
Where compassed round with nature's wildest shapes,
He may be driven to centre all his thoughts
In the great Architect, who lives confest
In rocks, and seas, and solitary wastes.
So has divine Philosophy, with voice
Mild as the murmurs of the moonlight wave,
Tutored the heart of him, who now awakes,
Touching the cords of solemn minstrelsy,
His faint, neglected song-intent to snatch
Some vagrant blossom from the dangerous steep
Of poesy, a bloom of such an hue,
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