Statue of flesh-Immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence!

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecay'd within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh let us keep the soul embalm'd and pure

In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!-

ADDRESS TO THE ORANGE-TREE

AT VERSAILLES,

Called the Great Bourbon, which is above four hundred years old.

WHEN France with civil wars was torn,

And heads, as well as crowns were shorn
From royal shoulders,

One Bourbon, in unalter'd plight,

Hath still maintain'd its regal right,

And held its court-a goodly sight

To all beholders.

Thou, leafy monarch, thou alone,

Hast sat uninjured on thy throne,

Seeing the war range;

And when the great Nassaus were sent

Crownless away, (a sad event!)

Thou didst uphold and represent

The House of Orange.

To tell what changes thou hast seen,

Each grand monarque, and king and queen, Of French extraction,

Might puzzle those who don't conceive

French history, so I believe

Comparing thee with ours will give

More satisfaction.

Westminster Hall*, whose oaken roof

The papers say, (but that's no proof,)
Is nearly rotten,

Existed but in stones and trees,

When thou wert waving in the breeze,

And blossoms, (what a treat for bees!)

And from his tomb outworn each rhyme

Within the Abbey;

And Gower, an older poet whom

The Borough Church enshrines (his tomb,

Though once restored, has lost its bloom,
And got quite shabby,)

Lived in thy time-the first perchance

Was beating monks* when thou in France

By monks wert beaten,

Who shook beneath this very tree

Their reverend beards, with glutton glee,

As each down-falling luxury

Was caught and eaten.

Perchance when Henry gain'd the fight

Of Agincourt, some Gaulish knight,

(His bleeding steed in woful plight,

*There is a tradition (though not authenticated) that Chaucer was fined for beating a monk in Fleet-street.

With smoking haunches,)

Laid down his helmet at thy root,

And, as he pluck'd the grateful fruit,

Suffered his poor exhausted brute

To crop thy branches.

Thou wert of portly size and look,

When first the Turks besieged and took

Constantinople;

And eagles in thy boughs might perch,

When, leaving Bullen in the lurch,

Another Henry changed his church,

And used the Pope ill.

What numerous namesakes hast thou seen

Lounging beneath thy shady green,

With monks as lazy;

Louis Quatorze has pressed that ground,

With his six mistresses around

A sample of the old and sound

Legitimacy.