APOLOGY POR VAGRANTS. rears Here shall ye sigh to see, with rust o'ergrown, Still mark if vice or nature prompts the dced i grace, Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place; For him, who, lost to ev'ry hope of life, Where, round the hall, the oak's high surbase | Has long with fortune held unequal strife, Known to no human love, no human care, The field-day triumphs of two hundred years. The friendless, homeless object of despair; Th' enormous antiers here recall the Jay For the poor vagrant, feel, while he complains, That saw the forest-monarch fore'd away; Nor froin sad freedom send to sadder chains. Who, many a food, and many a mountain past, Alike, if folly or misfortune brought Nor finding those, nor deerning these the last, Those last of woes his evil days have wrought; D'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepard to fly, Believe with social mercy and with me, Long ere the death-drop fill'd his failing eye! Folly's misfortune in the first degree. Here, fam'd for cunning, and in crimes grown Perhaps op some inhospitable shore old, The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore, flangs his grey brush, the felou of the fold. Wbo, then, no more by golden prospects led, Oft, as the rent feast swells the midnight cheer. Of the poor Indian beyg'd a leafy bed, The maudling fariner kens him o'er his beer, Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, And tells his old, traditionary tale, Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier slain; Tbo known to every tenant of the vale. Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew, Here, where, of old, the festal ox has fed, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Mark'd with his weight, the mighty horns are Gave the sad presage of his future years, spread : The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears! APOSTROPUE TO EDWARD THE THIRD. O Edward, here thy fairest laurels fade! To thee, tho’ oft the ruin of the chair. Áud thy long glories darken into shade; These, and such antique tokens, that record While yet the palms thy hardy veterans won, The manly spirit, and the bounteous board, The deeds of valour that for thee were done, Me more delight than all the gew-gaw train, While yet the wreaths for which they bravely bled, The whims and zigzag of a modern brain, Fird thy high soul, and flourish'd on thy head, More than all Asia's marmosets to view Those veterans to their native shores return'd, Grin, frisk, and water, in the walks of Kew. Like 'exiles wander'd and like exiles mourn’d; Were vagrants deem'd and destin'd to a jail! Thro' these fair vallies, stranger, hast thou Were there no royal, yet uncultur'd lands, stray'd, No wastes that wanted such subduing hands? By any chance to visit Harewood's shade, Were Cressy's heroes such abandon'd things? And seen with honest, antiquated air, O fate of war and gratitude of kings! THE GYPSEY-LIFE. The gypsey-race my pity rarely move ; In the free eye the featur'd soul display'd, Honour's strong beam, and Mercy's melting Not Wilkes, our freedom's holy martyr, more; Yet their strong thirst of liberty I lore. shade; Nor bis firm phalanx, of the common shore. Justice, that, in the rigid paths of law, For this in Norwood's patrimonial groves, Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw, The tawny father with his offspring roves; Bend o'er her urn with many a gen'ronis fear, Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear ; When summer suns lead slow the sultry day, In mossy caves, where welling waters play, Fair Equity, and Reason, scorning art, Fann'doy each gale that cools the fervid sky, And all the sober virtues of the heart With this in ragged luxury they lie. These sate with Herbert, these shall best avail, Oft at the sun the dusky elfins strain Where statutes order, or where statutes fail. The sable eye, then, snugging, sleep again; Oft, as the dews of cooler evening fall, For their prophetic mother's mantle cail. He whom the inighty master of this bail, From her to hear, in evening's friendly shade, We fondly deem, or farcically call, Of future fortune, Ries the village-aid, To own the patriarch's truth however loth, Draws her long-hoarded copper from its hold; Trolds but a mansion crush'd before the moth. And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold. Frail in his genius, in bis heart, too, frail, But, alı! ye maids, bewarethe gypsey's lures ! Porn but to err, and erring to bewail; She opens not the womb of Time, but yours. Shait thou his faults with eye severe explore, Oft has her bands the hapless Marian wrung, And give to life one human weakness more? Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung ! CHARACTER OF A COUNTRY JUSTICE. a PROTECTION OF THE POON. The parson's maid-sore cause had she to rue Nor yet the days consum'd in Hackthorn's vale, The gypsey's tongue ; the parson's daughter too, That lonely on the heath's wide bosom lies, Long had that anxious daughter sighed to know Should we with stern severity bewail, What Vellum'ssprucy clerk, the valley's beau, And all the lighter hours of life despise. Meant by those glances, which at church he stole, For Nature's seasons different aspects wear, Her father nodding to the psalms slow drawl; And now her flowers, and now herfruits are due; Long had she sigh'd, at length a prophet came, Awhile she freed us from the scourge of Care, By many a sure prediction known to fame, But told us then-for social ends we grew. To Marian known, and all she told, for true : To find some virtue trac'd on life's short page, She knew the future, for the past she knew. Where, in the darkling shed, the Moon's dim Some mark of service paid to human kind, Alone can chcer the wintry paths of age, rays Beam'd on the ruins of a one-horse chaise, Alone support the far-reflecting mind. Villaria sate, while faithful Marian brought Oh ! often thought-when Smith's discerning care The wayward prophet of the woe she sought. To further days prolong'd this failing frame ! Twice did her hands, the income of the week, To die, was littleBut wtrat heart could bear On either side, the crooked sixpence seek; To die, and leave an undistinguish'd name Twice were those hands withdrawn from either Blagdon-House, side, Feb. 22, 1775. 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! Yet', while thy,rod restrains the needy crew, “Ere yet," she cried, “ ten rolling months are Remember that thou art their monarch too. o'er, King of the beggars !-Lov'st thou not the name: Must ye be mothers ; mails at least no more. 0, great from Ganges to the golden Tame! With you shall soun, O lady fair, prevail Far-ruling sovereign of this begging ball, King of the beggars, these are fiefs to thee! These foes to youth, that seek, with dangorous Worn by long service in the war of life; O thou, the poor man's hope, the poor man's friend! THE COUNTRY JUSTICE, If, when from Heav'n severer seasons fall, Fled from the frozen roof, and mouldering wall, PART II. Each face the picture of a winter-day, (tray;TO ROBERT WILSON CRACROFT, ESQ. More strong than Teniers' pencil could pourBorn with a gentle heart, and born to please If then to thee resort the shivering train, Of cruel days, and cruel man complain, Say to thy heart (remembering bim wbo said) The kind opinion, and the sense humane; “ These people come from far, and have no bread." To thee, my Cracroft, whom, in early youth, Nor leave thy venal clerk empower'd to hear; With lenient hand, and anxious love I led The voice of want is sacred to thy ear. Thro' paths where science points to manly truth : He, where no fees his sordid pen invite, And glory gilds the mansions of the dead : Sports with their tears, loo indolent to write; To thee this offering of maturer thought, Like the fed monkey in the fable, vaiu That since wild Fancy flung the lyre aside, To hear more helpless animals complain. With heedful hand the moral Muse hath wrought, But chief thy notice shall one monster claim, That Muse devotes, and bears with honest A monster furnish'd with a human frame, pride. 'Refers to the conclusion of the first part. Yet not that period of the huinan year, 2 The Mahometan princes seem to have a ree When Fancy reign'd, shall we with pain review, gular system of begging. Nothing so common All Nature's seasons different aspects wear, as to hear that the dey of Algiers, &c. &c. are And now her flowers, and now her fruits are due: dissatisfied with their presents. It must be owned, it would be for the welfare of the Forld, Not that in youth we rang'd the smiling meads, if princes in general would adhere to the maxim, On Essex shores the trembling angle play'd, that “it is better to beg than to steal." Urging at noon the slow boat in the reeds, Tu poscis vilia rerum, That wav'd their green uncertainty of shade ; Quamvis fers te nullius egentem. . 3 The parish-officer !--tho'verse disdain Sooth'd by his pity, by his bounty fed, 'Terms that deform the splendour of the strain; The sick found med'cine, and the aged bread. It stoops to bid thee bend the brow severe He left their interest to no parish-care, On the sly, pilfering, cruel overseer; No bailiff urg'd his little empire there: The shuffling farmer, faithful to no trust, No village-tyrant starv'd them, or oppress'd; Ruthless as rocks, insatiate as the dust! He learnt their wants, and he those wants reWhen the poor hind, with length of years de dress'd. cayd, E'en these, unhappy! who, beheld too late, Leans feebly on his once subduing spade, Smote thy young heart with horrour at their fate, Forgot the service of his abler days, His bounty found, and destin'd here to keep His profitable toil, and honest praise, A small detachment of his mountain sheep. Shall this low wretch abridge his scanty bread, Still pleas'd to see them from the annual fair This slave, whose board his former labours Th' unwritten history of their profits bear; spread? More nobly pleas'd those profits to restore, When harvest's burning suns and sick’ning air And, if their fortune fail'd them, make it more. From labour's unbrac'd hand the grasp'd book When Nature gave her precept to remove tear, His kindred spirit to the realms of love, Afar their anguish from thy distant ear, Thy bailiff seiz'd their little flock, and sold. Their want contending parishes survey'd, Referr'd to vestries, and a distant day! And this disown'd, and that refus'd to aid: Referr'd-to perish !--Is my verse severe? A while, who should not succour them, they tried, Unfriendly to the human character? And in that while the wretched victims died. Ah ! to this sigh of sad experience trust: “ I'll scalp that bailiff-sacrifice" The truth is rigid, but the tale is just. In vain Ifin thy courts this caitiff wretch appear, To rave at mischief, if the cause remain. Think not that patience were a virtue here. O days long lost to man in each degree! His low-born pride with honest rage control, The golden days of hospitality! Smite his hard heart, and shake his reptile soul. When liberal fortunes vied with liberal strife But, bapless ! oft thro' fear of future woe, To fill the noblest offices of life; [gate And certain vengeance of th' insulting foe, When Wealth was Virtue's handmaid, and her Oft, ere to thee the poor prefer their pray'r, Gave a free refuge from the wrongs of fate;, The last extremes of penury they bcar. The poor at hand their natural patrons saw, Wouldst thou then raise thy patriot office And lawgivers were supplements of law. higher, Lost are those days, and fashion's boundless To something more than magistrate aspire ? Has borne the guardian magistrate away: (sway And, left each poorer, pettier chace behind, Save in Augusta's streets, on Gallia's shoie, Step nobly forth, the friend of human kind? The rural patron is beheld no more. The game I start courageously pursue ! No more the poor his kind protection share, Adieu to fear! to indolence adieu ! Unknown their wants, and unreceiv'd their And, first we'll range this mountain's stormy pray'r. side, (ride, Yet has that Fashion, long so light and vain, Where the rude winds the shepherd's roof de- Reform’d at last, and led the moral train? As meet no more the wintry blast to bear, Have her gay vot'ries nobler worth to boast And all the wild hostilities of air. For Nature's love, for Nature's virtue lost? -That roof have I remember'd many a year; No-Aed from these, the sons of fortune find It once gave refuge to a hunted deer What poor respect to wealth remains behind. Here, in those days, we found an aged pair; — The mock regard alone of menial slaves, But Time untenants-Hah! what seest thou The worship'd calves of their outwitting knaves ! there? Foregone the social, hospitable days, “ Horrour!-By Heav'n, extended on a bed When wide vales echo'd with their owner's Of naked fearn, two human creatures dead! Of all that ancient consequence bereft, (praise, Embracing as alive !-ah, no!-no life! What has the modern man of fashion left? Cold, breathless !". Does he, perchance, to rural scenes repair, 'Tis the shepherd and his wife. And “ waste his sweetness" on the essenc'd air ? I knew the scene, and brought thee to behold Ah! gently lave the feeble frame he brings, What speaks more strongly than the story told. Ye scouring seas! and ye sulphureous springs ! They died thro' want And thou, Brightelmstone, where no cits annoy By every power I swear, (All borne to Margate, in the Margate-loy,) If the wretch treads the earth, or breathes the Where, if the hasty creditor advance, Thro' whose default of duty, or design, [air, Lies the light skiff, and erer-bailing France, These victims fell, he dies.” Do thou defend him in the dog-day suns; They fell by thine. Secure in winter from the rage of duos ! “ Infernal ! -Mine!-by While the grim catchpcle, the grim porter Swear on no pretence : swear, A swearing justice wants both grace and sense. One that he is, and one, he is not there, When thy good father held this wide domain, The tortur'd us'rer, as he murmurs by, The voice of sorrow nerer mourn'd in vain. Eyes the Venetian blinds, and heaves a sigha a THE AUTHOR DEPREDATION. O, from each title folly ever took, Abandon'd there with famine, pain and coid, Blood ! Maccarone! Cicisbeo! or Pook! And anguish, she expird-the rest I've told. From each low passion, from each low resort, “Now let me swear-For, by my soul's last The thieving alley, nay, the righteous court, sigh, From Bertie's, Almack's, Arthur's, and the nest That thief shall live, that orerseer shall die." Where Judah's ferrets earth with Charles un- Too late !--- Ilis life the gen’rous robber paid, blest! Lost by that pity which his steps delay'd ! From these and all the garbage of the great, No soul-discerning Mansfield sate to hear, At Honour's, Freedom's, Virtue's call-retreat! No Hertford bore his prayer to mercy's ear; Has the fair vale, where rest, conceal'd in No lib’ral justice first assign'd the jail, flowers, Or urg'd, as Camplin would bave urg'd, his tale. Lies in sweet ambush for thy careless hours ; The living object of thy honest rage, The breeze, tbat, balmy fragrapre to infuse, Old in parochial crimes, and steel'd with age, Bathes its soft wing in aromatic dews; [breast, The grave church-warden! unabash'd he bears The stream, to soothe thine ear, to cool thy Weekly to church his book of wicked prayers, That mildly murmurs from its crystal rest ;- And pours, with all the blasphemy of praise, Have these less charms to win, less power to His creeping soul in Sternhold's creeping lays! please, Than haunts of rapine, harbours of disease ? Will no kind slumbers o'er thine eyelids creep, THE COUNTRY JUSTICE. Save where the sullen watchman growls at sleep? PART THE THIRD. Does morn no sweeter, purer breath diffuse, Than streams thro’alleys from the lungs of Jews? To Thomas Smith, M. D. of Wrington, in the And is thy water, pent in putrid wood, county of Somerset, this last of the little Bethesria-like, when troubled only good ? poems, intended to cultivate, in the provin}s it thy passion Linley's roice to hear, cial administration of justice, that humanity And has no mountain-lark detain'd thine ear? by which he is so amiably distinguished, is Song marks alone the tribes of airy wing; gratefully inscribed by his most obliged, most For, trust me, man was never meant to sing : affectionate, and most faithful servant, Is it on Garrick's attitude you doat; Lives not to blemish, but to mend the heart. Superior here the scene in every part! While Gay's bravé robber grieves us for his fate, Here reigns great Nature, and there little art! We hold the harpies of his life in hate. Here let thy life assume a nobler plan, Ingenuous youth, by Nature's voice addrest, To Nature faith!ul, and the friend of man! Finds not the barden'd, but the feeling breast; Unnumber'd objects ask thy honest care, Can form no wish the dire efiects to prove Beside tbe orphan's tear, the widow's pray'r. Of Jawless valour, or of venal love, Far as thy power can save, thy bounty bless, Approves the fundness of the faithful maid, Unnumber'd evils call for thy redress. And mourns a geu'rvus passion unrepaid. Seest tbou afar yon solitary thorn, (torn ? Yet would I praise the pious zeal that sares Whose aged limbs the heati's wild winds bave Imperial London from her world of knaves; While yet to cheer the homeward shepherd's eye, Yet would I count it no inglorious strise A few seem straggling in the ev’oing sky! To scourge the pests of property and lie. Not many suns have hasten'd down the day, Come then, long skill'd in theft's illusive vars, Or blushing moons immers’d in clouds their way, Lord of the clue that threds her mighty maze! Since there a scene, that stain’d their sacred Together let us beat all Giles's Gelds, light, Try what the night-house, what the round-house With horrour stopp'd a felon in his flight; yields, A babe just born that signs of life exprest, Hang when we must, be candid when we please, Lay naked o'er the mother's lifeless breast. But leave no bawd, unlicens'd, at her ease. The pitying robber, conscious that, pursu'd, Say first, of thieves above, or thieves below, He had no time to waste, yet stood and view'd ; What can we order till their haunts we know? To the next cot the trembling irtant bore; Tar from St. James's let your Nimrods stray, And gave a part of what he stole before, But stop and call at Stephen's in their way. Nor known to him the wretches were, nor dear; That ancient victualler, we've been told, of late, He felt as man, and dropp'd a human tear. Has kept bad hours, encourag'd high debate ? Far other treatment she who breathless lay That those without still pelting those within, Found from a viler animal of prey. Have stunu'd the peaceful neighbours with their Worn with long toil on many a painful road, That if you close his private walls invest, (din; That toil increas'd by nature's growing load, 'Tis odds, you meet with some unruly guestWhen er’ning brought the friendly hour of rest, Good Lord, sir John, how would the people stare, And all the inother throng'd about her breast, To see the present and the late loru mayor', The ruffian officer oppos'd her stay, Bow to the majesty of Bow-street chair! i This was written about the year 1776. FILIATION. filastrious chiefs ! can I your haunts pass by, -for them I ask not, hostile to thy sway, Vor give my long-lor'd liberty a sigh? Who calmly on a brother's vitals prey; PRISONS. Yet, gentle power, thy absence I bewail, Here for poor vice, for dark ambition there, When seen the dank, dark regions of a jail ; She scatter'd poison thro' tlie social air. When found alike in chains and night enclos'd, Yet bere, in vain-Oh, had her toil been rain, The thief detected, and the thief suppos'd! When with black wing she swept the western Sure, the fair light and the salubrious air When with low labour, and insidious art, (main ; Each yet-suspected prisoner might sbare. She tore a daughter from her parent's heart ! - To lie, to languish in some dreary cell, Oh, patriots, ever patriots out of place, Some loathed hold, where guilt and horrourdwell, Fair honour's foil, and liberty's disgrace ! Ere yet the truth of seeming facts be tried, With spleen I see your wild illusions spread Ere yet their country's sacred voice decide Thro' the long region of a land misled ; Britain, behold thy citizens expos'd, See commerce sink, see cultivation's charms And blush to think the Gothic age unclos'd! Lost in the rage of anarchy and arms ! And thou, o Ch-m, once a nation's pride, Borne on the brightest wave of glory's tide! Oh, more than Goths, who yet decline to raze Hast thou the parent spurn'd, the erring child That pest of James's puritanic days, With prospects vain to ruin's arms beguil'd ? The savage law 'that barb'rously ordains Hast thou the plans of dire defection prais'd For female virtue lost a felon's paios ! For the poor pleasure of a statue rais'd ? Dooms the poor maiden, as her fate severe, Oh, patriots, ever patriots out of place, To loil and chains a long-enduring year. From Charles quite graceless, up to Grafton's Th' unnatural monarch, to the sex uokind, grace! An owl obscene, in learning's sunshine blind! Where forty-fire once mark'd the dirty door, Councils of pathics, cabinets of tools, And the chain'd knife' invites the paltry whore ; Benches of knares, and parliaments of fools, Tho' far, methinks, the choicest guests are fled, Fanatic fools, that, in those twilight times, And Wilkes and Humphrey number'd with the With wild religion cloak'd the worst of crimes! dead, Ilope we from such a crew, in such a reign, Wilkes, who in death would friendship’s vows For equal laws, or policy humane? fulfil, Here, then, O Justice! thy own power forbear; True to his cause, and dines with Humphrey The sole protector of th' uppitied fair. still Tho'long entreat the ruthless overseer; Where sculks each dark, where roams each Thoʻthe loud vestry tease thy tortur'd ear; desp'rate wight, Tho' all to acts, to precedents appeal, Owls of the day and vultures of the night, Mute be thy pen, and vacant rest thy seal. Shall we, O Knight, with cruel pains explore, Yet shalt thou know, nor is the diff'rence nice, Clear these low walks, and think the bus'ness The casual fall, from impudence of vice. o'er? Abandon'd guilt by active laws restrain, No-much, alas ! for you, for me remains, But pause ..... if virtue's slightest spark reWhere Justice sleeps, and Depredation reigns. main. Wrapt in kind darkness, you no spleen betray, Left to the shameless lash, the harduing jail, When the gilt Nabob lacqueys all the way : The fairest thoughts of modesty would fail. Harmless to you bis towers, his forests rise, The down-cast eye, the tear that flows amain, That swell with anguish my indignant eyes ; As if to ask her innocence again ; While in those towers raz'd villages I see, The plaintive babe, that slumb'ring seem'd to lie And tears of orphans watering every tree. On her soft breast, and wakes at the heav'd sigh; Are these mock-ruins that invade my view ? The cheek that wears the beauteous robe of These are the entrails of the poor Gentoo. shame; That column's tropbied base his hones supply ; How loth they leave a gentle breast to blame! That lake the tears that swell’d his sable eye! Here, then, O Justice! thy own power for- Oh, Mercy ! thron'd on His eternal breast, THE ORIGIN OF THE VEIL. WARM from this heart while flows the faithful line, When on his works was written“ These must die;" The meanest friend of beauty shall be mine. If secret slaughter yet, nor cruel war What Love, or Fame, or Fortune could bestow, Have from these mortal regions forc'd thee far, The charm of praise, the ease of life, I owe Still to our follies, to our frailties blind, To beauty present, or to beauty fled, Oh, stretch thy healing wings o'er human kind! To Hertford living, or Caernarvon dead, · Chain’d to the table, to prevent depredations. 17 Jac, c. 4. bear ; |
