AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED WORM-POWDER,
How
ow much, egregious Moore, are we
Deceiv'd by fhews and forms!
Whate'er we think, whate'er we fee,
All Humankind are Worms,
Man is a very Worm by birth,
Vile, reptile, weak and vain!
A while he crawls upon the earth,
Then shrinks to earth again.
That Woman is a Worm, we find
E'er fince our Grandame's evil; She first convers'd with her own kind, That ancient Worm, the Devil.
The Learn'd themselves we Book-worms name,
The Blockhead is a Slow-worm;
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The Nymph whofe tail is all on flame,
Is aptly term'd a Glow-worm.
The Fops are painted Butterflies,
That flutter for a day;
First from a Worm they take their rise,
And in a Worm decay.
Z 3
The Flatterer an Earwig grows;
Thus Worms fuit all conditions; Mifers are Muck-worms, Silk-worms Beaus, And Death-watches Physicians.
That Statesmen have the Worm, is seen,
By all their winding play;
Their Conscience is a Worm within,
That gnaws them night and day.
Ah Moore! thy fkill were well employ'd,
And greater gain would rife,
If thou couldst make the Courtier void
The worm that never dies!
O learned Friend of Abchurch-Lane,
Who fett'ft our entrails free!
Vain is thy Art, thy Powder vain,
Since Worms fhall eat ev'n thee.
Our Fate thou only canst adjourn
Some few short years, no more!
Ev'n Button's Wits to Worms fhall turn,
Who Maggots were before.
BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1733.
I.
FLUTT'RING fpread thy purple Pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a Slave in thy Dominions;
Nature must give Way to Art.
II.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your Flocks,
See my weary Days confuming,
All beneath yon flow'ry Rocks.
III.
Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling Youth:
Him the Boar, in Silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting Tooth.
IV.
Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers;
Fair Difcretion, ftring the Lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking Slumbers;
Bright Apollo, lend thy Choir.
Z 4
ง.
Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine Chains,
Lead me to the Crystal Mirrors,
Wat'ring foft Elyfian plains.
VI.
Mournful Cypress, verdant Willow, Gilding my Aurelia's Brows, Morpheus hov'ring o'er my Pillow, Hear me pay my dying Vows.
Melancholy fmooth Maeander,
Swiftly purling in a Round,
On thy Margin Lovers wander,
With thy flow'ry Chaplets crown'd,
Thus when Philomela, drooping,
Softly feeks her filent Mate,
See the Bird of Juno stooping;
Melody refigns to Fate.
THE above is a pleasant burlesque on the gawdy, glittering, florid style and manner of certain defcriptive poets. I think the reader will pardon me for laying before him part of a piece of ridicule on the fame fubject, and of equal merit, which made its first appearance many years ago in the Oxford Student, and is thus entitled, "Ode to Horror, in the Allegoric, Descriptive, Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantaftic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style of our Modern OdeWriters and Monody-Mongers."
"Ferreus ingruit Horror."
"O Goddess of the gloomy fcene,
Of shadowy shapes, thou black-brow'd Queen ;
Thy treffes dark with ivy crown'd,
On yonder mould'ring abbey found;
Oft wont from charnels damp and dim,
To call the sheeted spectre grim,
While as his loose chains loudly clink,
Thou add'ft a length to ev'ry link:
O thou, that lov'ft at eve to feek
The penfive-pacing pilgrim meek,
And fett'ft before his fhudd'ring eyes
Strange forms, and fiends of giant-fize,
As wildly works thy wizzard will,
Till fear-ftruck fancy has her fill:
Dark pow'r, whofe magic-might prevails
O'er hermit-rocks and fairy-vales;
O Goddess, erft by Spenfer view'd,
What time th' Enchanter vile embru'd
His hands in Florimel's
pure heart,
Till loos'd by fteel-clad Britomart:
O thou that erft on fancy's wing
Didft terror-trembling Taffo bring,
To groves where kept damn'd Furies dire
Their blue-tipt battlements of fire;
Thou that thro' many a darksome pine,
O'er the rugged rock recline,
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