No flock frequents thee now.

Thy popularity, and art become

Thou hast outlived

(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing

Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth.

While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd Of treeship-first a seedling, hid in grass;

Then twig; then sapling; and, as century roll'd
Slow after century, a giant-bulk

Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root
Upheaved above the soil, and sides emboss'd
With prominent wens globose,-till at the last
The rottenness, which time is charged to inflict
On other mighty ones, found also thee.

What exhibitions various hath the world
Witness'd of mutability in all

That we account most durable below!
Change is the diet on which all subsist,
Created changeable, and change at last
Destroys them. Skies uncertain now the heat
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam
Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds,—
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought,
Invigorate by turns the springs of life

In all that live, plant, animal, and man,

And in conclusion mar them.

Nature's threads,

Fine passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,

Delight in agitation, yet sustain,

The force, that agitates, not unimpair'd;

But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause
Of their best tone their dissolution owe.

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth
From almost nullity into a state

Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence,
Slow, into such magnificent decay.

Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly
Could shake thee to the root-and time has been
When tempests could.not. At thy firmest age
Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents,

That might have ribb'd the sides and plank'd the deck
Of some flagg'd admiral; and tortuous arms,

The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present
To the four-quarter'd winds, robust and bold,
Warp'd into tough knee-timber', many a load!
But the axe spared thee. In those thriftier days
Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply
The bottomless demands of contest, waged
For senatorial honours. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away
With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge,
Noiseless, an atom and an atom more
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserved,
Achieved a labour, which had far and wide,
By man perform'd, made all the forest ring.
Embowell'd now, and of thy ancient self
Possessing nought but the scoop'd rind, that seems
An huge throat, calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root,
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd'st
The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite.
Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,

A

quarry of stout spurs, and knotted fangs, Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.

So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Though all the superstructure, by the tooth Pulverized of venality, a shell

Stands now, and semblance only of itself!

Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent them off Long since, and rovers of the forest wild

Some have left

With bow and shaft, have burnt them.
A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy white;

And some, memorial none, where once they grew.
Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth
Proof not contemptible of what she can,
Even where death predominates. The spring
Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force,

Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood,

1 Knee-timber is found in the crooked arms of oak, which, by reason of their distortion, are easily adjusted to the angle formed where the deck and the ship's sides meet.

So much thy juniors, who their birth received
Half a millenium since the date of thine.

But since, although well qualified by age
To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice
May be expected from thee, seated here
On thy distorted root, with hearers none,
Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform
Myself the oracle, and will discourse
In my own ear such matter as I may.

One man alone, the father of us all,
Drew not his life from woman; never gazed,
With mute unconsciousness of what he saw,
On all around him; learn'd not by degrees,
Nor owed articulation to his ear;
But, moulded by his Maker into man
At once, upstood intelligent, survey'd
All creatures, with precision understood
Their purport, uses, properties, assign'd
To each his name significant, and fill'd
With love and wisdom, render'd back to Heaven
In praise harmonious the first air he drew.
He was excused the penalties of dull
Minority. No tutor charged his hand

With the thought-tracing quill, or task'd his mind
With problems. History, not wanted yet,

Lean'd on her elbow, watching Time, whose course,
Eventful, should supply her with a theme.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE,

WHICH THE Author Heard SING ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1792.

WHENCE is it, that amazed I hear

From yonder wither'd spray,

This foremost morn of all the year,

The melody of May?

And why, since thousands would be proud

Of such a favour shown,

Am I selected from the crowd,

To witness it alone?

Sing'st thou, sweet Philomel, to me,
For that I also long

Have practised in the groves like thee,
Though not like thee in song?

Or sing'st thou rather under force
Of some divine command,
Commission'd to presage a course
Of happier days at hand?

Thrice welcome then! for many a long
And joyless year have I,
As thou to-day, put forth my song
Beneath a wintry sky.

But Thee no wintry skies can harm,

Who only need'st to sing,

To make even January charm,

And every season Spring.

LINES

WRITTEN FOR INSERTION IN A COLLECTION OF HANDWRITINGS AND SIGNATURES MADE BY MISS PATTY, SISTER OF HANNAH MORE.

MARCH 6, 1792.

IN vain to live from age to age

While modern bards endeavour,
I write my name in Patty's page,
And gain my point for ever.

W. COWPER.

EPITAPH

ON A FREE BUT TAME REDBREAST, A FAVOURITE OF MISS SALLY HURDIS.

MARCH, 1792.

THESE are not dew-drops, these are tears,

And tears by Sally shed

For absent Robin, who she fears

With too much cause, is dead.

s. c.-6.

T

One morn he came not to her hand
As he was wont to come,

And, on her finger perch'd, to stand
Picking his breakfast-crumb.

Alarm'd she call'd him, and perplext
She sought him, but in vain ;
That day he came not, nor the next,
Nor ever came again.

She therefore raised him here a tomb,
Though where he fell, or how,
None knows, so secret was his doom,
Nor where he moulders now.

Had half a score of coxcombs died,
In social Robin's stead,

Poor Sally's tears had soon been dried,
Or haply never shed.

But Bob was neither rudely bold

Nor spiritlessly tame,

Nor was, like theirs, his bosom cold,

But always in a flame.

SONNET TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ.
APRIL 16, 1792.

THY Country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,
Hears thee by cruel men and impious call'd
Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the enthrall'd
From exile, public sale, and slavery's chain.
Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd,
Fear not lést labour such as thine be vain.

Thou hast achieved a part; hast gain'd the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause;

Hope smiles, joy springs, and though cold caution pause
And weave delay, the better hour is near
That shall remunerate thy toils severe
By peace for Afric, fenced with British laws.
Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love

From all the just on earth, and all the blest above.