'Tis manly musick, such as martyrs make, 775 Suff'ring with gladness for a Saviour's sake; 780 Unnumber'd pleasures harmlessly pursu'd ; 785 To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil; To give dissimilar, yet fruitful lands, The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands; To cherish virtue in an humble state, And share the joys your bounty may create; 790 To mark the matchless workings of the pow'r, That shuts within its seed the future flow'r, In colour these, and those delight the smell Feebly and vainly at poetick fame,) Employs, shut out from more important views, 795 800 Content if thus sequester'd I may raise A monitor's though not a poet's praise, And while I teach an art too little known, To close life wisely, may not waste my own 805 THE YEARLY DISTRESS, OR, TITHING TIME AT STOCK, IN ESSEX. Verses addressed to a country clergyman, complaining of the disagreeableness of the day annually appointed for receiving the dues at the parsonage. COME, ponder well, for 'tis no jest, The priest he merry is and blitho, He then is full of frights and fears, For then the farmers come, jog, jog, Along the miry road, Each heart as heavy as a log, To make their payments good. . In sooth, the sorrow of such days Is not to be express'd, When he that takes, and he that pays, Now all unwelcome at his gates And well he may, for well he knows So in they come-cach makes his leg, And not to quit a score. "And how does miss and madam do, "The little boy, and all?" "All tight and well. And how do you "Good Mr. What-d'ye-call?" The dinner comes, and down they sit One wipes his nose upon his sleeve, Yet not to give offence or grieve, Holds up the cloth before. The punch goes round, and they are dull And lumpish still as ever; Like barrels with their bellies full, They only weigh the heavier. At length the busy time begins, The money chinks, down drop their chins, One talks of mildew and of frost, And one of storms of hail, And one of pigs, that he has lost By maggots at the tail. Quoth one," A rarer man than you O why are farmers made so coarse A kick that scarce would move a horse, Then let the boobies stay at home; SONNET ADDRESSED TO HENRY COWPER, ESQ. On his emphatical and interesting delivery of the defence of Warren Hastings, Esq. in the House of Lords. COWPER, whose silver voice, task'd sometimes hard Legends prolix delivers in the cars, (Attentive when thou read'st,) of England's peers, Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward. Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard, Thy gen'rous pow'rs, but silence honour'd thee, Mute as e'er gaz'd on orator or bard. Thou art not voice alone, but hast beside Both heart and head; and couldst with musick sweet Like thy renown'd forefathers, far and wide |