ADDRESSED TO LADY HESKETH.
THIS cap, that so stately appears,
With ribbon-bound tassel on high,
Which seems by the crest that it rears
Ambitious of brushing the sky:
This cap to my cousin I owe;
She gave it, and gave me beside,
Wreathed into an elegant bow,
The ribbon with which it is tied.
This wheel-footed studying chair,
Contrived both for toil and repose,
Wide-elbow'd, and wadded with hair,
In which I both scribble and doze,
Bright-studded to dazzle the eyes,
And rival in lustre of that
In which, or Astronomy lies,
Fair Cassiopeïa sat:
These carpets, so soft to the foot,
Caledonia's traffic and pride!
Oh spare them, ye knights of the boot,
Escaped from a cross-country-ride!
This table and mirror within,
Secure from collision and dust,
At which I oft shave cheek and chin, And periwig nicely adjust:
This moveable structure of shelves,
For its beauty admired and its use,
And charged with octavos and twelves,
The gayest I had to produce;
Where, flaming in scarlet and gold,
My poems enchanted I view,
And hope, in due time, to behold
My Iliad and Odyssey too:
This china, that decks the alcove,
Which here people call a boufet,
But what the gods call it above
Has ne'er been reveal'd to us yet:
These curtains, that keep the room warm,
Or cool, as the season demands,
Those stoves, that for pattern and form,
Seem the labour of Mulciber's hands:
All these are not half that I owe
To one, from our earliest youth
To me ever ready to show
Benignity, friendship, and truth;
For Time, the destroyer, declared,
And foe of our perishing kind,
If even her face he has spared,
Much less could he alter her mind.
Thus compass'd about with the goods
And chattels of leisure and ease,
I indulge my poetical moods
In many such fancies as these ;
And fancies I fear they will seemPoets' goods are not often so fine; The poets will swear that I dream, When I sing of the splendour of mine.
TO MY COUSIN,
ANNE BODHAM,
RECEIVING FROM HER A NETWORK PURSE, MADE BY HERSELF.
My gentle Anne, whom heretofore,
When I was young, and thou no more
Than plaything for a nurse,
I danced and fondled on my knee,
A kitten both in size and glee,
I thank thee for my purse.
Gold pays the worth of all things here;
But not of love;-that gem 's too dear
For richest rogues to win it;
I, therefore, as a proof of love,
Esteem thy present far above
The best things kept within it.
On her kind Present to the Author, a Patch-work Counterpane of her own making.
THE Bard, if e'er he feel at all,
Must sure be quicken'd by a call
Both on his heart and head,
To pay with tuneful thanks the care
And kindness of a lady fair
Who deigns to deck his bed.
A bed like this, in ancient time,
On Ida's barren top sublime,
(As Homer's epic shows,)
Composed of sweetest vernal flowers,
Without the aid of sun or showers,
For Jove and Juno rose.
Less beautiful, however gay,
Is that which in the scorching day
Receives the weary swain,
Who, laying his long scythe aside,
Sleeps on some bank with daisies pied,
Till roused to toil again.
What labours of the loom I see!
Looms numberless have groan'd for me!
Should every maiden come
To scramble for the patch that bears
The impress of the robe she wears,
'The bell would toll for some.
And oh, what havoc would ensue !
This bright display of every hue
All in a moment fled!
As if a storm should strip the bowers
Of all their tendrils, leaves, and flowers-
Each pocketing a shred.
Thanks, then, to every gentle fair,
Who will not come to peck me bare
As bird of borrow'd feather,
And thanks to one, above them all,
The gentle fair of Pertenhall,
Who put the whole together,
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