thing!

That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's
Ring!'

The poor little Jackdaw, when the monks
he saw,

Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;
And turned his bald head as much as to say:
'Pray, be so good as to walk this way!'

Slower and slower, he limped on before,
Till they came to the back of the belfry door,
Where the first thing they saw, 'midst the
sticks and the straw,

100 Was the RING in the nest of that little Jackdaw!

Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book, And off that terrible curse he took;

The mute expression, served in lieu of confession,

And, being thus coupled with full restitution, The Jackdaw got plenary absolution!

Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really
absurd,

He grew sleek and fat; in addition to
that,

A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!
His tail waggled more even now than 110
before;

But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,
No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair;
He hopped now about, with a gait
devout;

At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out;
And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads.
If any one lied,-or if any one swore,-
Or slumbered in prayer-time and happened to

Quis ineptae

Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se?'-Juv. THOUGH grief and fondness in my breast rebel

When injured Thales bids the town farewell, Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend;

I praise the hermit, but regret the friend; Who now resolves, from vice and London far, To breathe in distant fields a purer air;

And fixed on Cambria's solitary shore,
Give to St David one true Briton more.
For who would leave, unbribed, Hibernia's
land,

Or change the rocks of Scotland for the
Strand?

There, none are swept by sudden fate away,
But all whom hunger spares, with age decay;
Here, malice, rapine, accident, conspire,
And now a rabble rages, now a fire;

10

Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay,
And here the fell attorney prowls for prey;
Here falling houses thunder on your head,
And here a female atheist talks you dead.
While Thales waits the wherry that contains
Of dissipated wealth the small remains,
On Thames's banks in silent thought we stood,
Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver
flood;

A transient calm the happy scenes bestow,
And for a moment lull the sense of woe.
At length awaking, with contemptuous frown,
Indignant Thales eyes the neighbouring town.
Since worth, he cries, in these degenerate days
Wants e'en the cheap reward of empty praise;
In those cursed walls, devote to vice and gain,
Since unrewarded Science toils in vain;
Since hope but soothes to double my distress,
And ev'ry moment leaves my little less;
While yet my steady steps no staff sustains,
And life, still vigorous, revels in my veins;
Grant me, kind Heaven, to find some happier
place,

Where honesty and sense are no disgrace;

Some pleasing bank where verdant osiers play,
Some peaceful vale with nature's painting gay,
Where once the harassed Briton found repose,
And safe in poverty defied his foes;
[Some secret cell, ye pow'rs indulgent, give;
Let live here, for - has learned to live.]

The cheated nation's happy favourites see! Mark whom the great caress, who frown on me!

London, the needy villain's general home,
The common shore of Paris and of Rome,
With eager thirst, by folly or by fate,
Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
Forgive my transports on a theme like this,
I cannot bear a French metropolis.

All that at home no more can beg or steal,
Or like a gibbet better than a wheel;
Ilissed from the stage, or hooted from the

court,

Their air, their dress, their politics import;
Obsequious, artful, voluble, and gay,
On Britain's fond credulity they prey.

All sciences a fasting Monsieur knows,
And bid him go to hell, to hell he goes.

Studious to please, and ready to submit,
The subtle Gaul was born a parasite:
Still to his interest true where'er he goes,
Wit, bravery, worth, his lavish tongue bestows;
In every face a thousand graces shine,
From every tongue flows harmony divine.
These arts in vain our rugged natives try,
Strain out, with falt'ring diffidence, a lie,
And gain a kick for awkward flattery.

For arts like these preferred, admired,

caressed,

They first invade your table, then your breast;
Explore your secrets with insidious art,
Watch the weak hour, and ransack all the heart;
Then soon your ill-placed confidence repay,
Commence your lords, and govern or betray.

By numbers here from shame and censure free,
All crimes are safe but hated poverty.
This, only this, the rigid law pursues,
This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.

Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, No pathless waste or undiscovered shore? No secret island in the boundless main? No peaceful desert yet unclaimed by Spain? Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, And bear oppression's insolence no more. This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.

[Couldst thou resign the Park and play,

content,

For the fair banks of Severn or of Trent; There mightst thou find some elegant retreat, Some hireling senator's deserted seat;

And stretch thy prospects o'er the smiling land, For less than rent the dungeons of the Strand; There prune thy walks, support thy drooping flowers,

Direct thy rivulets, and twine thy bowers;

There every bush with nature's music rings, There every breeze bears health upon its wings; On all thy hours security shall smile,

And bless thine evening walk and morning toil.]

Scarce can our fields-such crowds at

No spies were paid, no special juries known, Blest age! but ah! how different from our own! Much could I add-but see, the boat at hand, The tide retiring, calls me from the land: Farewell!-When youth, and health, and fortune spent,

Thou fliest for refuge to the wilds of Kent; And tired like me with follies and with crimes, In angry numbers warn'st succeeding times; Then shall thy friend-nor thou refuse his aidStill foe to vice, forsake his Cambrian shade; In virtue's cause once more exert his rage, Thy satire point, and animate thy page.

LET Observation, with extensive view,

Survey mankind from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,
Where wavering man, (betrayed by venturous
pride

To tread the dreary paths without a guide)
As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude,
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good :

How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice, Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice!

How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed!
When vengeance listens to the fool's request.
Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart,
Each gift of nature, and each grace of art,
With fatal heat impetuous courage glows,
With fatal sweetness elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the speaker's powerful
breath,

And restless fire precipitates on death.

But, scarce observed, the knowing and the bold Fall in the general massacre of gold; Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfined, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind; For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws, For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws; Wealth heaped on wealth nor truth nor safety buys,

The dangers gather as the treasures rise.

Unnumbered suppliants crowd Preferment's
gate,

Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great;
Delusive Fortune hears the incessant call,
They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall.
On every stage, the foes of peace attend,
Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their
end.

Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman's door

Pours in the morning worshipper no more;
[For growing names the weekly scribbler lies,
To growing wealth the dedicator flies;

From every room descends the painted face,
That hung the bright palladium of the place,
And smoked in kitchens, or in auctions sold,
To better features yields the frame of gold;
For now no more we trace in every line
Heroic worth, benevolence divine;
The form distorted justifies the fall,
And detestation rids the indignant wall.

But will not Britain hear the last appeal, Sign her foes' doom, or guard her favourites' zeal?

In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand, Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand: To him the church, the realm, their powers consign;

Through him the rays of regal bounty shine; Turned by his nod the stream of honour flows, His smile alone security bestows:

Still to new heights his restless wishes tower; Claim leads to claim, and power advances power:

Till conquest unresisted ceased to please,
And rights submitted left him none to seize.
At length his sovereign frowns-the train of

state

Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate:

Where'er he turns he meets a stranger's eye, His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly;

Now drops at once the pride of awful state,
The golden canopy, the glittering plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liveried army, and the menial lord.
With age, with cares, with maladies oppressed,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest.
Grief aids disease, remembered folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings.

[What gave great Villiers to the assassin's

knife?

And fixed disease on Harley's closing life?
What murdered Wentworth, and what exiled
Hyde,

By kings protected, and to kings allied?
What, but their wish indulged in courts to shine,
And power too great to keep, or to resign!]

On what foundations stands the warrior's pride,

How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide;
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,

No dangers fright him, and no labours tire;
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain!
No joys to him pacific sceptres yield,
War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
Behold surrounding kings their power combine,
And one capitulate, and one resign;

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;

'Think nothing gained,' he cries, 'till nought remain,

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, And all be mine beneath the polar sky!' The march begins in military state, And nations on his eye suspended wait; Stern Famine guards the solitary coast, 100 And Winter barricades the realms of frost; He comes! nor want, nor cold, his course delay;

Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day!

The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands;
Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.

But did not Chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,

A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;

He left the name, at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

IO

20

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these

ways

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For silliest ignorance on these would light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes

right;

Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our
stage!

My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
[That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great but disproportioned Muses:
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.]
And though thou hadst small Latin and less
Greek,

30

From thence to honour thee I will not seek

Triumph, my Britain! thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury, to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
[The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of nature's family.]
Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made as well as born.

And such wert thou! Look how the father's face

Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

In his well turnèd and true filèd lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were 70 To see thee in our water yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames

That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night,

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!

No! those days are gone away And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years: Many times have Winter's shears, Frozen North, and chilling East, Sounded tempests to the feast Of the forest's whispering fleeces, Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill

Past the heath and up the hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where long Echo gives the half
To some wight, amazed to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June
You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold;
Never one, of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair hostess Merriment,
Down beside the pasture Trent;
For he left the merry tale,
Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone, the merry morris' din; Gone, the song of Gamelyn; Gone, the tough-belted outlaw Idling in the 'grené shawe'; All are gone away and past! And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his tufted grave, And if Marian should have Once again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks, Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her-strange! that honey Can't be got without hard money!

So it is; yet let us sing Honour to the old bow-string! Honour to the bugle-horn! Honour to the woods unshorn! Honour to the Lincoln green! Honour to the archer keen! Honour to tight Little John, And the horse he rode upon! Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood! Honour to Maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan! Though their days have hurried by Let us two a burden try.