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EPITAPH FOR A YOUNG LADY

Youth, cheerfulness, and health, gave up their reign,

To all the bitterness of mortal pain.

Unshaken fortitude possess’d her mind,

And sense grew bright as beauty’s rose declined.

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[WINE, beauty, smiles, and social mirth]

Wine, beauty, smiles, and social mirth,

Right welcome to the table;

These!—every mother’s son of earth

Will honour!—while he’s able.

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FRAGMENT

’Twas when the abbey rear’d its spires,

Where good St. Edmund buried lies,

A cloister’d maid, with holy fires,

Subdued Love’s rebel tears and sighs.

At times subdued, at times she wept, 5

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THE FLOWERS OF THE MEAD

How much to be wish’d that the flowers of the mead

The pleasures of converse could yield;

And be to our bosoms, wherever we tread,

The reasoning sweets of the field!

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CHARITY

In moorland cot—or hovel by the road,

Rest the poor Peasant and his shiv’ring boy,

—And theirs we deem Contentment’s blest abode,

Where Fancy riots in ideal joy!—

Shall this bar charity—when spare and thin5

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HAPPINESS OF GLEANERS

⁽¹⁾

For the full text of the poem, which dates from 1786, see ‘An Harvest Scene’.

—Welcome the cot’s

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THE SOLDIER’S RETURN

⁽¹⁾

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HOB’S EPITAPH

A Grey-owl was I when on earth;

My master, a wondrous wise-man,

Found out my deserts and my worth,

And would needs have me bred an exciseman.

⁽¹⁾

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GOOD NATURE

Much of good nature, grey-beards tell,

And make a great to-do:

I’ve weigh’d their bold assertions well,

And now believe them true.

Let beauty’s bloom improve or fade,5

Wit bring its good or harm,

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THE MAID OF DUNSTABLE

Where o’er the hills, and white as snow,

The channel’d road resounding lies,

And curling from the vale below,

The morning-mists in columns rise;

Blithe at their doors, where glanced the sun,5