THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS. SAINT PERAY. WHEN to any saint I pray, On the Atlantic faint and sick, Next in pleasant Normandie, All the ancient kings repose; Worn with travel, tired and lame, Sad and full of homesick fancies, But in Provence, near Vaucluse, saint Gifted with a wondrous juice, - Potent for the worst complaint. In my wanderings, vague and vari ous, Reaching Naples — as I lay What need had I of quarantine? In Sicily at least a score — With such magic into mine, Rest he gave me, and refection, Softened images of sorrow, Now, why should any almanac But since no day hath been appointed WHITTLING. JOHN PIERPONT. Full rigged, with raking masts, and timbers staunch, And waiting, near the wash-tub, for a launch. Thus, by his genius and his jackknife driven Ere long he'll solve you any problem given; Make any gimcrack, musical or mute, A plough, a couch, an organ, or a flute; Make you a locomotive or a clock, Cut a canal, or build a floatingdock, Or lead forth beauty from a marble block; Make anything, in short, for sea or shore, From a child's rattle to a seventyfour: Make it, said I?-Ay, when he undertakes it, He'll make the thing and the machine that makes it. How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie, How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry; Maggots half-formed in rhyme exactly meet, And learn to crawl upon poetic feet. Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes, And ductile Dullness new meanders takes; There motley images her fancy strike, Figures ill-paired, and similes unlike. She sees a mob of metaphors advance, Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance: How Tragedy and Comedy embrace; How Farce and Epic get a jumbled Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers; Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen, There painted valleys of eternal green, In cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow. All these, and more, the cloudcompelling queen Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene: She, tinselled o'er in robes of varying lues, With self-applause her wild creation views; Sees momentary monsters rise and fall, And with her own fool's-colors gilds them all. [From The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, The Prologue to the Satires.] AN AUTHOR'S COMPLAINT. SHUT, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead, The Dog-star rages: nay, 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide, By land, by water, they renew the charge, They stop the chariot, and they board the barge; No place is sacred, not the church is free, Even Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me: Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinnertime. Is there a parson much be-mused in beer, A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza, when he should engross? Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, Nine years! cries he, who high in Lulled by soft zephyrs through the Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends, Obliged by hunger, and request of friends: "The piece, you think, is incorrect? Why, take it, I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it." Three things another's modest wishes bound, With desperate charcoal round his My friendship, and a prologue, and darkened walls? All fly to Twick'nam, and in humble strain Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and to my works the cause: Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife And curses wit, and poetry, and ten pound. Pitholeon sends to me: "You know his Grace, I want a patron; ask him for a place." Pitholeon libelled me- "but here's a letter Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better. Dare you refuse him? Curl invites to dine, He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine." Friend to my life! (which did Bless me! a packet. not you prolong, stranger sues, The world had wanted many an idle | A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse." If I dislike it, Furies, death, and rage!" I sit with sad civility, I read If I approve, "Commend it to the stage. There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends, The players and I are, luckily, no friends. Fired that the house reject him, And shame the fools-Your inter- "Not, sir, if you revise it, and re- All my demurs but double his attacks; With honest anguish and an aching | At last he whispers, "Do; and we go You think this cruel ? take it for a rule, No creature smarts so little as a fool. Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break, Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack: Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurled, Thou standest unshook amid a bursting world. Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: Destroy his fib, or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! Of all mad creatures, if the learned AND [From the Rape of the Lock.] now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed, Each silver vase in mystic order laid. First, robed in white the nymph intent adores, With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers. A heavenly image in the glass ap pears, To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears; |