"And oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear But that's impossible, and cannot beSooner shall this blue ocean melt to air, Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea, Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair! Or think of anything excepting thee; A mind diseased no remedy can physic." (Here the ship gave a lurch and he grew sea-sick.) "Sooner shall heaven kiss earth!" (Here he fell 66 sicker.) Oh, Julia! what is every other woe? (For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor; He felt that chilling heaviness of heart, Or rather stomach, which, alas! attends, Beyond the best apothecary's art, The loss of love, the treachery of friends, Or death of those we dote on, when a part Of us dies with them as each fond hope ends. No doubt he would have been much more pathetic, But the sea acted as a strong emetic. Love's a capricious power: I've known it hold Out through a fever caused by its own heat, But be much puzzled by a cough and cold, Against all noble maladies he's bold, But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet, Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his sigh, Nor inflammations redden his blind eye. But worst of all is nausea, or a pain About the lower region of the bowels; Love, who heroically breathes a vein, Shrinks from the application of hot towels, And purgatives are dangerous to his reign, Sea-sickness death. His love was perfect, how else Could Juan's passion, while the billows roar, Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before? -“Don Juan.” After Swimming the Hellespont IF, in the month of dark December, Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont; If, when the wint'ry tempest roar'd, For me, degenerate, modern wretch, But since he crossed the rapid tide, To woo-and-Lord knows what beside, 'Twere hard to say who fared the best: Sad mortals, thus the gods still plague you! He lost his labour, I my jest; For he was drowned, and I've the ague. Epitaph for Joseph Blackett, Poet and Shoe maker STRANGER! behold, interred together, His works were neat, and often found And if he did, 'twere shame to Black-it." Michael's Call for Witnesses Now Satan turned and waved his swarthy hand, This was a signal unto such damned souls Of worlds past, present, or to come; no station Is theirs particularly in the rolls Of hell assigned; but where their inclination Or business carries them in search of game, They may range freely-being damned the same. They're proud of this-as very well they may, I borrow my comparisons from clay, Being clay myself. Let not those spirits be Offended with such base low likenesses; We know their posts are nobler far than these. When the great signal ran from heaven to hell- From our sun to its earth, as we can tell How much time it takes up, even to a second, For every ray that travels to dispel The fogs of London, through which, dimly beaconed, The weather-cocks are gilt some thrice a year, If that the summer is not too severe I say that I can tell-'twas half a minute: 'Gainst Satan's couriers bound for their own clime. The sun takes up some years for every ray Upon the verge of space, about the size Of half-a-crown, a little speck appeared (I've seen a something like it in the skies In the Ægean, ere a squall); it neared And growing bigger, took another guise; Like an aerial ship it tacked, and steered, Or was steered (I am doubtful of the grammar Of the last phrase, which makes the stanza stammer— But take your choice); and then it grew a cloud; And so it was-a cloud of witnesses. But such a cloud! No land e'er saw a crowd Of locusts numerous as the heavens saw these; |