Brown ugly bastards—(Heaven the word forgive,
And the deed punish!)-in his cottage live;
To town if business calls him, there he stays
In sinful pleasures wasting countless days;
Nor doubt the facts, for I can witness call
For every crime, and prove them one and all.”
Here ceased th' informer; Arabella's look Was like a school-boy's puzzled by his book; Intent she cast her eyes upon the floor, Paused-then replied—
"I wish to know no more:
I question not your motive, zeal, or love,
But must decline such dubious points to prove-
All is not true, I judge, for who can guess
Those deeds of darkness men with care suppress?
He brought a slave perhaps to England's coast,
And made her free; it is our country's boast!
And she perchance too grateful-good and ill
Were sown at first, and grow together still;
The colour'd infants on the village green,
What are they more than we have often seen?
Children half-clothed who round their village stray,
In sun or rain, now starved, now beaten, they
Will the dark colour of their fate betray:
Let us in Christian love for all account,
And then behold to what such tales amount."
"His heart is evil," said th' impatient Friend. "My duty bids me try that heart to mend," Replied the virgin-"We may be too nice And lose a soul in our contempt of vice; If false the charge, I then shall show regard For a good man, and be his just reward: And what for virtue can I better do Than to reclaim him, if the charge be true?"
She spoke, nor more her holy work delay'd; 'Twas time to lend an erring mortal aid :
"The noblest way," she judged, "a soul to win, Was with an act of kindness to begin,
To make the sinner sure, and then t' attack the sin."
The sun is in the heavens, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton.-King John.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.
Oh! how this spring of love resembleth
Th' uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all her beauty to the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
And happily I have arrived at last
Unto the wished haven of my bliss.-Taming of the Shrew.
IT is the Soul that sees: the outward eyes
Present the object, but the Mind descries;
And thence delight, disgust, or cool indiff'rence rise:
When minds are joyful, then we look around,
And what is seen is all on fairy ground;
Again they sicken, and on every view
Cast their own dull and melancholy hue;
Or, if absorb'd by their peculiar cares,
The vacant eye on viewless matter glares,
Our feelings still upon our views attend,
And their own natures to the objects lend;
Sorrow and joy are in their influence sure,
Long as the passion reigns th' effects endure;
But love in minds his various changes makes,
And clothes each object with the change he takes ;
His light and shade on every view he throws,
And on each object, what he feels, bestows.
Fair was the morning, and the month was June,
When rose a Lover ;-love awakens soon:
Brief his repose, yet much he dreamt the while
Of that day's meeting, and his Laura's smile;
Fancy and love that name assign'd to her,
Call'd Susan in the parish-register;
And he no more was John-his Laura gave
The name Orlando to her faithful slave.
Bright shone the glory of the rising day,
When the fond traveller took his favourite way;
He mounted gaily, felt his bosom light,
And all he saw was pleasing in his sight.
Ye hours of expectation, quickly fly,
And bring on hours of blest reality;
When I shall Laura see, beside her stand,
Hear her sweet voice, and press her yielded hand."
First o'er a barren heath beside the coast
Orlando rode, and joy began to boast.
"This neat low gorse," said he, "with golden bloom, Delights each sense, is beauty, is perfume; And this gay ling, with all its purple flowers. A man at leisure might admire for hours:
This green-fringed cup-moss has a scarlet tip,
That yields to nothing but my Laura's lip;
And then how fine this herbage! men may say
A heath is barren; nothing is so gay;
Barren or bare to call such charming scene
Argues a mind possess'd by care and spleen."
Onward he went, and fiercer grew the heat,
Dust rose in clouds before the horse's feet;
For now he pass'd through lanes of burning sand,
Bounds to thin crops or yet uncultured land ;
Where the dark poppy flourish'd on the dry
And sterile soil, and mock'd the thin-set rye.
"How lovely this !" the rapt Orlando said; "With what delight is labouring man repaid! The very lane has sweets that all admire,
The rambling suckling, and the vigorous brier;
See! wholesome wormwood grows beside the way,
Where dew-press'd yet the dog-rose bends the spray;
Fresh herbs the fields, fair shrubs the banks adorn,
And snow-white bloom falls flaky from the thorn;
No fostering hand they need, no sheltering wall,
They spring uncultured, and they bloom for all."
The lover rode as hasty lovers ride,
And reach'd a common pasture wild and wide;
Small black-legg'd sheep devour with hunger keen
The meagre herbage, fleshless, lank, and lean :
Such o'er thy level turf, Newmarket! stray,
And there, with other black-legs, find their prey:
He saw some scatter'd hovels; turf was piled
In square brown stacks; a prospect bleak and wild!
A mill, indeed, was in the centre found,
With short sear herbage withering all around;
A smith's black shed opposed a wright's long shop,
And join'd an inn where humble travellers stop.
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