VI

        Compared with thee,
        What are the labours of that Jumping Sect,
        Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect? 
        Thou dost not bump,
        Or jump,
        But walk men into virtue; betwixt crime
        And slow repentance giving breathing time,
        And leisure to be good;
        Instructing with discretion demi-reps
        How to direct their steps.

VII

        Thou best Philosopher made out of wood! 
        Not that which framed the tub,
        Where sate the Cynic cub,
        With nothing in his bosom sympathetic;
        But from those groves derived, I deem,
        Where Plato nursed his dream
        Of immortality;
        Seeing that clearly
        Thy system all is merely
        Peripatetic. 
        Thou to thy pupils dost such lessons give
        Of how to live
        With temperance, sobriety, morality,
        (A new art,)
        That from thy school, by force of virtuous deeds,
        Each Tyro now proceeds
        A “Walking Stewart!”

EPICEDIUM

GOING OR GONE

(1827)

I

Fine merry franions,
Wanton companions,
My days are ev’n banyans
With thinking upon ye;
How Death, that last stinger,
Finis-writer, end-bringer,
Has laid his chill finger,
Or is laying on ye.

II

There’s rich Kitty Wheatley,
With footing it featly
That took me completely,
She sleeps in the Kirk House;
And poor Polly Perkin,
Whose Dad was still firking
The jolly ale firkin,
She’s gone to the Work-house;

III

Fine Gard’ner, Ben Carter
(In ten counties no smarter)
Has ta’en his departure
For Proserpine’s orchards;
And Lily, postillion,
With cheeks of vermilion,
Is one of a million
That fill up the church-yards;

IV

And, lusty as Dido,
Fat Clemitson’s widow
Flits now a small shadow
By Stygian hid ford;
And good Master Clapton
Has thirty years nap’t on
The ground he last hap’t on,
Intomb’d by fair Widford;

V

And gallant Tom Dockwra,
Of nature’s finest crockery,
Now but thin air and mockery,
Lurks by Avernus,
Whose honest grasp of hand
Still, while his life did stand,
At friend’s or foe’s command,
Almost did burn us.

VI

Roger de Coverley
Not more good man than he;
Yet has he equally
Push’d for Cocytus,
With drivelling Worral,
And wicked old Dorrell,
’Gainst whom I’ve a quarrel,
Whose end might affright us!—­

VII

Kindly hearts have I known;
Kindly hearts, they are flown;
Here and there if but one
Linger yet uneffaced,
Imbecile tottering elves,
Soon to be wreck’d on shelves,
These scarce are half themselves,
With age and care crazed.