gone by! 
And such a nook of blessedness, they say,
Your Sire at length has found; while you, best Child,
Content in his contentment, acquiesce
In patient toils; and in a station less,
Than you might image, when your prospects smiled. 
In your meek virtues there is found a calm,
That on his life’s soft evening sheds a balm.

TO SARAH JAMES OF BEGUILDY

Acrostic

Sleep hath treasures worth retracing: 
Are you not in slumbers pacing
Round your native spot at times,
And seem to hear Beguildy’s chimes? 
Hold the airy vision fast;
Joy is but a dream at last: 
And what was so fugitive,
Memory only makes to live. 
Even from troubles past we borrow
Some thoughts that may lighten sorrow,

Onwards as we pace through life,
Fainting under care or strife,

By the magic of a thought
Every object back is brought
Gayer than it was when real,
Under influence ideal. 
In remembrance as a glass,
Let your happy childhood pass;
Dreaming so in fancy’s spells,
You still shall hear those old church bells.

TO EMMA BUTTON

Acrostic

EMMA, eldest of your name,
Meekly trusting in her God
Midst the red-hot plough-shares trod,
And unscorch’d preserved her fame. 
By that test if you were tried,
Ugly flames might be defied;
Though devouring fire’s a glutton,
Through the trial you might go
“On the light fantastic toe,”
Nor for plough-shares care a BUTTON.

WRITTEN UPON THE COVER OF A BLOTTING BOOK

Blank tho’ I be, within you’ll find
Relics of th’ enraptured mind: 
Where truth and fable, mirth and wit,
Are safely here deposited. 
The placid, furious, envious, wise,
Impart to me their secresies;
Here hidden thoughts in blotted line
Nor sybil can the sense divine;
Lethe and I twin sisters be—­
Then, stranger, open me and see.

* * * * *

POLITICAL AND OTHER EPIGRAMS

TO SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH

(1801)

Though thou’rt like Judas, an apostate black,
In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack: 
When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf,
He went away, and wisely hanged himself. 
This thou may’st do at last; yet much I doubt,
If thou hast any bowels to gush out!

* * * * *

TWELFTH NIGHT

Characters That Might Have Been Drawn on the Above Evening

(1802)

MR. A[DDINGTON]

I put my night-cap on my head,
And went, as usual, to my bed;
And, most surprising to relate,
I woke—­a Minister of State!

MESSRS.  C[ANNIN]G AND F[RER]E