But, if the blithe muse will indulge a smile,
Why scowls thy brow, O Bookseller! the while? 
Thy sunk eyes glisten through eclipsing fears,
Fill’d, like Cassandra’s, with prophetic tears: 
With such a visage, withering, woe-begone,
Shrinks the pale poet from the damning dun. 
Come, let us teach each others tears to flow,
Like fasting bards, in fellowship of woe,
When the coy muse puts on coquettish airs,
Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers;
Thy spirit, groaning like th’encumber’d block
Which bears my works, deplores them as dead stock,
Doom’d by these undiscriminating times
To endless sleep, with Della Cruscan rhymes;
Yes, Critics, whisper thee, litigious wretches! 
Oblivion’s hand shall finish all my Sketches. 
But see, my soul such bug-bears has repell’d
With magnanimity unparallel’d! 
Take up the volumes, every care dismiss,
And smile, gruff Gorgon! while I tell thee this: 
Not one shall lie neglected on the shelf,
All shall be sold—­I’ll buy them in myself.

POETIC SKETCHES

ON THE DEATH OF LORD NELSON.

Swift through the land while Fame transported flies,
And shouts triumphant shake the illumin’d skies;
Britannia, bending o’er her dauntless prows,
With laurels thickening round her blazon’d brows,
In joy dejected, sees her triumph crost,
Exults in Victory won, but mourns the Victor lost. 
Immortal Nelson! still with fond amaze,
Thy glorious deeds each British eye surveys,
Beholds thee still, on conquer’d floods afar: 
Fate’s flaming shaft! the thunderbolt of war! 
Hurl’d from thy hands, Britannia’s vengeance roars,
And bloody billows stain the hostile shores;
Thy sacred ire Confed’rate Kingdoms braves
And ’whelms their Navies in Sepulchral waves!

—­Graced with each attribute which Heaven supplies
To Godlike Chiefs:  humane, intrepid, wise;
His Nation’s bulwark, and all Nature’s pride,
The Hero liv’d, and as he liv’d—­he died—­
Transcendent Destiny! how blest the brave
Whose fall his Country’s tears attend, shower’d on his
     trophied grave!

SONNET.

MORNING.

Light as the breeze that hails the infant morn
  The Milkmaid trips, as o’er her arm she slings
  Her cleanly pail, some favorite lay she sings
As sweetly wild, and cheerful, as the horn. 
O happy girl! may never faithless love,
  Or fancied splendor, lead thy steps astray;
  No cares becloud the sunshine of thy day,
Nor want e’er urge thee from thy cot to rove. 
What tho’ thy station dooms thee to be poor,
  And by the hard-earn’d morsel thou art fed;
  Yet sweet content bedecks thy lowly bed,
And health and peace sit smiling at thy door: 
Of these possess’d—­thou hast a gracious meed,
Which Heaven’s high wisdom gives, to make thee rich indeed!