V.

  Incompetent my song to raise,
  To its just height thy praise,
  Great Mill! 
  That by thy motion proper
  (No thanks to wind, or sail, or working rill),
  Grinding that stubborn corn, the Human will,
  Turn’st out men’s consciences,
  That were begrimed before, as clean and sweet
  As flour from purest wheat,
  Into thy hopper. 
  All reformation short of thee but nonsense is,
  Or human, or divine.

VI.

  Compared with thee,
  What are the labors 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 sat 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!”

* * * * *

GOING OR GONE.

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, postilion,
  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 napt on,
  The ground he last hapt on,
    Entomb’d by fair Widford;

V.