XI. INVITATION TO THE REDBREAST. SWEET bird, whom the winter constrains And seldom another it can To seek a retreat, while he reigns, Who never can seem to intrude, At sight of the first feeble ray, That pierces the clouds of the east, My windows shall show thee a feast. For, taught by experience, I know And shouldst thou, compell'd by a frost, Only pay as thou pay'dst me before. Thus music must needs be confess'd And who on the globe can be found, XII. STRADA'S NIGHTINGALE. THE shepherd touch'd his reed; sweet Philomel Essay'd, and oft essay'd to catch the strain, And treasuring, as on her ear they fell, The numbers, echoed note for note again. The peevish youth, who ne'er had found before And soon (for various was his tuneful store,) She dared the task, and rising, as he rose, With all the force that passion gives, inspired, Return'd the sounds awhile, but, in the close, Exhausted fell, and at his feet expired. Thus strength, not skill, prevail'd. O fatal strife, By thee, poor songstress, playfully begun; And O sad victory, which cost thy life, And he may wish that he had never won! XIII. ODE ON THE DEATH OF A LADY, WHO LIVED one hundRED YEARS, AND DIED ON HER BIRTH-DAY, 1728. ANCIENT dame, how wide and vast, Rounded to an orb at last, All thy multitude of years! We, the herd of human kind, Death's delicious banquet-we Nourish'd but to feed the tomb. Seeds of merciless disease Lurk in all that we enjoy ; And if life o'erleap the bourn, Fast as moons can wax and wane, If a few, (to few 'tis given,) Lingering on this earthly stage, Creep and halt, with steps uneven, To the period of an age, Wherefore live they, but to see Oft was seen, in ages past, All that we with wonder view; Often shall be to the last; Earth produces nothing new. Thee we gratulate; content, Should propitious Heaven design Life for us, as calmly spent, Though but half the length of thine. XIV. THE CAUSE WON. Two neighbours furiously dispute; The pleadings swell. Words still suffice; Defendant thus becomes a name, XV. THE SILK-WORM, THE beams of April, ere it goes, That serves him-till he needs no more! |