XI. *

DORIS can find no taste in tea,

Green to her drinks like Bohea; Because she makes the tea so small She never tastes the tea at all.

XII.

WHAT? rise again with all one's bones?

Quoth Giles, I hope you fib?

I trusted when I went to Heaven
To go without my rib.

XIII.

ON A BAD SINGER.

SWANS sing before they die-'twere no bad thing

Should certain persons die before they sing.

XIV.

OCCASIONED BY THE LAST.

A JOKE (cries Jack) without a sting—

Post obitum can no man sing.

And true, if Jack don't mend his manners
And quit the atheistic banners,

Post obitum will Jack run foul

Of such folks as can only howl.

XV.

ON A MODERN DRAMATIST.

NOT for the Stage his plays are fit,
But suit the closet, said a wit.

* Morning Post, Nov. 14, 1799.

The closet? said his friend, I ween
The water-closet 'tis you mean.

XVI.

To be ruled like a Frenchman the Briton is loth Yet in truth a direct-tory governs them both.

1798.

XVII.

ON A VERY UGLY WOMAN.

HOW happy for us mortals 'twere

Had Eve been such a woman!
The Devil ne'er had tempted her
And she had tempted no man.

There comes from old Avaro's grave

A deadly stench-why, sure they have Immured his soul within his grave?

Last Monday all the papers said

That Mr.

was dead;

Why, then, what said the city?

The tenth part sadly shook their head,
And shaking sigh'd and sighing said,
“Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!"

But when the said report was found
A rumour wholly without ground,
Why, then, what said the city?
The other nine parts shook their head,
Repeating what the tenth had said,

TO A CRITIC*

WHO QUOTED AN ISOLATED PASSAGE, AND THEN DECLARED IT UNINTELLIGIBLE.

MOST candid critic, what if I,

By way of joke, pluck out your eye,

And holding up the fragment cry,

"Ha! ha! that men such fools should be!
Behold this shapeless mass !—and he
Who own'd it, dreamt that it could see !"
The joke were mighty analytic,

But should you like it, candid critic?

SONG

TO BE SUNG BY THE LOVERS OF ALL THE NOBLE

YE

LIQUORS COMPRISED UNDER THE NAME OF

ALE. †

A.

E drinkers of Stingo and Nappy so free,
Are the Gods on Olympus so happy [as] we?

B.

They cannot be so happy!

For why? they drink no Nappy.

* Originally printed in the Morning Post, Dec. 16, 1801, with the heading, "To a Critic who extracted a passage from a poem without adding a word respecting the context, and then derided it as unintelligible." Reprinted in The Keepsake, 1829, as above, with the author's name.

+ Morning Post, Sept. 18, 1801.

A.

But what if Nectar, in their lingo,
Is but another name for Stingo?

B.

Why, then we and the Gods are equally blest, And Olympus an Ale-house as good as the best!

OF

EPITAPH

ON A BAD MAN.*

F him that in this gorgeous tomb doth lie This sad brief tale is all that Truth can give— He lived like one who never thought to die, He died like one who dared not hope to live!

DRINKING VERSUS THINKING;
OR, A SONG AGAINST THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.†

MY Merry men all, that drink with glee
This fanciful Philosophy,

Pray tell me what good is it?

If antient Nick should come and take
The same across the Stygian Lake,
I guess we ne'er should miss it.

Away, each pale, self-brooding spark
That goes truth-hunting in the dark,
Away from our carousing!

*Morning Post, Sept. 22, 1801.

† Ibid, Sept. 25, 1801.

To Pallas we resign such fowls—
Grave birds of wisdom! ye're but owls,
And all your trade but mousing!

My Merry men all, here's punch and wine,
And spicy bishop, drink divine!

Let's live while we are able.

While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove,
This Don Philosophy we'll shove

Dead drunk beneath the table!

A HINT TO PREMIERS AND FIRST
CONSULS.*

FROM AN OLD TRAGEDY, VIZ. AGATHA TO
KING ARCHELAUS.

THREE truths should make thee often think

and pause;

The first is, that thou govern'st over men ; The second, that thy power is from the laws; And this the third, that thou must die!-and then ?

THE WILLS OF THE WISP.

A SAPPHIC.†

Vix ea nostra voco.

LUNATIC Witch-fires! Ghosts of Light and

Motion !

Fearless I see you weave your wanton dances

*Morning Post, Sept. 27, 1802; Coleridge's "Essays on his own Times," 111. 992.

† Morning Post, December 1, 1801.