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Th' enormous antlers here recal the day
That saw the forest monarch forc'd away;
Who, many a flood, and many a mountain past,
Not finding those, nor deeming these the last,
O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepar'd to fly,
Long ere the death-drop fill'd his failing eye!

Here fam'd for cunning, and in crimes grown old,
Hangs his gray brush, the felon of the fold.
Oft as the rent-feast swells the midnight cheer,
The maudlin farmer kens him o'er his beer,
And tells his old, traditionary tale,

Though known to ev'ry tenant of the vale.

Here, where of old the festal ox has fed,

Mark'd with his weight, the mighty horns are spread!

Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine,
Where the vast master with the vast sirloin
Vied in round magnitude-Respect I bear
To thee, though oft the ruin of the chair.

These, and such antique tokens that record
The manly spirit, and the bounteous board,
Me more delight than all the gewgaw train,
The whims and zigzags of a modern brain,
More than all Asia's marmosets to view,
Grin, frisk, and water in the walks of Kew.

Through these fair valleys, stranger, hast thou stray'd,

By any chance, to visit Harewood's shade,
And seen with honest, antiquated air,
In the plain hall the magistratial chair?

There Herbert sat-The love of human kind,
Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind,
In the free eye the featur'd soul display'd,
Honour's strong beam, and Mercy's melting shade:
Justice that, in the rigid paths of law,

Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw,
Bend o'er her urn with many a gen'rous fear,
Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear;
Fair equity, and reason scorning art,

And all the sober virtues of the heart-
These sat with Herbert, these shall best avail
Where statutes order, or where statutes fail.

Be this, ye rural magistrates, your plan:
Firm be your justice, but be friends to man.
He whom the mighty master of this ball
We fondly deem, or farcically call,

To own the patriarch's truth, however loth,
Holds but a mansion crush'd before the moth.
Frail in his genius, in his heart too frail,
Born but to err, and erring to bewail,
Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore,
And give to life one human weakness more?

Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed;
Still mark the strong temptation and the need:
On pressing want, on famine's powerful call,
At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

For him, who, lost to ev'ry hope of life, Has long with fortune held unequal strife, Known to no human love, no human care, The friendless, homeless object of despair

VOL. V.

BB

For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains,
Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.
Alike, if folly or misfortune brought

Those last of woes his evil days have wrought;
Believe with social mercy and with me,
Folly's misfortune in the first degree.
Perhaps on some inhospitable shore

The houseless wretch a widow'd parent bore;
Who then, no more by golden prospects led,
Of the poor Indian begg'd a leafy bed.
Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourn'd her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears!

GYPSIES.

FROM THE SAME.

THE gypsy-race my pity rarely move;
Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love.
Not Wilkes, our Freedom's holy martyr, more ;
Nor his firm phalanx of the common shore.
For this in Norwood's patrimonial groves
The tawny father with his offspring roves;
When summer suns lead slow the sultry day,
In mossy caves, where welling waters play,

Fann'd by each gale that cools the fervid sky,
With this in ragged luxury they lie.

Oft at the sun the dusky Elfins strain
The sable eye, then snugging, sleep again;
Oft as the dews of cooler evening fall,
For their prophetic mother's mantle call.
Far other cares that wand'ring mother wait,
The mouth, and oft the minister of fate!
From her to hear, in ev'ning's friendly shade,
Of future fortune, flies the village-maid,
Draws her long-hoarded copper from its hold,
And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold.

But, ah! ye maids, beware the gypsy's lures! She opens not the womb of time, but yours. Oft has her hands the hapless Marian wrung, Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung! The parson's maid-sore cause had she to rue The gypsy's tongue; the parson's daughter too. Long had that anxious daughter sigh'd to know What Vellum's sprucy clerk, the valley's beau, Meant by those glances which at church he stole, Her father nodding to the psalm's slow drawl; Long had she sigh'd; at length a prophet came, By many a sure prediction known to fame, To Marian known, and all she told, for true: She knew the future, for the past she knew.

FROM THE SAME.

PART II.

Appeal for the industrious Poor-Rapacity of Clerks and Overseers Scene of actual misery, which the Author had witnessed.

BUT still, forgot the grandeur of thy reign,
Descend to duties meaner crowns disdain;
That worst excrescency of power forego,
That pride of kings, humanity's first foe.

Let age no longer toil with feeble strife,
Worn by long service in the war of life;
Nor leave the head, that time hath whiten'd, bare
To the rude insults of the searching air;

Nor bid the knee, by labour harden'd, bend,

O thou, the poor man's hope, the poor man's friend!
If, when from heav'n severer seasons fall,
Fled from the frozen roof and mouldering wall,
Each face the picture of a winter day,

More strong than Teniers' pencil could pourtray;
If then to thee resort the shivering train,
Of cruel days, and cruel man complain,
Say to thy heart (remembering him who said)
"These people come from far, and have no bread.'
Nor leave thy venal clerk empower'd to hear;
The voice of want is sacred to thy ear.
He where no fees his sordid pen invite,
Sports with their tears, too indolent to write;
Like the fed monkey in the fable, vain
To hear more helpless animals complain.

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