ODE TO CHARITY.

TO BE PERFORMED BY THE CHARACTERS OF THE PIECE.

I.

O CHARITY, divinely wise,

Thou meek-ey'd Daughter of the skies!
From the pure fountain of eternal light,
Where fair, immutable, and ever bright,
The Beatific vision shines,

Where Angel with Archangel joins,
In choral songs to sing His praise,
Parent of Life, Ancient of Days,

Who was ere Time existed, and shall be
Through the wide round of vast Eternity,
O come, thy warm celestial beams impart,
Enlarge my feelings and expand my heart!

II.

Descend from radiant realms above,

Thou effluence of that boundless love Whence joy and peace in streams unsullied flow, O deign to make thy lov❜d abode below!

Though sweeter strains adorn'd my tongue Than Saint conceiv'd or Seraph sung, And though my glowing fancy caught Whatever Art or Nature taught, Yet if this hard unfeeling heart of mine Ne'er felt thy force, O Charity divine! An empty shadow Science would be found: My knowledge ignorance, my wit a sound.

III.

Though my prophetic spirit knew
To bring futurity to view,
Without thy aid e'en this would nought avail,
For Tongues shall cease, and Prophecies shall fail.
Come, then, thou sweet immortal guest,
Shed thy soft influence o'er my breast,
Bring with thee Faith, divinely bright,
And Hope, fair harbinger of light,

To clear each mist with their pervading ray,
To fit my soul for Heav'n, and point the way;
There perfect Happiness her sway maintains ;
For there the God of Peace for ever reigns.

TOL. L

THE

BAS BLEU:

CONVERSATION.

ADDRESSED TO MES, VESEY.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following trifle owes it birth and name to the mistake of a Foreigner of Distinction, who gave the literal appellation of the Bas-bleu to a small party of friends, who had been often called, by way of pleasantry, the Blue Stockings. These little Societies have been sometimes misrepresented. They were composed of persons distinguished, in general, for their rank, talents, or respectable character, who met frequently at Mrs. Vesey's and at a few other houses, for the sole purpose of conversation, and were different in no respect from other parties, but that the company did not play at cards.

May the Author be permitted to bear her grateful testimony (which will not be suspected of flattery, now that most of the persons named in this Poem are gone down to the grave) to the many pleasant and instructive hours she had the honour to pass in this company; in which learning was as little disfigured by pedantry, good taste as little tinctured by affectation, and general conversation as little disgraced by calumny, levity, and the other censurable errors with which it is too commonly tainted, as has perhaps been known in any society.

THE BAS BLEU:

OR,

CONVERSATION.

VESEY, of Verse the judge and friend,
Awhile my idle strain attend :
Not with the days of early Greece,

I mean to ope my slender piece;
The rare Symposium to proclaim
Which crown'd th' Athenians' social name;
Or how ASPASIA'S parties shone,

The first Bas-bleu at Athens known;
Where SOCRATES unbending sat,
With ALCIBIADES in chat;

And PERICLES vouchsafed to mix
Taste, wit, and mirth, with politics.
Nor need I stop my tale to show,
At least to readers such as you,
How all that Rome esteem'd polite,
Supp'd with LUCULLUS every night;
LUCULLUS, who, from Pontus come,

Brought conquests, and brought cherries home.
Name but the suppers in th' Appollo,

What classic images will follow!

How wit flew round, while each might take

Conchylia from the Lucrine lake ;
And Attic Salt, and Garum Sauce,
And Lettuce from the Isle of Cos;