THE CHOICE.

In rural scenes, in sylvan shades,

Near purling brooks and silent glades,

Meand’ring streams and flow’ry fields,

Where Nature all her fragrance yields.

There would I wish to spend my days,

And with the songsters of the grove,

Chaunt forth the Great Creator’s praise,

As o’er the dewy meads I rove.

Or traversing the verdant lawn,

At humid morning’s earliest dawn,

Would contemplate the landscape o’er,

And the great Architect adore.

Or in a grotto art ne’er made,

While resting underneath its shade,

Would pleas’d behold bright Phœbus rise,

And take his station in the skies.

While aromatic shrubs display

Their sweets beneath his brilliant ray,

And downy warblers soar aloft,

And hail the morn in accents soft;

I too would join the matin song,

While echo bore the strains along,

And distant hills should catch the sound,

And balmy zephyrs waft it round.

The lambkin striking o’er the plain,

The cultur’d fields well stor’d with grain,

The blooming meadows, fresh and gay,

With pleas’d delight I would survey.

Far from the pomp of worldly glare,

Contented in my humble sphere,

I’d envy not the rich and great,

Their glitt’ring gems or rooms of state.

Economy should grace my cot—

Ingratitude—I’d know it not;

But of the little I’d possess,

Would share with virtue in distress.

Religion, ever blooming maid,

Through grace divine should be my aid;

Should teach my thoughts to mount on high,

And smooth my journey to the sky.

And when the eve of life drew on,

Nought to becloud my setting sun,

But conscious of a life well spent,

To God resign the breath he lent.

REBECCA.

On a Gentleman who expended his Fortune
in Horse-Racing.

John ran so long, and ran so fast,

No wonder he ran out at last;

He ran in debt, and then, to pay,

He distanc’d all—and ran away.

ELEGY
ON A GREY SQUIRREL,

BARBAROUSLY MURDERED BY A CAT, JUNE 17th, 1783.

Longum, formose, vale, vale.—Virgil.

Melpomene, thou mournful muse,

A serious vein of grief infuse,

A vein that suits with Death:

Seiz’d by Grimalkin’s savage claws,

Beneath her unrelenting jaws,

Poor Bun resigns his breath.

Bun, the most hopeful of the brood,

Left the wild pastimes of the wood,

To dwell with social man;

Sooth’d by their kind and tender care,

He soon prefer’d his novel fare

To Nature’s ruder plan.

Fed by his master’s faithful hand,

Obedient to his mild command,

The harmless rogue would move:

In my fond bosom laid his head,

At night repos’d upon my bed,

And stole upon my love.

Amidst the studies of the day,

Bun by my side in sportive play,

Indulg’d his native glee:

Or on my knee would sober sit,

In a still meditative fit,

To ruminate with me.

At early morn and eve serene,

Bun by my side was constant seen,

T’ enjoy the healthful walk;

In livelier mood would round me play,

T’ encrease the pleasures of the way,

And seem’d to wish to talk.

The village boys all pleas’d with Bun,

Left their dear sport and eager run,

To see his nimble play:

The lasses all complacent smil’d,

While he with lively sport beguil’d,

Slow pacing time away.

But these calm pleasures all are flown,

Thy play, thy sports forever done,

Thy active spirit fled:

Ceas’d as to thee, my daily care,

Fix’d are thine eyes in one still glare,

For thou poor Bun art dead.

To Fancy’s view thy strugglings rise,

Methinks I hear thy piteous cries,

Thy unavailing moans:

Soft Pity’s tear bedews the eye,

To see thy mangled body lye,

And view thy scatter’d bones.

Come ye young train, who lov’d his play,

Your last sad tribute kindly pay,

All mourning at his doom:

His shatter’d limbs with care compose,

His eyes with kind attention close,

And bear him to his tomb.

Come ye his brethren from the grove,

In slow and solemn order move

Along the silent plain;

Fearless his breathless corpse surround;

Sweep your long tails upon the ground,

In melancholy train.

By yon still river’s verdant side,

My friends his breathless body hide,

Close to the gentle surge;

Light lay the turf upon his breast,

And thou sweet Robin from the nest,

Sing his funereal dirge.

And when grey night shall check thy note,

Ye bull-frogs strain your hoarser throat,

Grave songsters of the stream:

Let Bun—poor Bun—repeated sound;

With Bun, the hills and groves resound,

A never dying theme.

But thou curst Cat, unsung shalt lie;

For thou, vile murderer, too must die,

As well as harmless Bun;

Thy worthless bones unburied lay,

And thy nine lives but poorly pay

For his lamented one.

A very palatable RECEIPT,
to soften the hardest FEMALE HEART.

Take a youth that’s genteel, ’tis no matter for face,

And season him well, with an air, and a grace;

One grain of sincerity you may bestow,

But enough of assurance fail not to allow;

With flatteries, sighs, assiduities, tears,

Insignificant smiles, and significant leers,

With passion and rapture to give it a zest,

And impudence sprinkled according to taste;

Some pieces of songs too, and scraps of old plays,

And fustian, and frolics, and whimsical ways;

All mix’d well together with care and design,

And drest with great nicety, and garnish’d out fine:

This medicine warm as the patient can bear,

And when taken each day will soon soften the fair.

Sometimes a few days efficacious will prove,

Sometimes a few weeks ere the flint will remove;

But seldom an instance can any produce,

When this golden prescription has fail’d of its use,

Yet though often successful, ’twill ne’er reach that heart,

Which, hardened by virtue, will baffle all art.