Fearless o’er the whiten’d billows,
Proudly rise, sweet bird of night,
Safely through the bending willows
Gently wing thy aery flight.”
When the brothers Smith projected their famous Rejected Addresses they included an imitation of the Della Cruscan poetry, entitled Drury’s Dirge, of which Lord Jeffery wrote “The verses are very smooth and very nonsensical—as was intended; but they are not so good as Swift’s celebrated song by a Person of Quality; and are so exactly in the same measure, and on the same plan, that it is impossible to avoid making the comparison.”
Drury’s Dirge.
BY LAURA MATILDA.[36]
“You praise our sires: but though they wrote with force
Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse: