"Miss Strawberry," exclaimed the Rose,
"What's beauty that no mortal knows?
What is a charm, if never seen?
You really are a pretty creature:
Then wherefore hide each blooming feature?
Come up, and show your modest mien."
"Miss Rose," the Strawberry replied,
"I never did possess a pride
That wished to dash the public eye:
Indeed, I own that I'm afraid—
I think there's safety in the shade,
Ambition causes many a sigh."
"Go, simple child," the Rose rejoined,
"See how I wanton in the wind:
I feel no danger's dread alarms:
And then observe the god of day,
How amorous with his golden ray,
To pay his visits to my charms!"
No sooner said, but with a scream
She started from her favorite theme—
A clown had on her fixed his pat.
In vain she screeched—Hob did but smile;
Rubbed with her leaves his nose awhile,
Then bluntly stuck her in his hat.
ECONOMY. PETER PINDAR.
Economy's a very useful broom;
Yet should not ceaseless hunt about the room
To catch each straggling pin to make a plumb:
Too oft Economy's an iron vice,
That squeezes even the little guts of mice,
That peep with fearful eyes, and ask a crumb.
Proper Economy's a comely thing—
Good in a subject—better in a king;
Yet pushed too far, it dulls each finer feeling—
Most easily inclined to make folks mean;
Inclines them too, to villainy to lean,
To over-reaching, perjury, and stealing.
Even when the heart should only think of grief
It creeps into the bosom like a thief,
And swallows up th' affections all so mild—Witness the Jewess, and her
only child:—
THE JEWESS AND HER SON
Poor Mistress Levi had a luckless son,
Who, rushing to obtain the foremost seat,
In imitation of th' ambitious great,
High from the gallery, ere the play begun,
He fell all plump into the pit,
Dead in a minute as a nit:
In short, he broke his pretty Hebrew neck;
Indeed and very dreadful was the wreck!