LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALMANAC.

99

Then tell her that her touch alone

Destroys your pencil'd forms with ease;

And say your fate is like my own,

To be or not, as she shall please.

To live a year, a day with Her?

I fear she'll turn ye all to jest :

Then let her know I've made my prayer,

That, when by beaux, smart beaux, carest, She ne'er may feel a tender care!

But while they sigh, or kneel, or vow,
Think it all done in sport and play;

Or write love-rhymes (as I do now),

Laugh, but not trust a word they say.

то

A YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN,

WITH THOMSON'S SEASONS, DOUBLED DOWN AT THE

STORY OF PALEMON AND LAVINIA.

ANNA, when you shall read in this true tale

How young

Lavinia from her lowly state

Was led to splendor, wealth, and dignity,

By generous Palemon wooed and won

To be his bride, (such happy fortune found

Her virtues, and deserved no less)—so think

Your beauty, temper'd with sweet bashful grace

Of modesty and native elegance,

So think these charms-not sparingly bestow'd

But in the pride and prodigality

Of liberal Nature, fashioning her work

To a rare excellence,-these shall inflame

Each generous heart with love, and the dear hope

To win your gentle favour, and possess

A lovelier Lavinia found in you.

SONNET.

AH! where is hid, if still it

may survive

The canker'd tooth of Age and Time's despight,

Ah! where is hid that Orb of glass so bright,

That Merlin for King Ryence did contrive ; That wond'rous Orb so bright, wherein did live, Or ever Time had brought them into light,

The forms of things unborn, which to the sight Its high-enchanted power would strangely give!

For Hope, with counterfeit of this true Glass,