Join your shrill pipes, ye maids of Billingsgate,
And market dames, and make the chorus full.
* Oh! there is nothing noble to be done
Till we have swallow'd pint on pint. "Tis drink,
And only drink, that makes the world go round.'
I praise you not; and if there be a wretch Who thus far has perus'd my careless page, In hope to find a palliative to vice,
Here let us part. An enemy to mirth
Who deems me, does me wrong. I hold it good
To laugh away a portion of my days,
And give to mirth her song, to sport her feather:
But he who draws his wit to stab at truth,
And is the friend of folly when he smiles,
Has liv'd too long. Ne'er be my trifling muse
Virtue's assassin, or the friend of vice.
Kind Heaven, if there be a deed so dark
Yet lodg'd in future time, be death my lot
Ere it arrive, and send me to my grave
E'en in the pride and glory of my strength.
YE gentle Pow'rs, (if any such there be,
And, if there be not, 'tis a sweet mistake
To think there be) that day by day, unseen,
Where souls, unanimous and link'd in love,
In sober converse spend the vacant hour,
Hover above, and in the cup of life
A cordial pour which all its bitter drowns,
And gives the hasty minutes as they pass
Unwonted fragrance; come and aid my song.
In that clear fountain of eternal love
Which flows for ay at the right-hand of him,
The great Incomprehensible ye serve,
Dip my advent'rous pen, that nothing vile,
Of the chaste eye or ear unworthy, may
In this my early song be seen or heard.
Sing then, my Muse, the rural Curate's steps, His modes of living, manners, and pursuits, One year the limits of thy song confine,
From early spring till spring again return.
Then let the bard begin, when Winter yet Powders the lawn with snow, and on our eaves Hangs the chaste icicle. Be that the time, When the tir'd sportsman lays his gun aside, Nor wages ineffectual war again
On partridge race. The day St. Valentine,
When maids are brisk, and at the break of day
Start up, and turn their pillows, curious all
To know what happy swain the fates provide
A mate for life. Then follows thick discharge
Of true-love knots and sonnets nicely penn'd;
But, to the learned critic's eye, no verse,
prose distracted, galloping away
Like yelping cur with kettle at his tail.
Forgive the thought, ye maids of poesy,
And be as kind as fair. Critics may laugh
And yet approve; and I your pains applaud,
Though short of excellence. I love the maid
Who has ambition, and betrays a mind
Of active and ingenious turn; who scorns
Only to know what fashion and the age
Require, and can do more than flirt her fan,
Read novels, dance with grace, sing playhouse airs,
Speak scandal, daub or vellum or her face,
Retail some half-a-dozen terms in French,
And twice as many English, and dispatch
By every post a tedious manuscript,
Which to translate would crack the very brain
Of Arabic Professor. O ye fair,
Ye were design'd for nobler flights than these;
Nature on you as well as us bestow'd
The good capacity. And though to us
She gave the nicer judgment, yet she hid
The sweet defect in you, with better skill
To clothe the fair idea, keener eye,
And quicker apprehension. 'Tis in you
Imagination glows in all her strength,
Gay as the robe of spring, and we delight
To see you pluck her blossoms, and compose
The cheerful nosegay for the swain you love..
What if Alcanor's self should not disdain
To imitate your toils, but sometimes hang
Ill-woven chaplets on Maria's brow,
Which needs no ornament to make it please
With sweeter grace? The hour so spent shall live,
Not unapplauded, in the book of Heav'n.
For dear and precious as the moments are
Permitted man, they are not all for deeds
Of active virtue. Give we none to vice,
And Heav'n will not strict reparation ask
For many a summer's day and winter's eve
So spent as best amuses us. Alas!
If He that made us were extreme to mark
The trifled hour, what human soul could live?
We trifle all, and he who best deserves
Is but a trifler. What art thou whose
Follows my pen, or what am I that write?
Both triflers. "Tis a trifling world, from him
Who banquets daintily in sleeves of lawn,
To him who starves upon a country cure:
From him who is the pilot of a state,
To him who begs, and rather begs than works.
Then blame we not Alcanor for his pains, Nor think him misemploy'd, what time he sits Eager to clothe the new-born thought, and wooes
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