For their elder Sister's hair Martha does a wreath prepare Of bridal rose, ornate and gay; To-morrow is the wedding-day. She is going.
Mary, youngest of the three, Laughing idler, full of glee, Arm in arm does fondly chain her, Thinking, poor trifler, to detain her-- But she's going.
Vex not, maidens, nor regret Thus to part with Margaret. Charms like yours can never stay Long within doors; and one day You'll be going.
By Enfield lanes, and Winchmore's verdant hill, Two lovely damsels cheer my lonely walk: The fair Maria, as a vestal, still; And Emma brown, exuberant in talk. With soft and Lady speech the first applies The mild correctives that to grace belong To her redundant friend, who her defies With jest, and mad discourse, and bursts of song. O differing Pair, yet sweetly thus agreeing, What music from your happy discord rises, While your companion hearing each, and seeing, Nor this nor that, but both together, prizes; This lesson teaching, which our souls may strike, That harmonies may be in things unlike!
I was not train'd in Academic bowers, And to those learned streams I nothing owe Which copious from those twin fair founts do flow; Mine have been anything but studious hours. Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers, Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap; My brow seems tightening with the Doctor's cap, And I walk _gowned_; feel unusual powers. Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech, Old Ramus' ghost is busy at my brain; And my skull teems with notions infinite. Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach Truths, which transcend the searching Schoolmen's vein, And half had stagger'd that stout Stagirite.
TO A CELEBRATED FEMALE PERFORMER IN "THE BLIND BOY."
Rare artist! who with half thy tools, or none, Canst execute with ease thy curious art, And press thy powerful'st meanings on the heart, Unaided by the eye, expression's throne! While each blind sense, intelligential grown Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight: Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might,. All motionless and silent seem to moan The unseemly negligence of nature's hand, That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine, O mistress of the passions; artist fine! Who dost our souls against our sense command, Plucking the horror from a sightless face, Lending to blank deformity a grace.