Now on my faith this gear is all entangled,
Like to the yarn-clew of the drowsy knitter,
Dragged by the frolic kitten through the cabin
While the good dame sits nodding o'er the fire
Masters, attend; 'twill crave some skill to
clear it.
Old Play.
Ir is not texts will do it - Church artillery
Are silenced soon by real ordnance,
And canons are but vain opposed to cannon.
Go, coin your crosier, melt your church plate
down,
Bid the starved soldier banquet in your halls, And quaff your long-saved hogsheads. - Turn them out
Thus primed with your good cheer, to guard your wall,
And they will venture for 't.
NAY, hear me, brother-I am elder, wiser,
And holier than thou; and age and wisdom
And holiness have peremptory claims,
And will be listened to.
Nor the wild billow, when it breaks its barrier
Not the wild wind, escaping from its cavern Not the wild fiend, that mingles both together And pours their rage upon the ripening harvest, Can match the wild freaks of this mirthful meeting
Comic, yet fearful - droll, and yet destructive.
The Conspiracy.
YOUTH! thou wear'st to manhood now;
Darker lip and darker brow,
Statelier step, more pensive mien,
In thy face and gait are seen:
Thou must now brook midnight watches,
Take thy food and sport by snatches!
For the gambol and the jest
Thou wert wont to love the best,
Graver follies must thou follow,
But as senseless, false, and hollow.
Whose thoughts are brooding o'er their own mischances,
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine.
The Woodman.
AND when Love's torch hath set the heart in flame,
Comes Seignior Reason, with his saws and cautions,
Giving such aid as the old gray-beard Sexton, Who from the church-vault drags his crazy engine,
To ply its dribbling ineffectual streamlet
Against a conflagration.
YES, it is she whose eyes looked on thy childhood,
And watched with trembling hope thy dawn of youth,
That now, with these same eyeballs, dimmed with age,
And dimmer yet with tears, sees thy dishonor. Old Play.
IN some breasts passion lies concealed and silent,
Like war's swart powder in a castle vault,
Until occasion, like the linstock, lights it;
Then come at once the lightning and the thun-
der,
And distant echoes tell that all is rent asunder.
Old Play.
DEATH distant? No, alas! he's ever with us,
And shakes the dart at us in all our actings:
He lurks within our cup while we 're in health:
Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines;
We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel,
But Death is by to seize us when he lists.
The Spanish Father.
AY, Pedro,
lantern,
Ladder of ropes, and other moonshine tools
Why, youngster, thou mayst cheat the old
Ďuenna,
come you here with mask and
Flatter the waiting-woman, bribe the valet;
But know, that I her father play the Gryphon,
Tameless and sleepless, proof to fraud or bribe,
And guard the hidden treasure of her beauty.
The Spanish Father.
It is a time of danger, not of revel,
When churchmen turn to masquers.
The Spanish Pather.
Who, like ambition, lures men to their ruin,
The Shipwreck
Now God be good to me in this wild pilgrimage
All hope in human aid I cast behind me.
O, who would be a woman? who that fool,
A weeping, pining, faithful, loving woman
She hath hard measure still where she hopes
kindest,
And all her bounties only make ingrates.
Love's Pilgrimag
HARK! the bells summon and the bugle calls.
But she the fairest answers not; the tide
Of nobles and of ladies throngs the halls,
But she the loveliest must in secret hide.
What eyes were thine, proud prince, which
the gleam
Of
yon gay meteors lost that better sense
That o'er the glow-worm doth the star esteem.
And merit's modest blush o'er courtly ins
Now bid the steeple rock-she comes, she
Speak for us, bells! speak for
At her old steeple-hat and velvet guard-
I've called her like the ear of Dionysius;
I mean that ear-formed vault, built o'er the
dungeon
To catch the groans and discontented murmus
Of his poor bondsmen. Even so doth Martia
Drink up for her own purpose all that passes,
Or is supposed to pass, in this wide city-
She can retail it too, if that her profit
Shall call on her to do so; and retail it
For your advantage, so that you can make
Your profit jump with hers.
ROVE not from pole to pole-the man lives here
Whose razor's only equalled by his beer;
And where, in either sense, the cockney-put
May if he pleases, get confounded cut.
On the Sign of an Alehouse kept by a Barber.
CHANCE will not do the work - Chance sends the breeze;
But if the pilot slumber at the helm,
The very wind that wafts us towards the port
May dash us on the shelves. - The steersman's
part is vigilance,
Blow it or rough or smooth.
Thy sober ear with sounds of revelry,
Wake not the slumbering echoes of thy banks
With voice of flute and horn - we do but seek
On the broad pathway of thy swelling bosom
To glide in silent safety.
THIS way lie safety and a sure retreat;
Yonder lie danger, shame, and punishment.
Most welcome danger then-nay, let me say,
Though spoke with swelling heart-welcome
e'en shame;
And welcome punishment-for, call me guilty,
I do but pay the tax that's due to justice;
And call me guiltless, then that punishment
Is shame to those alone who do inflict it.
The Tribunal.
How fares the man on whom good men would look
With eyes where scorn and censure co ted,
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