The herd his plaid around his shoulders throws, II
Grasps his dear crook, calls on his dog, and goes;
Around the fold he walks with careful pace,
And fallen clods sets in their wonted place;
Then opes the door, unfolds his fleecy care,
And gladly sees them crop their morning fare!
Down upon easy moss his limbs he lays,
And sings some charming shepherdess's praise.
LISY'S PARTING WITH HER CAT THE dreadful hour with leaden pace approached, Lashed fiercely on by unrelenting fate,
When Lisy and her bosom Cat must part:
For now, to school and pensive needle doomed,
She's banished from her childhood's undashed joy,
And all the pleasing intercourse she kept
With her gray comrade, which has often soothed
Her tender moments, while the world around
Glowed with ambition, business, and vice,
Or lay dissolved in sleep's delicious arms;
And from their dewy orbs the conscious stars
Shed on their friendship influence benign.
But see where mournful Puss, advancing, stood With outstretched tail, casts looks of anxious woe On melting Lisy, in whose eye the tear
Stood tremulous, and thus would fain have said,
If nature had not tied her struggling tongue :
'Unkind, O! who shall now with fattening milk,
With flesh, with bread, and fish beloved, and meat,
Regale my taste? and at the cheerful fire,
Ah, who shall bask me in their downy lap ?
Who shall invite me to the bed, and throw
The bedclothes o'er me in the winter night,
When Eurus roars? Beneath whose soothing hand Soft shall I purr? But now, when Lisy 's gone, What is the dull officious world to me?
I loathe the thoughts of life:' Thus plained the Cat,
While Lisy felt, by sympathetic touch,
These anxious thoughts that in her mind revolved, And casting on her a desponding look,
She snatched her in her arms with eager grief,
And mewing, thus began :-'O Cat beloved!
Thou dear companion of my tender years!
Joy of my youth! that oft hast licked my hands
With velvet tongue ne'er stained by mouse's blood.
Oh, gentle Cat! how shall I part with thee?
How dead and heavy will the moments pass
When you are not in my delighted eye,
With Cubi playing, or your flying tail.
How harshly will the softest muslin feel,
And all the silk of schools, while I no more
Have your sleek skin to soothe my softened sense?
How shall I eat while you are not beside
To share the bit? How shall I ever sleep
While I no more your lulling murmurs hear?
Yet we must part-so rigid fate decrees-
But never shall your loved idea dear
Part from my soul, and when I first can mark
The embroidered figure on the snowy lawn,
Your image shall my needle keen employ.
Hark! now I'm called away! O direful sound!
I come I come, but first I charge you all-
You-you-and you, particularly you,
O, Mary, Mary, feed her with the best,
Repose her nightly in the warmest couch,
And be a Lisy to her!'-Having said,
She set her down, and with her head across,
Rushed to the evil which she could not shun,
While a sad mew went knelling to her heart!
[A copy of these boyish verses was written out by Thomson for Lord George Graham. Lisy was the poet's favourite sister Elizabeth.]
LINES ON MARLEFIELD
(The seat of Sir William Bennet, of Grubbat, Bart.)
WHAT is the task that to the muse belongs?
What but to deck in her harmonious songs
The beauteous works of nature and of art,
Rural retreats that cheer the heavy heart?
Then Marlefield begin, my muse, and sing;
With Marlefield the hills and vales shall ring.
O! what delight and pleasure 'tis to rove
Through all the walks and alleys of this grove,
Where spreading trees a checkered scene display,
Partly admitting and excluding day;
Where cheerful green and odorous sweets conspire
The drooping soul with pleasure to inspire;
Where little birds employ their narrow throats
To sing its praises in unlaboured notes.
To it adjoined a rising fabric stands,
Which with its state our silent awe commands.
Its endless beauties mock the poet's pen;
So to the garden I'll return again.
Pomona makes the trees with fruit abound,
And blushing Flora paints the enamelled ground. 20
Here lavish nature does her stores disclose,
Flowers of all hue, their queen the bashful rose;
With their sweet breath the ambient air's perfumed,
Nor is thereby their fragrant stores consumed;
O'er the fair landscape sportive zephyrs scud,
And by kind force display the infant bud.
The vegetable kind here rear their head,
By kindly showers and heaven's indulgence fed:
Of fabled nymphs such were the sacred haunts,
But real nymphs this charming dwelling vaunts. 30
Now to the greenhouse let's awhile retire,
To shun the heat of Sol's infectious fire:
Immortal authors grace this cool retreat,
Of ancient times and of a modern date.
Here would my praises and my fancy dwell;
But it, alas, description does excel.
O may this sweet, this beautiful abode
Remain the charge of the eternal God.
A POETICAL EPISTLE TO SIR WILLIAM BENNET
[Written in 1714, aet. 14.]
My trembling muse your honour does address.
That it's a bold attempt most humbly I confess.
If you'll encourage her young fagging flight,
She'll upwards soar and mount Parnassus' height.
If little things with great may be compared,
In Rome it so with the divine Virgil fared;
The tuneful bard Augustus did inspire
Made his great genius flash poetic fire;
But, if upon my flight your honour frowns,
The muse folds up her wings, and, dying, justice owns.
Accept, loved Nymph, this tribute due
Ah! urged too late, from beauty's bondage free
Among the changing months May stands confest
As on the sea-beat shore Britannia sat
Beauty deserves the homage of the muse
By Rufus' hall, where Thames polluted flows
Come, dear Amanda, quit the town
Come, gentle god of soft desire
Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come
Come, gentle Venus! and assuage
Come, healing God! Apollo, come and aid
Crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf
Escaped the castle of the sire of sin
Now I surveyed my native faculties
Hail! Power Divine, whose sole command
Hard is the fate of him who loves
Here interposing, as the Goddess paused
Here melting mixed with air the ideal forms
Here, Stanley, rest! escaped this mortal strife
He's not the happy man, to whom is given
I hate the clamours of the smoky towns.
I loathe, O Lord, this life below
It was a sad, ay, 'twas a sad farewell
Madam, the flower that I received from you
My trembling muse your honour does address.
Now, Chatto, you're a dreary place
O mortal man, who livest here by toil
O my lamented Talbot! while with thee
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