Part 123 (1/2)

Here famed for cunning, and in crimes grown old, Hangs his gray brush, the felon of the fold.

Oft as the rent-feast swells the midnight cheer, The maudlin farmer kens him o'er his beer, And tells his old, traditionary tale, Though known to every tenant of the vale.

Here, where of old the festal ox has fed, Marked with his weight, the mighty horns are spread: Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine, Where the vast master with the vast sirloin Vied in round magnitude--Respect I bear To thee, though oft the ruin of the chair.

These, and such antique tokens that record The manly spirit, and the bounteous board, Me more delight than all the gewgaw train, The whims and zigzags of a modern brain, More than all Asia's marmosets to view, Grin, frisk, and water in the walks of Kew.

Through these fair valleys, stranger, hast thou strayed, By any chance, to visit Harewood's shade, And seen with lionest, antiquated air, In the plain hall the magistratial chair?

There Herbert sat--The love of human kind, Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind, In the free eye the featured soul displayed, Honour's strong beam, and Mercy's melting shade: Justice that, in the rigid paths of law, Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw, Bend o'er her urn with many a generous fear, Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear; Fair equity, and reason scorning art, And all the sober virtues of the heart-- These sat with Herbert, these shall best avail Where statutes order, or where statutes fail.

Be this, ye rural magistrates, your plan: Firm be your justice, but be friends to man.

He whom the mighty master of this ball We fondly deem, or farcically call, To own the patriarch's truth, however loth, Holds but a mansion crushed before the moth.

Frail in his genius, in his heart too frail, Born but to err, and erring to bewail, Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore, And give to life one human weakness more?

Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed; Still mark the strong temptation and the need: On pressing want, on famine's powerful call, At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

For him who, lost to every hope of life, Has long with fortune held unequal strife, Known to no human love, no human care, The friendless, homeless object of despair; For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains, Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.

Alike, if folly or misfortune brought Those last of woes his evil days have wrought; Believe with social mercy and with me, Folly's misfortune in the first degree.

Perhaps on some inhospitable sh.o.r.e The houseless wretch a widowed parent bore; Who then, no more by golden prospects led, Of the poor Indian begged a leafy bed.

Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery, baptized in tears!

GIPSIES.

FROM THE SAME.

The gipsy-race my pity rarely move; Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love: Not Wilkes, our Freedom's holy martyr, more; Nor his firm phalanx of the common sh.o.r.e.

For this in Norwood's patrimonial groves The tawny father with his offspring roves; When summer suns lead slow the sultry day, In mossy caves, where welling waters play, Fanned by each gale that cools the fervid sky, With this in ragged luxury they lie.

Oft at the sun the dusky elfins strain The sable eye, then snugging, sleep again; Oft as the dews of cooler evening fall, For their prophetic mother's mantle call.

Far other cares that wandering mother wait, The mouth, and oft the minister of fate!

From her to hear, in evening's friendly shade, Of future fortune, flies the village-maid, Draws her long-h.o.a.rded copper from its hold, And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold.

But, ah! ye maids, beware the gipsy's lures!

She opens not the womb of time, but yours.

Oft has her hands the hapless Marian wrung, Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung!

The parson's maid--sore cause had she to rue The gipsy's tongue; the parson's daughter too.

Long had that anxious daughter sighed to know What Vellum's sprucy clerk, the valley's beau, Meant by those glances which at church he stole, Her father nodding to the psalm's slow drawl; Long had she sighed; at length a prophet came, By many a sure prediction known to fame, To Marian known, and all she told, for true: She knew the future, for the past she knew.

A CASE WHERE MERCY SHOULD HAVE MITIGATED JUSTICE.

FROM THE SAME.

Unnumbered objects ask thy honest care, Beside the orphan's tear, the widow's prayer: Far as thy power can save, thy bounty bless, Unnumbered evils call for thy redress.