And hunger, sure attendant upon want,
With scanty offals, and small aeid tiff
(Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain :
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chill'd fingers; or from tube as black
As winter chimney, or well-polish'd jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent:
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size
Smoaks Cambro-Briton (vers'd in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale) when he
O'er many a craggy hill, and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of fam'd Cestrian cheese,
High over-shadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at th' Arvonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Yclep'd Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil,
Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renown'd Falern.

Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow,
With looks demure, and silent pace, a Dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my aërial citadel ascends :

With vocal heel, thrice thund'ring at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amaz'd,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly

Of wood-hole; strait my bristling hairs erect
Thro' sudden fear; a chilly sweat bedews
My shudd'ring limbs, and (wonderful to tell!)
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;:
So horrible he seems! his faded brow

Entrench'd with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admir'd by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters, and figures dire inscrib'd,
Grievous to mortal eyes; (ye gods, avert
Such plagues from righteous men!) behind him stalks
Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar call'd

A Catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible, and magic charms,
Erst have endu'd; if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill fated shoulder lay
Of Debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont),
To some enchanted castle is convey'd,
Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains,
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of money, Pallas sets the captive free.
Beware, ye debtors, when ye walk beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious kén
This caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to inchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallow'd touch. So (poets sing)
Grimalkin to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowell'd web
Arachne in a hall or kitchen spreads,
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable, nor will ought avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue;
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make: with eager strides,
She tow'ring flies to her expected spoils;
Then with envenom'd jaws the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcases triumphant drags.

So pass my days. But when nocturnal shades
This world envelop, and th' inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines, and crackling blaze of wood;
Me lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk
Of loving friend delights; distress'd, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts

My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent on a willow-tree.
Meanwhile, I labour with eternal drought,
And restless wish, and rave; my parched throat
Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:
But if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy, still awake,
Thoughtful of drink, and eager, in a dream
Tipples imaginary pots of ale :
In vain; awake I find the settled thirst
Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.

Thus do I live from pleasuré quite debarr'd,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature, John-Apple, nor the downy Peach,
Nor Walnut in rough-furrow'd coat secure,
Nor Medlar, fruit delicious in decay:
Afflictions great! yet greater still remain :
My Galligaskins that have long withstood
The winter's fury, and encroaching frosts,
By time subdu'd, (what will not time subdue!)
An horrid chasm disclose, with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster, and the dreadful force
Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus a well-fraught ship
Long sail'd secure, or thro' th' Ægean deep,
Or the Ionion, till cruising near

The Lilybean shore, with hideous crash
On Scylla, or Charibdis (dang'rous rocks)
She strikes rebounding, whence the shatter'd oak,.
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea; in at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize
The mariners, death in their eyes appears,

They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray: (Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in

Implacable, till delug'd by the foam,

The ship sinks found'ring in the vast abyss.

DESCRIPTION of the THAMES, and of STAG-HUNTING.

(DENHAM'S COOPER'S HILL.)

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays;
Thames, the most lov'd of all the ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
Tho' with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold;
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore;
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring:
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay;
Nor, with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toil:
But, godlike, his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he to boast, or to disperse his stor
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and, in his flying towers,
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage, without o'erflowing, full.
Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser currents, lost,
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars, and bathe the gods
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us or herself, with strange varieties,

(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise maker's, than beholder's sight:
Tho' these delights from several causes move;
For so our children, thus our friends we love)
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord, which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, through the universe;
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists.
While the steep, horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood,
Such huge extremes when nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure and clear,
That, had the self-enamour'd youth gaz'd here,
So fatally deceiv'd he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders, and his sides,
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat;
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd;
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek, or British bard,
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard,
Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their am'rous flames?
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.
There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts,
To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd,
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd
Nature's great inaster-piece, to shew how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.
Here have I seen the king, when great affairs
Gave leave to slacken and unbend his cares,