Surrounded with bawling, and squalling, and prattle
With handmaids unhandy, and gossipping tattle,
Cut fingers to bandage, and stockings to darn,
And labyrinths endless of ill-manag'd yarn,

Thro' whose windings Daedalean bewilder'd we wander,
Like draggle-tail'd nymphs of the mazy Meander;
Till at length, like the Hero of Macedon, tir'd
Of the slow perseverance untwisting required,
We brandish our scissars, resolved on the spot,
Since we cannot unravel, to cut thro' the knot.

Blest vicars of England! how happy your wives!
Tho' devoted to pudding and plain work their lives,
Tho' quotations and homilies forced to endure,
While fumes of tobacco their graces obscure;
Tho' their quiet be disturb'd with the nursery's noise,
Tho' their girls should be hoydens, or dunces their boys,
With the tangling of yarn they are never perplex'd,
More difficult to clear than his Reverence's text.
While with labour incessant our toils we renew,
To furnish fine linen, and purple and blue,
Such a series of self-same minute occupation
Yields nothing, you'll own, to enliven narration;
And as for the friend of all poets, Invention,

'Tis a thing, of late years, I scarce think of or mention ; Or of useful inventions alone make my boast,

Such as saving potatoes and turnips from frost ;

Ör repulsing whole armies of mice from my cheese,
Or plucking the quills without paining the geese.

What a change on the scene and the actors appears? 'Tis now but a dozen and odd of short years,

Since when we, and the season, and fancy were young,
On Tarfe's flowery banks our gay whimsies we sung,
Regardless of profit, and hopeless of fame,

Yet heedless of censure, and fearless of blame,
We travers'd the vale, or we haunted the grove,
As free as the birds that were chanting above;
Where the fair face of Nature was bright with a smile,
Enraptur'd in silence we gaz'd for a while;

Then as clear and as artless resounded our lays,
As the sky or the stream we endeavour'd to praise ;
While strains of delight the pure pleasures impart
That thrill'd thro' each bosom, and glow'd in each heart:
But when from the east, with dun vapours o'ercast,
Came horrors bestriding the bleak howling blast;
When rude echoing rocks with brown cataracts foam'd,
And bewilder'd in mist the sad traveller roam'd;

1

*Tarfe is a beautiful little river which descends from the Corryaric; and, after winding among rocky caverns, through a narrow wooded glen of the same name, discharges itself into Lochness at Fort-Augustus.

When to part us, loud storms and deep gullies conspir'd,
And sublime meditation to garrets retir'd;

To the workings of fancy to give a relief,
We sat ourselves down to imagine some grief,
Till we conjur❜d up phantoms so solemn and sad,
As, if they had lasted, would make us half mad;
Then in strains so affecting we pour'd the soft ditty,
As mov'd both the rocks and their echoes to pity:
And to prove it, each note of the soul-moving strain
In more sonorous sounds was return'd back again :
And we, silly souls, were so proud of our parts,
When we thought that our pathos had reach'd their hard
hearts!

But when grave looking HYMEN had kindl'd his torch,
With a pure lambent flame that would glow but not scorch,

The Muses, who plain humble virtues revere,

Were affrighted to look on his brow so austere;
The cottage so humble, or sanctified dome,

For the revels of fancy afforded no room;

And the lyre and the garland were forc'd to give place To duties domestic, and records of grace:

Then farewel Illysus, adieu Hippocrene,

The vales of Arcadia and Tempe so green;

To the hills of Judea we now must draw near,

King LEMUEL'S good mother's wise maxims to hear,

And strive to leave none of the duties undone
Which the matron prescrib'd for the spouse of her son:
For my own part, I labour'd and strove with my might
To do all that the proverbs applauded as right:
Fine coverings I made that with tapestry vied,
And with heather and madder my fleeces I dy'd,
While the sun shone I still made the most of his light,
And my candle most faithfully burnt thro' the night;
And while that and large fires thro' the winter did glow,
Not a farthing my household would care for the snow;
Their plaids, hose, and garters, with scarlet adorn'd,
Chill December they braved, and its rigours they scorn'd;
Yet these were not all my pretensions to claim
Of a matron industrious and virtuous the name;
My mate (can you doubt it?) was known in the gates,
Among seniors, and elders, and men of estates:
I made him a coat of a grave solemn hue,

Two threads they were black, and the other two blue;
So warm, and so clerical, comely and cheap,
'Twas a proof both of thrift and contrivance so deep;
His cravats of muslin were spun by my hands,

I knit all his stockings and stitch'd all his bands;
Till the neighbours all swore by St BRIDGET herself,
Such a wife was worth titles, and beauty, and pelf.
Quite dead and extinct all poetical fire,

At the foot of the cradle conceal'd lay my lyre;

What witchcraft had alter'd its form I ne'er knew,

But by some means or other a whistle it grew;
The brats in succession all jingled its bells,
While its music to them the piano excels :

But when slowly and surely the cold hand of time
Had stole my complexion, and wither'd my prime,
Resolv'd for a while to respire at my ease,

In Clydesdale I courted the soft western breeze;
Whose fresh breathing whispers my languor could soothe,
With visions of fancy, and dreams of my youth.
While slowly retracing my dear native Clyde,
And reviewing my visage, so chang'd, in its tide,
As sad and reluctant I strove to retire,

To my grasp was presented my trusty old lyre,—
I snatch'd it, I strumm'd it, and thrumm'd it again,
But strove to awaken its music in vain;

So rusty the wire, so enfeebled my hand,

A while in suspence and dumb wonder I stand:
Thus it happen'd, they say, to ULYSSES of old,
When twenty long years of sad absence had roll❜d,
To his ITHACA forc'd in disguise to resort,
When the suitors with uproar were filling his court;
He set his foot forward, and bending his brow,

With a dignified air he demanded his bow ;

With joy-mingled sorrow review'd his old friend, And three times essay'd the tough crescent to bend,.

P