Sweet Powers! has Pity in the female breast No tender residence,-no loved abode,

To urge from murderous deed the avenging hand

Of

angry

house-maid?-She'll have blood for

blood!

For, lo! the boiling streams from copper tube, Hot as her rage, sweep myriads to death. Their carcases are destined to the urn

Of some chaste Naiad, that gives birth to floods,

Whose fragrant virtues hail Edina, famed
For yellow limpid,-whose chaste name the
Muse

Deems too exalted to retail in song.

Ah me! no longer they, at midnight shade, With baneful sting, shall seek the downy couch Of slumbering mortals.-Nor shall love-sick

swain,

When, by the bubbling brock, in fairy dream,
His nymph, but half reluctant to his wish,
Is gently folded in his eager arms,
E'er curse the shaft envenomed, that disturbs
His long-loved fancies.-Nor shall hungry bard,
Whose strong imagination, whetted keen,
Conveys him to the feast, be tantalized
With poisonous tortures, when the

cup, brim

ful

Of purple vintage, gives him greater joy
Than all the Heliconian streams that play
And murmur round Parnassus. Now the
wretch,

Oft doomed to restless days and sleepless nights,
By bugbear Conscience thralled, enjoys an hour
Of undisturbed repose.-The Miser, too,
May brook his golden dreams, nor wake with
fear

That thieves or kindred (for no soul he'll trust)
Have broke upon his chest, and strive to steal
The shining idols of his useless hours.

Happy the bug, whose unambitious views To gilded pomp ne'er tempt him to aspire! Safely may he, enwrapt in russet fold Of cobwebbed curtain, set at bay the fears That still attendant are on bugs of state. He never knows at morn the busy brush Of scrubbing chambermaid. His coursing

blood

Is ne'er obstructed with obnoxious dose,
By Oliphant prepared,-too poisonous drug!
As fatal to this hated crawling tribe
As ball and powder to the sons of war.

AN EXPEDITION TO

FIFE AND THE ISLAND OF MAY,

On board the BLESSED ENDEAVOUR of Dunbar, Captain ROXBURGH Commander.

LIST, O

ye slumberers on the peaceful shore! Whose lives are one unvariegated calm Of stillness and of sloth: and hear, O nymph! In heaven ycleped Pleasure: from your throne Effulgent send a heavenly radiant beam, That, cheered by thee, the Muse may bend her way:

For from no earthly flight she builds her song, But from the bosom of green Neptune's main Would fain emerge, and under Phoebe's reign, Transmit her numbers to inclining ears.

Now, when the warbling songsters quit the groves,

And solemn-sounding whisperings lull the spray,

To meditation sacred, let me roam

O'er the blessed floods that wash our natal

shore,

And view the wonders of the deep profound,
While now the western breezes reign around,
And Boreas, sleeping in his iron cave,
Regains his strength and animated rage,
To wake new tempests, and inswell new seas.

And now Favonius wings the sprightly gale; The willing canvas, swelling with the breeze, Gives life and motion to our bounding prow, While the hoarse boatswain's pipe, shrill-sounding far,

Calls all the tars to action. Hardy sons! Who shudder not at life's devouring gales, But smile amidst the tempest's sounding jars, Or 'midst the hollow thunders of the war. Fresh

sprung from Greenland's cold, they hail with joy

The happier clime, the fresh autumnal breeze, By Syrius guided, to allay the heat,

That else would parch the vigour of their veins. Hard change, alas! from petrifying cold Instant to plunge to the severest ray

That burning Dog-star, or bright Phoebus sheds. Like comet whirling thro' the ethereal void, Now they are reddened with the solar blaze, Now froze and tortured by the frigid zone.

Bb

Thrice happy Britons! whose well-tempered

clay

Can face all climes, all tempests, and all seas. These are the sons that check the growing war; These are the sons that hem Britannia round From sudden innovation;-awe the shores, And make their drooping pendants hail her queen

And mistress of the globe. They guard our beds,

While fearless we enjoy secure repose,
And all the blessings of a bounteous sky.
To them in feverous adoration bend,

Ye fashioned macaronies! whose bright blades
Were never dimmed or stained with hostile

blood,

But still hang dangling on your feeble thigh, While thro' the Mall or Park you shew away, Or thro' the drawing-room on tiptoe steal.

On poop aloft, to messmates laid along, Some son of Neptune, whose old wrinkled

brow

Has braved the rattling thunder, tells his tale
Of dangers, sieges, and of battles dire,
While they, as Fortune favours, greet with
smiles,

Or heave the bitter sympathetic sigh,
As the capricious fickle goddess frowns.