The Wiccamical Chaplet a selection of original poetry; comprising smaller poems, serious and comic; classical trifles; sonnets; inscriptions and epitaphs; songs and ballads; mock-heroics, epigrams, fragments, &c. &c. Edited by George Huddesford |
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Inscribed beneath the Picture of an ASS.
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 | The Wiccamical Chaplet |  |
93
Inscribed beneath the Picture of an ASS.
Meek animal, whose simple mien,
Provokes th'insulting eye of Spleen
To mock the melancholy trait
Of patience in thy front display'd,
By thy Great Author fitly so pourtray'd,
To character the sorrows of thy fate.
Provokes th'insulting eye of Spleen
To mock the melancholy trait
Of patience in thy front display'd,
By thy Great Author fitly so pourtray'd,
To character the sorrows of thy fate.
Say, Heir of misery, what to thee
Is life!—A long, long gloomy stage
Thro' the sad vale of labour and of pain!
No pleasure hath thine youth, no rest thine age,
Nor in the vasty round of this Terrene
A friend to set thee free,
Till Death, perhaps too late,
In the dark ev'ning of thy chearless day,
Shall take thee, fainting on thy way,
From the rude storm of unresisted hate.
Is life!—A long, long gloomy stage
Thro' the sad vale of labour and of pain!
No pleasure hath thine youth, no rest thine age,
Nor in the vasty round of this Terrene
A friend to set thee free,
Till Death, perhaps too late,
In the dark ev'ning of thy chearless day,
Shall take thee, fainting on thy way,
From the rude storm of unresisted hate.
Yet dares th'erroneous crowd to mark
With Folly this despised race,
Th'ungovernable Pack, who bark
With impious howlings in Heav'n's awful face,
If e'er on their impatient head
Affliction's bitter show'r is shed.
With Folly this despised race,
Th'ungovernable Pack, who bark
With impious howlings in Heav'n's awful face,
If e'er on their impatient head
Affliction's bitter show'r is shed.
But 'tis the weakness of thy kind
Meekly to bear th'inevitable sway;
The wisdom of the human mind
Is to murmur and obey.
Meekly to bear th'inevitable sway;
The wisdom of the human mind
Is to murmur and obey.
| The Wiccamical Chaplet | |