University of Virginia Library

A Modest Account of the too-certain Reasons that afforded time for the following Trifles. 1779.

Some Females are so early pregnant grown,
They rock those Cradles lately were their own.
Their Nurse's milk wants time, and scarce digests;
And what they suckt, unturn'd comes from their Breasts.
But soon, like Spanish Wifes, they barren grow;
Their Springs are drain'd when ours begin to flow.
And happy 'tis—else we should be undone,
And by our Native Vandals over-run.
Although my Muse begun to bear betimes,
Still at this Age her Courses keeps in Rhymes.
What Pliny writes of Mares of Spanish kind,
She's pregnant with no Stallion, but the Wind.
When e're that airy Pegasus but blew,
My Muse more fruitful than

Of whom ('tis feign'd) the Centaur was gotten.

Phillira grew
Fruitful as Flies in Summer; tho the gain
Prove small, to boast these maggots of the Brain.
Should all this Spawn of Helicon but live,
The Frogs in Egypt did less trouble give.
This Brood, like Conies, hardly are destroy'd;
The Warren prospers on Parnassus side.
In whose increase small benefit is found;
And little else thrives in the haunted ground.
'Tis labour lost to till a barren Soil;
When no Returns, but Weeds, requite the toil.
Yet weeded well before the Seedlings shed,
They make the Land more mellow, where they bred;
And Vouchers are that other things than Weeds
Would prosper there, if sown with better Seeds.
Nature will work: and would not own a loss;
The steril'st Soils unsown will bring forth Moss.
If not improv'd, she's ruin'd; Truths confess
That Canaan now is turn'd a Wilderness.