University of Virginia Library

Shall my plain verse at Dover-street intrude,
From age, from sickness, and from solitude?
Old age, before the time of nature brought;
Long sickness, following what the doctor taught;
Deep solitude, that spreads its horrors round,
Though fifteen thousand in the place are found.

But far may every ill from Oxford fly,
As distant from his ear as from his eye!
Farther than men can ever fly from men:
For these, when parted most, may meet again;
Yet when to meet with him can I propose?
(Alas! not that the lord of Oxford knows:)
Meet near the place where laws our senate give;
Where kings their sceptres and their tombs receive;
Where wise Eliza's royal gift appears,
Transmitting knowledge down to future years;
Where winning Sprat display'd each art to please,
With courtly elegance and learned ease;
In sense and strength where Atterbury shined,
Not yielding to the greatest of mankind;
Beneath whose smiles my youthful race began,—
The boy one favour'd, and one built the man?
No need in distant climates to be seen:
Leyden, forgive; excuse us, Aberdeen!
Shall tawny mounsieurs mould our rising breed,
A grisly Switzer, or a hard-faced Swede?
Hither shall some Italian scoundrel come,
Full-freighted with the fraud and lust of Rome;
Virtue and vice instruct us to miscall;
Oft with wrong faith, but oftener none at all?
Shall northern kirk-men lead our sons to own
The church establish'd and prelatic throne?
Or rather teach those altars to deride
Which Laud and Cranmer triumph'd for and died?
Shall sour republicans, to murders bred,
With Greek and Roman cut-throats in their head,
Show from pure faith what firm obedience springs,
And paint the sacred majesty of kings?
To' infect our youth shall modern statesmen try,
Train to deceive, and discipline to lie,
And count all other rules of life a jest
But present, paltry, private interest?
But hold: to mention more I now decline
Who err through dulness, passion, or design.
Let happy Westminster enjoy the while
Murrays or Hayes, a Bertie or a Boyle.
Healthy and hatless let the Harleys run,
And show their honest faces to the sun.
Those learning slight who laugh at virtuous fame;
While those advance it who deserve a name.
So empty Laureates to invention fly,
But ancient Muses sprang from memory.
Admire not that I truth and fable join,
Who name old Greek and Cibber in a line.

The small poetic gift I here intend,
Oxford, accept; for Chaucer bade me send.
While weak I wear out life remote from you,
But few approving, and approved by few;
Though still in health more than in wealth I thrive;
To please my friends, though not the crowd, I strive,
And, spite of knaves and fools, am yet alive!