The poetical works of James Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thou last pale promise of the waning year,
Poor sickly Rose! what dost thou here?
Why, frail flower! so late a comer,
Hast thou slept away the Summer?
Since now, in Autumn's sullen reign,
When ev'ry breeze
Unrobes the trees,
And strews their annual garments on the plain,
Awaking from repose,
Thy fairy lids unclose.

Feeble, evanescent flower,
Smile away thy sunless hour;
Every daisy, in my walk,
Scorns thee from its humbler stalk:
Nothing but thy form discloses
Thy descent from royal roses:
How thine ancestors would blush
To behold thee on their bush,
Drooping thy dejected head
Where their bolder blossoms spread;
Withering in the frosty gale,
Where their fragrance fill'd the vale!

Last and meanest of thy race,
Void of beauty, colour, grace,
No bee delighted sips
Ambrosia from thy lips;
No spangling dew-drops gem
Thy fine elastic stem;
No living lustre glistens o'er thy bloom,
Thy sprigs no verdant leaves adorn,
Thy bosom breathes no exquisite perfume;
But pale thy countenance as snow,
While, unconceal'd below,
All naked glares the threatening thorn.

Around thy bell, o'er mildew'd leaves,
His ample web a spider weaves;
A wily ruffian, gaunt and grim,
His labyrinthine toils he spreads
Pensile and light;—their glossy threads
Bestrew'd with many a wing and limb;
Even in thy chalice he prepares
His deadly poison and delusive snares.

While I pause, a vagrant fly
Giddily comes buzzing by;
Round and round, on viewless wings,
Lo! the insect wheels and sings:
Closely couch'd, the fiend discovers,
Sets him with his sevenfold eyes,
And, while o'er the verge he hovers,
Seems to fascinate his prize,

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As the snake's magnetic glare
Charms the flitting tribes of air,
Till the dire enchantment draws
Destined victims to his jaws.
Now midst kindred corses mangled,
On his feet alights the fly;
Ah! he feels himself entangled,
Hark! he pours a piteous cry.
Swift as Death's own arrows dart,
On his prey the spider springs,
Wounds his side,—with dexterous art
Winds the web about his wings;
Quick as he came, recoiling then,
The villain vanishes into his den.
The desperate fly perceives too late
The hastening crisis of his fate;
Disaster-crowds upon disaster,
And every struggle to get free
Snaps the hopes of liberty,
And draws the knots of bondage faster.

Again the spider glides along the line;
Hold, murderer! hold;—the game is mine.
—Captive! unwarn'd by danger, go,
Frolic awhile in light and air;
Thy fate 'tis easy to foreshow,
Preserved—to perish in a safer snare!
Spider! thy worthless life I spare;
Advice on thee 'twere vain to spend,
Thy wicked ways thou wilt not mend,—
Then haste thee, spoiler, mend thy net;
Wiser than I
Must be yon fly,
If he escapes thy trammels yet;
Most eagerly the trap is sought
In which a fool has once been caught.

And thou, poor Rose! whose livid leaves expand,
Cold to the sun, untempting to the hand,
Bloom unadmired, uninjured die;
Thine aspect, squalid and forlorn,
Ensures thy peaceful, dull decay:
Hadst thou with blushes hid thy thorn,
Grown “sweet to sense, and lovely to the eye,”
I might have pluck'd thy flower,
Worn it an hour,
“Then cast it like a loathsome weed away.”

1796.