For then I'm drest all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamèd
Because I leave him in the lurch
As soon as text is namèd;
I leave the church in sermon-time
And slink away to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
When Christmas comes about again,
O, then I shall have money;
I'll hoard it up, and box it all,
I'll give it to my honey:
I would it were ten thousand pound,
I'd give it all to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
My master and the neighbours all
Make game of me and Sally,
And, but for her, I'd better be
A slave and row a galley;
But when my seven long years are out,
O, then I'll marry Sally;
O, then we'll wed, and then we'll bedBut not in our alley!
A Drinking-Song
BACCHUS must now his power resign-
I am the only God of Wine!
It is not fit the wretch should be
In competition set with me,
Who can drink ten times more than he.
Make a new world, ye powers divine!
Stock'd with nothing else but Wine:
Let Wine its only product be,
Let Wine be earth, and air, and sea—
And let that Wine be all for me!
UEEN of fragrance, lovely Rose,
The beauties of thy leaves disclose!
-But thou, fair Nymph, thyself survey
In this sweet offspring of a day.
That miracle of face must fail,
Thy charms are sweet, but charms are frail:
Swift as the short-lived flower they fly,
At morn they bloom, at evening die:
Though Sickness yet a while forbears,
Yet Time destroys what Sickness spares:
Now Helen lives alone in fame,
And Cleopatra's but a name:
Time must indent that heavenly brow,
And thou must be what they are now.
447. Belinda's Recovery from Sickness
THUS when the silent grave becomes
Pregnant with life as fruitful wombs
When the wide seas and spacious earth
Resign us to our second birth;
Our moulder'd frame rebuilt assumes
New beauty, and for ever blooms,
And, crown'd with youth's immortal pride,
We angels rise, who mortals died.
448. On the Death of a particular Friend
S those we love decay, we die in part,
String after string is sever'd from the heart;
Till loosen'd life, at last but breathing clay,
Without one pang is glad to fall away.
Unhappy he who latest feels the blow!
Whose eyes have wept o'er every
Dragg'd ling'ring on from partial death to death,
Till, dying, all he can resign is-breath.
GEORGE LYTTELTON, LORD LYTTELTON
449. Tell me, my Heart, if this be Love WHEN Delia on the plain appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears
I would approach, but dare not move:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
Whene'er she speaks, my ravish'd ear
No other voice than hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
If she some other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleased before-
The clearest spring, or shadiest grove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
When fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets she spread for every swain,
I strove to hate, but vainly strove :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
One-and-Twenty
LONG-EXPECTED one-and-twenty,
Ling'ring year, at length is flown:
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
Great *** * * * * are now your own.
Loosen'd from the minor's tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell,
Wild as wind, and light as feather,
Bid the sons of thrift farewell.
Call the Betsies, Kates, and Jennies,
All the names that banish care;
Lavish of your grandsire's guineas,
Show the spirit of an heir.
All that prey on vice and folly
Joy to see their quarry fly:
There the gamester, light and jolly,
There the lender, grave and sly.
Wealth, my lad, was made to wander,
Let it wander as it will;
Call the jockey, call the pander,
Bid them come and take their fill.
When the bonny blade carouses,
Pockets full, and spirits high-
What are acres? What are houses?
Only dirt, or wet or dry.
Should the guardian friend or mother
Tell the woes of wilful waste,
Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother;-
You can hang or drown at last!
451. On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet, a Practiser in Physic
ONDEMN'D to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
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