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The monarch leads the queen:
The rest their fairy partners found:
And Mable trimly tripp'd the ground
With Edwin of the Green.

The dauncing past, the board was laid,
And siker such a feast was made,
As heart and lip desire,
Withouten hands the dishes fly,
The glasses with a wish come nigh,
And with a wish retire.

But, now to please the fairy king,
Full every deal they laugh and sing,
And antic feats devise;

Some wind and tumble like an ape,
And other some transmute their shape
In Edwin's wondering eyes.

Till one at last, that Robin hight,
Renown'd for pinching maids by night,
Has bent him up aloof;

And full against the beam he flung,
Where by the back the youth he hung
To sprawl unneath the roof.

From thence, 'Reverse my charm,' he cries, 'And let it fairly now suffice

The gambol has been shown.
But Oberon answers with a smile,
'Content thee, Edwin, for a while,
The vantage is thine own.'

Here ended all the phantom play;
They smelt the fresh approach of day,
And heard a cock to crow;
The whirling wind that bore the crowd
Has clapp'd the door, and whistled loud,
To warn them all to go.

Then screaming all at once they fly,
And all at once the tapers die;

Poor Edwin falls to floor;
Forlorn his state, and dark the place
Was never wight in such a case
Through all the land before.

But soon as Dan Apollo rose,
Full jolly creature home he goes,
He feels his back the less;
His honest tongue and steady mind,
Had rid him of the lump behind,

Which made him want success

With lusty livelyhed he talks,
He seems a dauncing as he walks,
His story soon took wind;
And beauteous Edith sees the youth
Endow'd with courage, sense, and truth
Without a bunch behind.

The story told, Sir Topaz moved,
The youth of Edith erst approved,
To see the revel scene:

At close of eve he leaves his home,
And wends to find the ruin'd dome
All on the gloomy plain.

As there he bides, it so befell,
The wind came rustling down a dell,
A shaking seized the wall;

Up spring the tapers as before,
The fairies bragly foot the floor,
And music fills the hall.

But certes sorely sunk with woe,
Sir Topaz sees the Elfin show,
His spirits in him die:

When Oberon cries A man is near,
A mortal passion, cleeped fear,
Hangs flagging in the sky.'

With that Sir Topaz, hapless youth!
In accents faultering, ay for ruth,

Entreats them pity grant; For als he been a mister wight Betray'd by wandering in the night To tread the circled haunt;

'Ah Losell, vile,' at once they roar;
'And little skill'd of fairie lore,

Thy cause to come we know:
Now hast thy kestrell courage fell;
And fairies, since a lie you tell,

Are free to work thee woe.'

Then Will, who bears the wispy fire
To trail the swains among the mire,
The caitiff upward flung;
There, like a tortoise in a shop,
He dangled from the chamber-top,
Where whilome Edwin hung.

The revel now proceeds apace,
Defily they frisk it o'er the place,

They sit, they drink, and eat;
The time with frolic mirth beguile,
And poor Sir Topaz hangs the while
Till all the rout retreat.

By this the stars began to wink,
They shriek, they fly, the tapers sink,
And down y-drops the knight;

For never spell by fairie laid

With strong enchantment bound a glade, Beyond the length of night.

Chill, dark, alone, adreed, he lay, the welkin rose the day,

Till up

Then deem'd the dole was o'er:

But wot ye well his harder lot?

His seely back the bunch had got
Which Edwin lost afore.

This tale a Sibyl-nurse ared;
She softly stroked my youngling head,

And when the tale was done,

"Thus some are born, my son,' she cries,
"With base impediments to rise,

And some are born with none.

But virtue can itself advance
To what the favourite fools of chance
By fortune seem design'd;

Virtue can gain the odds of fate,

And from itself shake off the weight
Upon th' unworthy mind.'

PARNELL.

WIFE, CHILDREN, AND FRIENDS.

A SONG.

WHEN the black-letter'd list to the gods was presented

(The list of what Fate for each mortal intends,) At the long string of ills a kind goddess relented, And slipp'd in three blessings, wife, children, and friends.

In vain surly Pluto maintain'd he was cheated,
For justice divine could not compass its ends;
The scheme of man's penance he swore was de-
feated,

For earth becomes heaven with wife, children, and friends.

If the stock of our bliss is in stranger hands vested,
The fund ill secured oft in bankruptcy ends;
But the heart issues bills which are never protested
When drawn on the firm of wife, children, and
friends.

Though valour still glows in his life's waning embers,

The death-wounded tar, who his colours defends, Drops a tear of regret as he dying remembers

How bless'd was his home with wife, children, and friends.

The soldier, whose deeds live immortal in story,
Whom duty to far distant latitudes sends,
With transport would barter whole ages of glory
For one happy day with wife, children, and
friends.

Though spice-breathing gales o'er his caravan hover, Though round him Arabia's whole fragrance ascends,

The merchant still thinks of the woodbines that

cover

The bower where he sat with wife, children, and friends.

The day-spring of youth, still unclouded by sorrow, Alone on itself for enjoyment depends;

But drear is the twilight of age, if it borrow

No warmth from the smiles of wife, children, and friends.

Let the breath of renown ever freshen and nourish The laurel which o'er her dead favourite bends; O'er me wave the willow! and long may it flourish, Bedew'd with the tears of wife, children, and friends.

SONNET.

SPENCER.

How sweet to rove, from summer sunbeams veil'd, In gloomy dingles; or to trace the tide

Of wandering brooks, their pebbly beds that chide;

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