Epigram On Hearing Mr. **** Boast That He Could Translate Virgil

Thou able, boaster! Virgil to translate!
Can'st thou, then, be so vain, so shallow-pated?
To a far higher intellectual state,
Coxcomb! thou must, thyself, be first translated.

*    *    *    *    *

A lady had a sickly son;
A skeleton but for his skin:
Her pretty maid he woo'd, and won;
The mother chid him for his sin.
'Her charms were not to be withstood,
Too tempting for frail flesh and blood!
As you, dear Ma'am, must fairly own.'
"That's no excuse for skin and bone."

Thomas Oldham

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Thomas Oldham

Epigram On The Conduct Of Some Few Clergymen, Who Are A Disgrace To Their Sacred Profession

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Song To Bacchus

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Epigram On Hearing Of The Burning Of Moscow

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

Epitaph On Wilberforce

Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

English

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Epigram On Hearing A Clergyman Preach A Dull Sermon In A Loud, Shrill Voice

Still, still his bell-like voice rings through my head;
Yet not one bright thought cheers my mental view;
O! would that I were deaf, asleep, or dead!
Ye marble statues! how I envy you!

    *        *        *        *        *

To hear him preach the Methodistic creed,
What eager crowds to Ranter's chapel speed!
His eloquence the harden'd sinner frightens;
Like heaven itself says Fame, he thunders, lightens.
I go to hear him; Fame has made a blunder;
I see no lightning, though I hear the thunder.

For flowery sermons Doctor Drudge
    Of preachers at the top is;
If from their influence we may judge,
    His flowers are only poppies.

    *        *        *        *        *

Sir! you're both fool and knave! to Frank, Blunt cries

Thomas Oldham

Epigram To A Conceited & Affected, But Handsome Woman

Why, when I praise you, Ma'am, why tell me flat,
    All flattery you despise?
Self-love, the greatest flatterer, tells you that,
    And I am sure he lies.

    *        *        *        *        *

What a strong contrast to most modern sages
Were some philosophers of ancient ages!
E'en Socrates, so wise, yet modest too,
Own'd he knew only that he nothing knew.
Now! vain pretenders such presumption show,
They seem to fancy that they all things know.
Ye moderns, thus puff'd up with vanity,
Would that ye knew but half as much as he!

Thomas Oldham

Epigram On Hearing A Lady Talk Very Fast And Unintelligibly

Words upon words impetuous rush along,
And tread each other's brains out as they throng.

    *        *        *        *        *

'Admire my wife! did ever mortal eyes'
Cornuto, in a rapture, boasting cries
'Such a fine set of teeth of ivory view?
And such a fine complexion's ivory hue?
Fool! hide thy head! both her and thee we scorn:
Oft the wife's ivory makes the husband's horn.

    *        *        *        *        *

I'm told Sir Pigmy mimics me; what then?
Don't we all know that monkies mimic men?
'I cannot say your poem I admire;
It wants originality and fire;
Besides, I find it, by no means, correct;
You've written it in haste, I should suspect,'
"What! do you think me then a jackass, pray?"
'I shall think so if you so lou...

Thomas Oldham

Epigram. Auri Sacra Fames.

I knew a being once, his peaked head
With a few lank and greasy hairs was spread;
His visage blue, in length was like your own
Seen in the convex of a table-spoon.
His mouth, or rather gash athwart his face,
To stop at either ear had just the grace,
A hideous rift: his teeth were all canine,
And just like Death's (in Milton) was his grin.
One shilling, and one fourteen-penny leg,
(This shorter was than that, and not so big),
He had; and they, when meeting at his knees,
An angle formed of ninety-eight degrees.
Nature, in scheming how his back to vary,
A hint had taken from the dromedary:
His eyes an inward, screwing vision threw,
Striving each other through his nose to view.

His intellect was just one ray above
The idiot Cymon's ere he fell in love.<...

Thomas Gent

To Virgil. - Translations From Horace.

OD. i. 24.


Unshamed, unchecked, for one so dear
We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir,
Melpomene, to whom thy sire
Gave harp, and song-notes liquid-clear!

Sleeps He the sleep that knows no morn?
Oh Honour, oh twin-born with Right,
Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light,
When shall again his like be born?

Many a kind heart for Him makes moan;
Thine, Virgil, first. But ah! in vain
Thy love bids heaven restore again
That which it took not as a loan:

Were sweeter lute than Orpheus given
To thee, did trees thy voice obey;
The blood revisits not the clay
Which He, with lifted wand, hath driven

Into his dark assemblage, who
Unlocks not fate to mortal's prayer.
Hard lot! Yet light their griefs who BEAR
The ills ...

Charles Stuart Calverley

On The Death Of Lord Hastings.[1]

    Must noble Hastings immaturely die,
    The honour of his ancient family;
    Beauty and learning thus together meet,
    To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet?
    Must Virtue prove Death's harbinger? must she,
    With him expiring, feel mortality?
    Is death, Sin's wages, Grace's now? shall Art
    Make us more learned, only to depart?
    If merit be disease; if virtue death;
    To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
    Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem
    Labour a crime? study, self-murder deem?
    Our noble youth now have pretence to be
    Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully.
    Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise,
    Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise:
    Than whom great Alexander may seem less...

John Dryden