Epigram On The March Of Intellect

'March on! march swiftly on!' the people cry,
Let us pursue Truth, Knowledge, Liberty!
March not so fast, my friends! or you will find,
That, in your haste, you've left them all behind.

    *        *        *        *        *

One day Maria, that keen-witted Belle,
Challenged her Beau to play at Bagatelle.
'What shall we play for?' Edwin quickly cried;
"Whate'er you please;" the smiling girl replied.
'Then for a kiss, fair lady, we will play.'
He wins the game, and straight demands his pay.
"No" 'Yes' "I wont" 'You shall' "I wont be kiss'd:
I'll pay you with a check if you persist."

Thomas Oldham

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Thomas Oldham

Ode, To Hope

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Thomas Oldham, Simple Poetry

English

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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.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

Alexander Pope

The Sixth Epistle Of The First Book Of Horace.

TO MR MURRAY.^[135]

'Not to admire, is all the art I know,
To make men happy, and to keep them so.'
(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech,
So take it in the very words of Creech.)^[136]

This vault of air, this congregated ball,
Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall,
There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes
Look through and trust the Ruler with his skies,
To Him commit the hour, the day, the year,
And view this dreadful All without a fear.

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold,
Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold;
All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?
Or popularity? or stars and strings?
The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?
Say with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze...

Alexander Pope

Play.

Play, play, while as yet it is day:
While the sweet sunlight is warm on the brae!
Hark to the lark singing lay upon lay,
While the brown squirrel eats nuts on the spray
And in the apple-leaves chatters the jay!
Play, play, even as they!
What though the cowslips ye pluck will decay,
What though the grass will be presently hay?
What though the noise that ye make should dismay
Old Mrs. Clutterbuck over the way?
Play, play, for your locks will grow gray;
Even the marbles ye sport with are clay.

Play, ay in the crowded highway:
Was it not made for you? Yea, my lad, yea.
True that the babes you were bid to convey
Home may fall out or be stolen or stray;
True that the tip-cat you toss about may
Strike an old gentleman, cause him to sway,
Stumble, and ...

Charles Stuart Calverley

Love Of Fame, The Universal Passion. Satire III.

To the Right Honorable Mr. Dodington.


Long, Dodington, in debt, I long have sought
To ease the burthen of my grateful thought;
And now a poet's gratitude you see;
Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three:
For whose the present glory, or the gain?
You give protection, I a worthless strain.
You love and feel the poet's sacred flame;
And know the basis of a solid fame;
Tho' prone to like, yet cautious to commend,
You read with all the malice of a friend;
Nor favour my attempts that way alone,
But, more to raise my verse, conceal your own.
    An ill-tim'd modesty! turn ages o'er,
When wanted Britain bright examples more?
Her learning, and her genius too, decays,
And dark and cold are her declining days;
As if men now were of another cast,

Edward Young

Epigram To Julia

Mark! how the Rose, when Phoebus burns,
    Averts her blushing face;
Mark! how the Sun-flower fondly turns
    To meet his warm embrace:
Like the coy rose, when woo'd by others, be,
Like the fond sun-flower, Love, when woo'd by me.

The Chancellor keeps the conscience of the King.
This seems, at first, a strange, mysterious thing;
But there's a deep-laid policy in it;
For, did the Chancellor not that conscience keep,
It might, perchance, be doom'd on thorns to sit;
Seated on wool, it may securely sleep.

    *    *    *    *    *

Papist and Protestant can ne'er agree.
'Pat!' cries an Englishman ''tis clear to me,
More grateful for the union you should be;
Think what an honour is to Ireland done:
Zounds! John Bull wed a whore of Babylon!'<...

Thomas Oldham