But you shall hear an odd affair indeed! And that it happened, they are all agreed: Not to detain you from a thing so strange, A gentleman, who lives not far from 'Change, This week, in short, as all the Alley knows, Taking a puke, has thrown up Three Black Crows !" "Impossible!""Nay, but 'tis really true; I had it from good hands, and so may you.'

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"From whose, I pray?". -So having named the man, Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran. Sir, did you tell"--relating the affairYes, sir, I did; and if 'tis worth your care, 'Twas Mr. Such-a-one, who told it me ;

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But, by the by, 'twas Two black crows, not Three."

Resolved to trace so wondrous an event,
Quick, to the third, the virtuoso went.
"Sir"--and so forth-" Why, yes; the thing is fact,
Though in regard to number not exact;

It was not Two black crows, 'twas only One,
The truth of that you may depend upon :
The gentleman himself told me the case."
"Where may

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I find him ?"—" Why, in such a place.”

Away he went; and having found him out,
Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt."-

Then to his last informant he referred,

And begged to know, if true what he had heard ;
"Did you, sir, throw up a black crow ?"-" NOT I.”-
"Bless me!-how people propagate a lie!

Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one ;
And here, I find, all comes at last to None!
Did you say nothing of a crow at all?"-

"Crow-crow-perhaps I might, now I recall The matter o'er." And, pray, sir, what was't?" Why, I was horrid sick, and at the last

I did throw up, and told my neighbour so,

Something that was- ——as black, sir, as a crow."

ODE TO INDEPENDENCE.

THY spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Thou, guardian genius, thou didst teach my youth
Pomp and her tinsel livery to despise :
My lips, by thee chastised to early truth,

Ne'er paid that homage which the heart denies.

Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnished Vice and Vanity, combined
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,

And forge vile shackles for the free-born mind:
Where Insolence his wrinkled front uprears,
And all the flowers of spurious fancy blow,
And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears,

Full often wreathed around the miscreant's brow:

Where ever dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain,
Presents her cup of stale profession's froth,
And pale Disease with all his bloated train,
Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth.
In Fortune's car behold the minion ride,

With either India's glittering spoils oppressed:
So moves the sumpter-mule in harnessed pride
That bears the treasure which he cannot taste.

For him let venal bards disgrace the bay,

And hireling minstrels wake the tinkling string; Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay, And all her gingling bells fantastic Folly ring; Disquiet, doubt, and dread shall intervene, And Nature, still to all her feelings just, In vengeance hang a damp on every scene, Shook from the baneful pinions of Esgust.

Nature I'll court in her sequestered haunts,

By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell, Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts, And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell. There Study shall with Solitude recline,

And Friendship pledge me to his fellow swains,
And Toil and Temperance sedately twine
The slender cord that fluttering life sustains,

And fearless Poverty shall guard the door,
And Taste unspoiled the frugal table spread,
And Industry supply the humble store,

And Sleep, unbribed, his dews refreshing shed;
White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite,

Shall chase far off the goblins of the night, And Independence o'er the day preside, Propitious power! my patron and my pride.

THE MISERIES OF THE POOR AND THE
LUXURY OF THE RICH.

WHERE then, ah! where shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common's fenceless limits strayed,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And e'en the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped-what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share ;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There, the pale artist plies the sickly trade;

Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps display,
There, the black gibbet glooms beside the way.

The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy !
Sure these denote one universal joy!

Are these thy serious thoughts?-Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,

She left her wheel, and robes of country brown.

AN ELEGY TO PITY,

HAIL, lovely power, whose bosom heaves the sigh
When fancy paints the scene of deep distress;
Whose tears spontaneous crystallize the eye,
When rigid fate denies the power to bless.
Not all the sweets Arabia's gales convey

From flowery meads, can, with that sigh, compare;
Not dew-drops glittering in the morning ray
Seem near so beauteous as that falling tear.

Devoid of fear, the fawns around thee play;
Emblem of peace, the dove before thee flies;
No blood-stained traces mark thy blameless way;
Beneath thy feet no hapless insect dies.
Come, lovely nymph, and range the mead with me,
To spring the partridge from the guileful foe,
From secret snares the struggling bird to free,
And stop the hand upraised to give the blow.

And when the air with heat meridian glows,

And nature droops beneath the conquering gleam, Let us, slow wandering where the current flows, Save sinking flies that float along the stream. Or turn to nobler, greater tasks thy care;To me thy sympathetic gifts impart, Teach me in friendship's griefs to bear a share, And justly boast the generous feeling heart : Teach me to soothe the helpless orphan's grief, With timely aid the widow's woes assuage, To misery's moving cries to yield relief,

And be the sure resource of drooping age. So when the genial spring of life shall fade, And sinking nature owns the dread decay, Some soul congenial then may lend its aid, And gild the close of life's eventful day.

THE HERMIT.

Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove;
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove :
'Twas thus by the cave of the mountain afar,

While his harp rang symphonious, a hermit began; No more with himself or with nature at war,

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

"Ah! why all abandoned to darkness and woe;
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthral.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,

Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn; Oh! soothe him whose pleasures like thine pass away : Full quickly they pass-but they never return.