What think you of the following similies?
Look how the stricken hart that wounded flies Oe’r hills and dales, and seeks the lower grounds For running streams, the whilst his weeping eyes Beg silent mercy from the following hounds; At length, embost, he droops, drops down, and lies Beneath the burthen of his bleeding wounds: Ev’n so my gasping soul, dissolv’d in tears, &c.
Mark how the widow’d turtle, having lost The faithful partner of her loyal heart, Stretches her feeble wings from coast to coast, Hunts ev’ry path; thinks ev’ry shade doth part Her absent love and her; at length, unsped, She re-betakes her to her lonely bed, And there bewails her everlasting widow-head.
Look how the sheep, whose rambling steps do stray From the safe blessing of her shepherd’s eyes, Eft-soon becomes the unprotected prey To the wing’d squadron of beleag’ring flies; Where swelt’red with the scorching beams of day She frisks from bush to brake, and wildly flies away From her own self, ev’n of herself afraid; She shrouds her troubled brows in ev’ry glade And craves the mercy of the soft removing shade.
The first, will probably remind you of Shakspeare’s description of the wounded stag in _As you like it_; which it may do, and not suffer by the comparison. The second, is very original in the expression—the circumstance of
——thinks _every shade_ doth part Her absent love and her——
is I believe new, and exquisitely tender. There are others not much inferior to these.
The following verses allude to the print prefixed, where a bubble is represented as heavier than the globe. It is necessary to observe, that the prints were designed first, and the poems are in a great measure explanatory of them.
Lord! what a world is this, which day and night Men seek with so much toil, with so much trouble, Which weigh’d in equal scales is found so light, So poorly overbalanc’d with a bubble? Good God! that frantic mortals should destroy Their higher hopes, and place their idle joy Upon such airy trash, upon so light a toy! * * * *
*Thrice happy he, whose nobler, thoughts despise To make an object of so easy gains; Thrice happy he, who scorns so poor a prize Should be the crown of his heroic pains: Thrice happy he, that ne’er was born to try Her frowns or smiles: or being born, did lie In his sad nurse’s arms an hour or two, and die.