Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/181

Rh  Some cordial they must need, who toil so hard To pickle and to hack each poor adventurous bard.—

I 've read in school-boy days,—thy cousin bees, (Mauger the din of warming-pans and matrons) Would swarm around the lips of Sophocles Mistaking the sweet muses for their patrons; But thou, more wise, dost better things secure, Trucking thy surplus wares with some well-paid Reviewer.

Good bye!—but why that angry hiss? I pray, Go vent in thy own nest, thy heighten'd spleen, Upon thy wife and babies, that 's the way, It breaks the dulness of too tame a scene, But if they chance to sting, as well as thee, Thou 'lt need the stock of venom thou hast spared from me.

 

On being presented with a leaf of the Oak where the boat of the "Lady of the Lake" landed,—with a sprig of fern from Loch Katrine, and heath from the Trosach glen.

Poor wither'd leaf!—and didst thou spring Luxuriant from that forest king, The lofty oak, whose stately pride O'erarch'd bold Caledonia's tide?— —And when that bark approach'd the shore Which Douglas' only treasure bore, Then little relic didst thou grace Thy parent bough, and bending, trace 