Tho’ on such scenes the fancy loves to dwell,
The stomach oft a different tale will tell;
Then, leave the wood, and seek the shelt’ring roof,
And put the pantry’s vital strength to proof;
The aerial banquets of the tuneful nine,
May suit some appetites, but faith! not mine;
For my coarse palate, coarser food must please,
Substantial beef, pies, puddings, ducks, and pease;
Such food, the fangs of keen disease defies,
And such rare feeding Hornsey House supplies: 
Nor these alone, the joys that court us here,
Wine! generous wine! that drowns corroding care,
Asserts its empire in the glittering bowl,
And pours promethean vigor o’er the soul. 
Here, too, that bluff John Bull, whose blood boils high
At such base wares of foreign luxury;
Who scorns to revel in imported cheer,
Who prides in perry, and exults in beer: 
On these his surly virtue shall regale,
With quickening cyder, and with fattening ale.

Nor think, ye Fair! our Hornsey has denied,
The elegant repasts where you preside: 
Here, may the heart rejoice, expanding free
In all the social luxury of Tea! 
Whose essence pure, inspires such charming chat,
With nods, and winks, and whispers, and all that. 
Here, then, while ’rapt, inspir’d, like Horace old,
We chaunt convivial hymns to Bacchus bold;
Or heave the incense of unconscious sighs,
To catch the grace that beams from beauty’s eyes;
Or, in the winding wilds sequester’d deep,
Th’unwilling Muse invoking, fall asleep;
Or cursing her, and her ungranted smiles,
Chase butterflies along the echoing aisles: 
Howe’er employ’d, here be the town forgot,
Where fogs, and smokes, and jostling crowds are not.

SONNET.

TO ............

Thou bud of early promise, may the rose
  Which time, methinks, will rear in envied bloom,
By friendship nurs’d, its grateful sweets disclose,
  Nor e’er be nipt in life’s disast’rous gloom. 
For much thou ow’st to him whose studious mind
  Rear’d thy young years, and all thy wants supplied;
Whose every precept breath’d affection kind,
  And to the friend’s, a father’s love allied. 
Oh! how ’twill glad him in life’s evening day,
  To see that mind, parental care adorn’d,
With grateful love the debt immense repay,
  And realize each hope affection form’d. 
The deed be thine—­’twill many a care assuage,
Exalt thy worth, and blunt the thorns of age.

THE COMPLAINT

Ah! this wild desolated spot,
  Calls forth the plaintive tear;
Remembrance paints my little cot,
  Which once did flourish here.

No more the early lark and thrush
  Shall hail the rising day,
Nor warble on their native bush,
  Nor charm me with their lay.

No more the foliage of the oak
  Shall spread its wonted shade;
Now fell’d beneath the hostile stroke
  Of red destruction’s blade.