MORAL COSMETICS.

YE who would have your features florid,
Lithe limbs, bright eyes, unwrinkled forehead,
From age's devastation horrid,

Adopt this plan,

"T will make, in climate cold or torrid, A hale old man.

MAY the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see

In this word-perplexity,

Or a fit expression find,

Or a language to my mind

(Still the phrase is wide or scant),
To take leave of thee, great plant!
Or in any terms relate

Half my love, or half my hate;
For I hate, yet love, thee so,
That, whichever thing I show,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrained hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More for a mistress than a weed.

Sooty retainer to the vine! Bacchus's black servant, negro fine! Sorcerer! that mak'st us dote upon

Thy begrimed complexion,

And, for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break

Than reclaimed lovers take

'Gainst women! Thou thy siege dost lay Much, too, in the female way,

While thou suck'st the laboring breath
Faster than kisses, or than death.

Thou in such a cloud dost bind us That our worst foes cannot find us,

And ill fortune, that would thwart us,

Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;

While each man, through thy heightening steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem;

And all about us does express

(Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.

Thou through such a mist dost show us That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowed features Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell chimeras, Monsters, that who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.

Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do,

As the false Egyptian spell

Aped the true Hebrew miracle?

Some few vapors thou mayst raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze; But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart.

Brother of Bacchus, later born!
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee, that aidest more
The god's victories than, before,
All his panthers, and the brawls
Of his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stale, we disallow,

Or judge of thee meant: only thou
His true Indian conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformed god now weaves
A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chemic art did ne'er presume,
Through her quaint alembic strain,
None so sovereign to the brain.
Nature, that did in thee excel,
Framed again no second smell.
Roses, violets, but toys
For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener damsels meant ;
Thou art the only manly scent.

Stinkingest of the stinking kind!
Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind!
Africa, that brags her foyson,
Breeds no such prodigious poison !
Henbane, nightshade, both together,
Hemlock, aconite-

Nay, rather,

Plant divine, of rarest virtue !
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you !
"T was but in a sort I blamed thee;
None e'er prospered who defamed thee;

Irony all, and feigned abuse,
Such as perplext lovers use
At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
Which their fancies doth so strike,
They borrow language of dislike;
And, instead of dearest Miss,
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her cockatrice and siren,
Basilisk, and all that's evil,
Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil,
Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor,
Monkey, ape, and twenty more,
Friendly trait'ress, loving foe,
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way they know,
A contentment to express
Borders so upon excess
That they do not rightly wot
Whether it be from pain or not.

Or, as men, constrained to part With what 's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow 's at the height Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall,

On the darling thing, whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.

For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, tobacco, I

Would do anything but die,

And but seek to extend my days
Long enough to sing thy praise.
But, as she who once hath been
A king's consort is a queen
Ever after, nor will bate
Any tittle of her state
Though a widow, or divorced,
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
A right Catherine of Spain;
And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
Of the blest tobacco boys;
Where, though I, by sour physician,
Am debarred the full fruition

Of thy favors, I may catch

Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odors, that give life

Like glances from a neighbor's wife;
And still live in the by-places

Go to my mother's side,

And her crushed spirit cheer; Thine own deep anguish hide, Wipe from her cheek the tear; Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow, The gray that streaks her dark hair now, The toil-worn frame, the trembling limb, And trace the ruin back to him Whose plighted faith, in early youth, Promised eternal love and truth, But who, forsworn, hath yielded up This promise to the deadly cup, And led her down from love and light, From all that made her pathway bright,

Over the table, — look out for the lamp! The rogue is growing a little old;

Five years we've tramped through wind and weather,

And slept out-doors when nights were cold,

And ate and drank - and starved together.

We've learned what comfort is, I tell you!
A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin,

A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow !
The paw he holds up there 's been frozen),
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle

(This out-door business is bad for the strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings!

No, thank ye, sir, — I never drink ;

Roger and I are exceedingly moral,
Are n't we, Roger? - see him wink!
Well, something hot, then,
He's thirsty too,

we won't quarrel. see him nod his head? What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk! He understands every word that's said, And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk.

The truth is, sir, now I reflect,

I've been so sadly given to grog,

I wonder I've not lost the respect

(Here's to you, sir !) even of my dog.
But he sticks by through thick and thin ;
And this old coat, with its empty pockets,
And rags that smell of tobacco and gin,

He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets.