The Dull Moralist

When Shenkin's dull, distracted Muse In howling strain her note began, The shepherds boded bloody news, And o'er the plains affrighted ran; Florinda would not venture near, The music did so pain her ear.

He told the nymphs in heavy rhyme That they must shortly quit the plain, Since autumn is a stormy time, And summer will not come again— The nymphs reply'd—"We ask not here To have two harvests in one year."

Though every thing was blithe and gay, And Nature tun'd a cheerful song, You would have thought, to hear him play, That all the world was going wrong: Thus birds of night bode weather foul, Thus nightly sings the winking owl.

Like him that sleeps in yonder tomb, Whose bones will never make a stir, He labours in eternal gloom, And is a dry philosopher, Who gave the best advice he had To mend the world—or make it mad,

To him creation was a shade; So much his head on tomb-stones ran, That Rosalinda, smiling, said, "He is the sexton's journeyman,"— Then let him sigh, and sob, and sing, His autumn never had a spring.