Classic Poem

To please my Maria I take up my pen
But shrewdly suspect I must douse it again
The cold so intense and the regions of air
So pregnant with snow, that the muses I fear
Will fail to procure of old phebus his Car
As Niggards still reckon the wear and the tare
Then how can I sing for the poets you know
Must sip of their spring or they nothing can do
And nature that always the Muses asist
Whose images fancy can never resist
Lies torpid and dull as tho she was numb
Her verdure defac'd and her songsters all dumb
Ev'n the sweet grove of Selma no visit recieves
For Boreas rude bustler has torn of it's leaves
And clad it in ruset your loss to deplore
For trees as of old weep in amber no more.
The tulip and hyacinth sleep in their beds
Nor jonquil nor snow drop dare now shew their heads
And the quail that by instinct can tempests descern
Takes refuge with turkies and ducks round the barn
The zylph and the zephyre together are flown
Beyond the equator and nearer the sun
My bowers of roses and lilac how chang'd
Since with Thomson and Gibbons Delighted you rangd
While genius and virtue and elegant taste
Unfolded their beauties to give you a feast
Tho muses are absent and stern winter reigns
And binds up dame nature in Isicle chains
Yet the muses may stay and their absence prolong
If Maria sweet maiden but smile on my song
Her smile like the muses and nature inspires
Nor can I refuse her the verse she requires.
At least like the aged in narative strains
I can talk of the pleasures and sports of these plains
For at Morven you know the sweet social powers
Delight to resort and the first day is ours
On christmass as usual the grave ones I chose
Whose mirth and good humour delightfully flows
Where sentiment pure and sense most refin'd
And knowledge and learning their power combin'd
With the spirit of wit and the essence of taste
To give a high relish to our annual feast. —
The happy circle shut the door on care
Content that Witherspoon and Smith were there.
The young ones had also a day in their turn
And they danced and sung till one in the morn
While all the week thro the sleighs were paraded
And beaux in high quirpo the damsels invaded.
— And now each social sacred rite renew'd
The choicest viands chear'd the neighbourhood
And friendship and Convivial Joy went thro
With no regret but that of missing you —