Impromptu, To Lady Winchelsea

"TRANSLATED IN THE YEAR 1703.     ARGUMENT.     Oedipus, King of Thebes, having, by mistake, slain his father Laius, and married his mother Joc"

"Did Milton's prose, O Charles! thy death defend?     A furious foe unconscious proves a friend.     On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know,"

"Grown old in rhyme, 'twere barbarous to discard     Your persevering, unexhausted bard;     Damnation follows death in other men,     But your"

"Of manners gentle, of affections mild;     In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:     With native humour tempering virtuous rage,     Form'd to de"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"