|
Little Book! surnam’d of White;
Clean, as yet, and fair to sight;
Keep thy attribution right.
|
|
Never disproportion’d scrawl;
Ugly blot, that’s worse than all;
On thy maiden clearness fall.
|
|
In each Letter, here design’d,
Let the Reader emblem’d find
Neatness of the Owner’s mind.
|
|
Gilded margins count a sin;
Let thy leaves attraction win
By the Golden Rules within:
|
|
Sayings, fetch’d from Sages old;
Saws, which Holy Writ unfold,
Worthy to be writ in Gold:
|
|
Lighter Fancies not excluding;
Blameless wit, with nothing rude in,
Sometimes mildly interluding
|
|
Amid strains of graver measure:—
Virtue’s self hath oft her pleasure
In sweet Muses’ groves of leisure.
|
|
Riddles dark, perplexing sense;
Darker meanings of offence;
What but shades, be banish’d hence.
|
|
Whitest Thoughts, in whitest dress—
Candid Meanings—best express
Mind of quiet Quakeress.
|
DEAR B.
B.—“I am ill at these numbers;” but if the
above be not too mean to have a place in thy Daughter’s Sanctum, take them with pleasure. I assume
that her Name is Hannah, because it is a pretty scriptural
cognomen. I began on another
| 1824 | ANOTHER PIG | 655 |
Well, I hope and trust thy Tick doleru, or however you spell it, is vanished, for I have frightful impressions of that Tick, and do altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, or the Tick of a Death Watch. I take it to be a species of Vitus’s dance (I omit the Sanctity, writing to “one of the men called Friends”). I knew a young Lady who could dance no other, she danced thro’ life, and very queer and fantastic were her steps. Heaven bless thee from such measures, and keep thee from the Foul Fiend, who delights to lead after False Fires in the night, Flibbertigibit, that gives the web and the pin &c. I forget what else.—
From my den, as Bunyan has it, 30 Sep. 24.
