Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/375

The sweep Rialto forms, or your fair brow—
The fault to youthful valour we allow;
A word by which possession we denote,
A letter high in place and first in note;
What guards the beauty from the scorching ray;
What little master first is taught to say;
Great Nature's rival, handmaid, sometimes foe;
The most pathetic counterpart of "Oh!"
The whiskered pilferer and her foe demure;
The lamps unbought which light the houseless poor;
What bore famed heroes through the ranks of war;
What's heard when falls from high the ponderous jar;
What holy Paul did at Gamaliel's feet—
What Bavius writes, what schoolboys love to eat;
Of eager gamesters what decides the fate;
The homely rough support of Britain's state;
What, joined to "been," is fatal to a toast;
What guards the sailor from the shelving coast;
The stage whence villains make their^last harangue;
What in your head and bones gives many a pang;