Matthew Prior Poems

Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her,
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker,
...

The bewailing of man's miseries hath been elegantly and copiously set forth by many, in the writings as well of
...

As the Chameleon, who is known
To have no colours of his own,
But borrows from his neighbour's hue
His white or black, his green or blue,
...

At Mary's tomb (sad sacred place!)
The Virtues shall their vigils keep,
And every Muse and every Grace
In solemn state shall ever weep.
...

Lords, knights, and squires, the num'rous band,
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summon'd by her high command,
To show their passions by their letters.
...

But shall we take the Muse abroad,
To drop her idly on the road,
And leave our subject in the middle,
As Butler did his Bear and Fiddle?
...

The train of equipage and pomp of state,
The shining sideboard and the burnish'd plate,
Let other ministers, great Anne, require,
...

Some Folks are drunk, yet do not know it:
So might not Bacchus give You Law?
Was it a Muse, O lofty Poet,
...

In awful pomp and melancholy state,
See settled Reason on the judgement-seat;
Around her crowd Distrust, and Doubt, and Fear,
...

My Lord,
Our weekly friends to-morrow meet
At Matthew's palace in Duke-street,
To try for once if they can dine
...