No song nor dance I bring from yongreat city,
That queens it o’er our taste-the more’s the pity:
Tho’ by the bye, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home:
But not for panegyric I appear,
I come to wish you all a good New Year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:
The sage, grave Ancient cough’d, and bademe say,
“You’re one year older this important day,”
If wiser too-he hinted some suggestion,
But’twould be rude, you know, to ask the question;
And with a would-be roguish leer and wink,
Said-“Sutherland, in one word, bidthem Think!”
Ye sprightly youths, quite flush with hope and spirit,
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit,
To you the dotard has a deal to say,
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way!
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle,
That the first blow is ever half the battle;
That tho’ some by the skirt may try to snatch him,
Yet by the foreclock is the hold to catch him;
That whether doing, suffering, orforbearing,
You may do miracles bypersevering.
Last, tho’ not least in love, ye youthful fair,
Angelic forms, high Heaven’s peculiar care!
To you old Bald-pate smoothes his wrinkled brow,
And humbly begs you’ll mindthe important-Now!
To crown your happiness he asks your leave,
And offers, bliss to give and to receive.
For our sincere, tho’ haply weak endeavours,
With grateful pride we own your many favours;
And howsoe’er our tongues may ill reveal it,
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it.