The Sun.
London, England, 1821-08-31 00:00:00

P O E T R Y.

Speak ! for thou long enough bast acted Dummy,
Thou hast a tongue—come—let us hear its tune ;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us—for doubtless thou canst recollect,
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame ?
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect
Of either Pyramid that bears his name ?
Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer ?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer ?

Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden
By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade,
Then say what secret melody was. hidden
In Memnon's statue which at sun-rise play'd ?
Perhaps thou wert a Priest--if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.

Perchance that very hand, now pinion'd flat,
Has hob-a-nob'd with Pharoah glass to glass ;
Or dropp'd a halfpenny in Homer's hat, .
Or doff'd thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when arm'd,
Has any Roman soldier maul'd and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalm'd,
Ere Romulus and Reums had been suckled :
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou could'st develope, if that wither'd tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world look'd when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left it green__
Or was it then so old that History's pages
Contain'd no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf ?
Art sworn to secrecy ? then keep thy vows ;
But prythee tell us something of thyself,
Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumber'd,
What hast thou seen—what strange adventures numbefd

Since first thy form was in this box extended,
We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations ;
The Roman Empire has begun and ended,
New worlds have risen—we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy fish has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head
When the great Persian conqueror Cambyses
March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ?
If the tomb's secrets may not be confess'd,

The nature of thy private life unfold :
A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have roll'd :
Have children climb'd those knees, and kiss'd that face ?
What was thy name and station, age and race ?

Statue of flesh—lmmortal of the dead !
Imperishable type of evanescence !
Posthumous man, who quit'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt bear nothing till the Judgment morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning.
Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lest for ever ?.
0 let us keep the soul ernbalm'd and pure
In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

ANECDOTES.

When SPENCER had finished his famous Poem
of the Fairie Queen, he carried it to the Earl of Southampton,
the great patron of the Poets of those days. The manuscript
being sent up to the Earl, he read a few pages, and then order-
ed his servant to give the writer 201. Reading on, he cried in
rapture, carry that man another 201., proceeding still, he said,
give him 201. more. But, at length, he lost all patience, and
said, go,
.turn that fellow out of the house, for if I read on I
shall be ruined.

Mr. MONINGS, Master of the King's School,
Canterbury, being at a place where a Gentleman expressed
great apprehensions on account ofa bleeding he was next morn-
ing to undergo, by advice of his physician, a punster then pre-
sent told him, he would recommend him to employ that gentle-
man (pointing to Mr. Monings) who was a very safe and able
FLAY-BOTTOMIST.

FOOTE being -upon a visit at Lord Towns-
hend's at Raynham, happened one morning to look into the
pig-stye, and saw a silver spoon among their victuals ; one of
the house-maids coming by and perceiving Mr. FoOte, cried
out, " Plague on the pigs what a noise they make." " Well
they may," said Foote, " for they have but one silver spoon
between them."

Bishop BURNET, who was a tall large-boned
man, preaching once with some vehemence before King Charles
the Second, closed one of his sentences with a violent thump.
upon the cushion, and this'note of interrogation: " Who dares
deny it ?"—" Nobody," said the King, in a whisper, " who
stands within the reach of that devilish great fist of your's."
SANTEUIL was the first who let fly the shafts
•of satire against the Monks. A Provoncal Gentleman com-
plained to an Attorney at Paris, that he had been cheated by a
Monk. " 4 What, Sir," says Santeuil, who was present, " a
man of your years not to know the Monks." There are, con-
tinued he, " four things in the world you should always guard
against—the face of a woman, the hind part of a mule, the side
of a cart, and a Monk on all sides."

At an Assize at Worcester, a cause was tried
about the soundness of a horse, in which a Clergyman, not
educated in the school of TAT T n SALL, appeared as a witness;
he was confused in giving his evidence, and the furious bluster-
ing Counsellpr who examined him, was at last tempted to ex-
claim, " Pray, Sir, do you know the difference between a horse
and a cow ?"—" I acknowledge my ignorance," says the grave
Divine, " I hardly do know the difference beween a horse and
a cow, or between a bully and bull ; only that a bull (I am told)
has lionws, and a bully (bowing to the Counsellor) luckily for
me, has none."

AN EXTRAORDINARY DRAUGHT Or FISH.—A
few days since, as a young gentleman of this
neighbourhood was fishing with a drag-net, as-
sisted only by two keepers, they caught, at one
draught, 167 brace of
.Tench, the smallest of
which weighed above half a pound.—(Hereford
Paper.)

The following Poem is a successful Imitation of the Style of the
late Dr. WOLCOT.
(From " THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.")
ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY AT BELZONI'S
EXHIBITION.
And thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story !)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.