Attention tired with fancied scenes like these,
Recoils, and wishes for familiar hours;
Pants for the pillow'd chair, the robe of ease,
And gladly yields to common life, its powers.
What pen but BURNEY's then, can sooth the breast?
Who draw from nature with a skill so true?
In ev'ry varying mode it stands confest,
When brought by her before th' enquirer's view.
A power  all her portraits fill.
When lines are bold and strong, a vulgar pen
May take the sketch; it asks no mighty skill
Misers to paint, or mad, or wayward men.
But human nature in its  dye
Burney detects; drags it to open day —
Makes evident what slip'd the unmarking eye,
And bids it glare, with truth's pervading ray.
The huddled beings of the common mass,
Who to themselves appear of equal sort,
Must not in unawaken'd error pass —
And sure 'tis this, is keen-ey'd Burney's fort!
Touch'd by her spear, they sudden spring to sight,
But not new form'd — she shews them as they are;
She  no character, but gives the light
Which makes them clear, as Herschel sees a star!