MY STUDY.

You bid me, Ned, describe the place

Where I, one of the rhyming race,

Pursue my studies con amore,

And wanton with the muse in glory.

Well, figure to your senses straight,

Upon the house's topmost height,

A closet just six feet by four,

With whitewash'd walls and plaster floor.

So noble large,‘ tis scarcely able

To admit a single chair and table:

And ( lest the muse should die with cold )

A smoky grate my fire to hold:

So wondrous small,‘ twould much it pose

To melt the icedrop on one's nose;

And yet so big, it covers o'er

Full half the spacious room and more.

A window vainly stuff'd about,

To keep November's breezes out,

So crazy, that the panes proclaim

That soon they mean to leave the frame.

My furniture I sure may crack —

A broken chair without a back;

A table wanting just two legs,

One end sustain'd by wooden pegs;

A desk — of that I am not fervent,

The work of, Sir, your humble servant;

( Who, though I say't, am no such fumbler;)

A glass decanter and a tumbler,

From which my night-parch'd throat I lave,

Luxurious, with the limpid wave.

A chest of drawers, in antique sections,

And saw'd by me in all directions;

So small, Sir, that whoever views‘ em

Swears nothing but a doll could use‘ em.

To these, if you will add a store

Of oddities upon thee floor,

A pair of globes, electric balls,

Scales, quadrants, prisms, and cobbler's awls,

And crowds of books, on rotten shelves,

Octavos, folios, quartos, twelves;

I think, dear Ned, you curious dog,

You'll have my earthly catalogue.

But stay,— I nearly had left out

My bellows destitute of snout;

And on the walls,— Good Heavens! why there

I've such a load of precious ware,

Of heads, and coins, and silver medals,

And organ works, and broken pedals;

( For I was once a-building music,

Though soon of that employ I grew sick );

And skeletons of laws which shoot

All out of one primordial root;

That you, at such a sight, would swear

Confusion's self had settled there.

There stands, just by a broken sphere,

A Cicero without an ear,

A neck, on which, by logic good,

I know for sure a head once stood;

But who it was the able master

Had moulded in the mimic planter,

Whether‘ t was Pope, or Coke, or Burn,

I never yet could justly learn:

But knowing well, that any head

Is made to answer for the dead,

( And sculptors first their faces frame,

And after pitch upon a name,

Nor think it aught of a misnomer

To christen Chaucer's busto Homer,

Because they both have beards, which, you know,

Will mark them well from Joan, and Juno,)

For some great man, I could not tell

But Neck might answer just as well,

So perch'd it up, all in a row

With Chatham and with Cicero.

Then all around, in just degree,

A range of portraits you may see,

Of mighty men and eke of women,

Who are no whit inferior to men.

With these fair dames, and heroes round,

I call my garret classic ground.

For though confined,‘ t will well contain

The ideal flights of Madam Brain.

No dungeon's walls, no cell confined

Can cramp the energies of mind!

Thus, though my heart may seem so small,

I've friends, and‘ t will contain them all;

And should it e'er become so cold

That these it will no longer hold,

No more may Heaven her blessings give,

I shall not then be fit to live.