[Page 49]

CHARACTERS.

— semper amabilem.
HORAT.
1 OH! born to sooth distress, and lighten care;
2 Lively as soft, and innocent as fair;
3 Blest with that sweet simplicity of thought
4 So rarely found, and never to be taught;
5 Of winning speech, endearing, artless, kind,
6 The loveliest pattern of a female mind;
7 Like some fair spirit from the realms of rest
8 With all her native heaven within her breast;
9 So pure, so good, she scarce can guess at sin,
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10 But thinks the world without like that within;
11 Such melting tenderness, so fond to bless,
12 Her charity almost becomes excess.
13 Wealth may be courted, wisdom be rever'd,
14 And beauty prais'd, and brutal strength be fear'd;
15 But goodness only can affection move;
16 And love must owe its origin to love.
Illam quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit,
Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.
TIBUL.
1 OF gentle manners, and of taste refin'd,
2 With all the graces of a polish'd mind;
3 Clear sense and truth still shone in all she spoke,
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4 And from her lips no idle sentence broke.
5 Each nicer elegance of art she knew;
6 Correctly fair, and regularly true:
7 Her ready fingers plied with equal skill
8 The pencil's task, the needle, or the quill.
9 So pois'd her feelings, so compos'd her soul,
10 So subject all to reason's calm controul,
11 One only passion, strong, and unconfin'd,
12 Disturb'd the balance of her even mind:
13 One passion rul'd despotic in her breast,
14 In every word, and look, and thought confest;
15 But that was love, and love delights to bless
16 The generous transports of a fond excess.

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Title (in Source Edition): CHARACTERS.
Author: Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin)
Themes: characters
Genres: heroic couplet

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Source edition

Barbauld, Mrs. (Anna Letitia), 1743-1825. Poems. London: printed for Joseph Johnson, 1773, pp. 49-51. vi,138p. ; 4⁰. (ESTC T236; OTA K019955.000) (Page images digitized by New York Public Library.)

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