Prologue to the Recruiting Officer

From the fair mansions of illustrious shades,
From groves of bliss, poetic painted meads,
Should Farquhar, deck'd with deathless lawrels come,
Obedient to his own recruiting drum;
Conscious, to-night, of the superior grace,
The nobler beauties that adorn this place;
Here would he fix—enraptur'd, here abide,
And change Elysium for the Severn's side.

Let boasting Rome of one Maecenas tell,
Countless are those that by the Severn dwell.
Parnassus mount let future bards disclaim,
Hark, how the Rekin's hospitable name,
Swells in the voice of Farquhar, and of fame.

Sabrina , softest nymph that glides along,
Winding and various as her Farquhar's song,
Indulgent smil'd, to bless the poet's toil,
And streight his bays bloom'd fresh, and own'd the gen'rous soil.

Here—beauty beams, with social sweetness mix'd!
Here—true politeness has her standard fix'd!
Here—let the muse her sacred numbers swell,
And, here let sportive wit and gay drest humour dwell!

O may our secondary labours find
The brave propitious, and the beauteous kind!
So may Salopian plains, that bloom so gay,
Ne'er know a blast, but wear perpetual May.