And, to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
2 Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live :"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think,
On this reversion, takes up ready praise ;
At least their own; their future selves applaud;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
3 All promise is poor dilatory man;
And that thro' ev'ry stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our father's were more wise
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay;
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.
4 And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread ;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.--YOUNG
That Philosophy, which stops at Secondary Causes, reproved
HAPPY the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that checker life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns; (since from the least
The greatest oft originate ;) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforseen
Contingence might alarm him and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
2 This truth, philosophy, though eagle-ey'd
In nature's tendencies, oft o'erlooks;
And having found his instrument, forgets
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaim
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist life; involves the heav'n
In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrify the breath of blooming health; 3 He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear; he springs his mines,
And desolates a nation at a blast:
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tell
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and re-action.
The source of the disease that nature feels;
And bids the world take heart and banish fear
Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause
Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means since first he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means,
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught ;
learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.
Indignant Sentiments on National Prejudices, Slavery, He
OH, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report
Of wrong and outrage
with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart;
It does not feel for man.
Of brotherhood is sever'd, as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
2 He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own; and having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
3 Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
4 Then what is man! And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
5 No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd above all price;
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, that fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home-then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.
6 Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through ev'ry vein
Of all your empire; that where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may fell her
CHAPTER IV.
DESCRIPTIVE PIECES.
SECTION I.
The Morning in Summer.
The meek-ey'd morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint gleaming in the dappled east ;
Till far o'er ether spreads the wid'ning glows;
And from before the lustre of her face
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step
Brown night retires; young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
2 The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, thro' the dusk the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps awkward: while along the forest-glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy ;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
3 Rous'd by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;
And from the crowed fold, in order, drives
Ilis flock to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake;
And springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song?
4 For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise!
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of th' enlighten'd soul !
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wilder'd, and tossing thro' distemper'd dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And ev'ry blooming pleasure waits without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk ?---- THOMSON
Rural Sounds, as well as Rural Sights, delightful
NOR rural sights alone, but rural sounds
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.
That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood,
Of ancient growth, make music, not unlike
The dash of ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the spirit while they fill the mind;
Unnumber'd branches waving in the blast,
And all their leaves fast flutt'ring all at once.
2 Nor less composure waits upon the roar
Of distant floods; or on the softer voice
Of neighb'ring fountain; or of rills that slip
Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall
Upon loose pebbles, loose themselves at length
In matted grass, that, with a livelier green,
Betrays the secret of their silent course.
Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds;
But animated nature sweeter still;
To soothe and satisfy the human ear.
3 Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The live-long night. Nor these alone, whose notes
Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain;
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime,
In still repeated circles, screaming loud;
The jay, the pye, and ev'n the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves, and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,
And orly there, please highly for their sake.-coWI &
SECTION III.
THE rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a show'r,
Which Mary to Anna convey'd;
The plentiful moisture encumber'd the flow'r,
And weigh'd down its beautiful head.
2 The cup was all fill'd, and the leaves were all wet,
And it seemed to a fanciful view,
To weep for the buds it had left with regret,
On the flourishing bush where it
8 I hastily seiz'd it, unfit as it was
For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd
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