Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the farthest west; And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, And worships. Her report has travell'd forth Into all lands. From every clime they come To see thy beauty and to share thy joy,
O Sion! an assembly such as earth
Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see.
Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restored.
So God has greatly purposed; who would else In his dishonour'd works himself endure Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress. Haste, then, and wheel away a shatter'd world, Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see (A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet) A world that does not dread and hate his law And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair The creature is that God pronounces good, How pleasant in itself what pleases him. Here every drop of honey hides a sting;
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers; And e'en the joy that haply some poor heart Derives from heaven, pure as the fountain is,
Is sullied in the stream, taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure. O for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish! over which Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, That govern all things here, shouldering aside The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of Strife In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men: Where Violence shall never lift the sword, Nor Cunning justify the proud man's wrong, Leaving the poor no remedy but tears: Where he, that fills an office, shall esteem The occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite: where Law shall speak Seldom, and never but as Wisdom prompts And Equity; not jealous more to guard A worthless form, than to decide aright :- Where Fashion shall not sanctify abuse, Nor smooth Good-breeding (supplemental grace) With lean performance ape the work of Love!
Come then, and, added to thy many crowns, Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, Thou who alone art worthy! It was thine By ancient covenant, ere Nature's birth;
And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, And overpaid its value with thy blood.
Thy saints proclaim thee king; and in their hearts Thy title is engraven with a pen
Dipp'd in the fountain of eternal love.
Thy saints proclaim thee king; and thy delay Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see The dawn of thy last advent, long desired, Would creep into the bowels of the hills, And flee for safety to the falling rocks. The very spirit of the world is tired
Of its own taunting question, ask'd so long, "Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?" The infidel has shot his bolts away,
Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none,
He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoil'd, And aims them at the shield of Truth again. The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, That hides divinity from mortal eyes; And all the mysteries to faith proposed, Insulted and traduced, are cast aside, As useless, to the moles and to the bats.
They now are deem'd the faithful, and are praised, Who, constant only in rejecting thee, Deny thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, And quit their office for their error's sake. Blind, and in love with darkness! yet e'en these Worthy, compared with sycophants, who kneel Thy name adoring, and then preach thee man! So fares thy church. But how thy church may fare The world takes little thought. Who will may preach, And what they will. All pastors are alike
To wandering sheep, resolved to follow none. Two gods divide them all-Pleasure and Gain: For these they live, they sacrifice to these, And in their service wage perpetual war
With Conscience and with thee. Lust in their hearts And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth To prey upon each other: stubborn, fierce, High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. Thy prophets speak of such; and, noting down The features of the last degenerate times, Exhibit every lineament of these.
Come then, and, added to thy many crowns, Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest, Due to thy last and most effectual work, Thy word fulfill'd, the conquest of a world! He is the happy man whose life e'en now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doom'd to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content indeed to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home. The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects, more illustrious in her view; And, occupied as earnestly as she,
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. He cannot skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing gilded flies; and such he deems Her honours, her emoluments, her joys. Therefore in Contemplation is his bliss,
Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be reveal'd. Not slothful he, though seeming unemploy'd, And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird That flutters least is longest on the wing. Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has raised, Or what achievements of immortal fame He purposes, and he shall answer-None. His warfare is within. There, unfatigued, His fervent spirit labours. There he fights, And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, And never-withering wreaths, compared with which The laurels that a Cæsar reaps are weeds. Perhaps the self-approving haughty world, That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see, Deems him a cipher in the works of God, Receives advantage from his noiseless hours, Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes, When, Isaac-like, the solitary saint Walks forth to meditate at even-tide,
And think on her who thinks not for herself. Forgive him, then, thou bustler in concerns Of little worth, an idler in the best, If, author of no mischief and some good, He seek his proper happiness by means That may advance, but cannot hinder, thine. Nor, though he tread the secret path of life, Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease, Account him an encumbrance on the state, Receiving benefits, and rendering none.
His sphere, though humble, if that humble sphere Shine with his fair example, and though small His influence, if that influence all be spent In soothing sorrow and in quenching strife, In aiding helpless indigence, in works From which at least a grateful few derive Some taste of comfort in a world of woe; Then let the supercilious great confess He serves his country, recompenses well The state, beneath the shadow of whose vire He sits secure, and in the scale of life Holds no ignoble, though a slighted, place.
The man, whose virtues are more felt than seen, Must drop indeed the hope of public praise; But he may boast, what few that win it can, That, if his country stand not by his skill, At least his follies have not wrought her fall. Polite Refinement offers him in vain Her golden tube, through which a sensual world Draws gross impurity, and likes it well, The neat conveyance hiding all the offence. Not that he peevishly rejects a mode Because that world adopts it. If it bear The stamp and clear impression of good sense, And be not costly more than of true worth, He puts it on, and, for decorum sake, Can wear it e'en as gracefully as she. She judges of refinement by the eye, He by the test of conscience, and a heart Not soon deceived; aware that what is base No polish can make sterling; and that vice, Though well perfumed and elegantly dress'd, Like an unburied carcass trick'd with flowers Is but a garnish'd nuisance, fitter far For cleanly riddance than for fair attire. So life glides smoothly and by stealth away, More golden than that age of fabled gold Renown'd in ancient song; not vex'd with care Or stain'd with guilt, beneficent, approved Of God and man, and peaceful in its end. So glide my life away! and so, at last, My share of duties decently fulfill'd, May some disease, not tardy to perform Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke, Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat,
Beneath the turf that I have often trod.
It shall not grieve me then that once, when call'd To dress a Sofa with the flowers of verse,
I play'd awhile, obedient to the fair,
With that light task; but soon, to please her more, Whom flowers alone I knew would little please, Let fall the unfinish'd wreath, and roved for fruit; Roved far, and gather'd much some harsh, 'tis true Pick'd from the thorns and briars of reproof, But wholesome, well-digested; grateful some To palates that can taste immortal truth; Insipid else, and sure to be despised. But all is in His hand, whose praise I seek. In vain the poet sings, and the world hears, If he regard not, though divine the theme. "Tis not in artful measures, in the chime And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre, To charm His ear, whose eye is on the heart; Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whose approbation--prosper even mine.
Κεφαλαιον δε παιδειας ορθη τροφη.
Αρχη πολιτείας απασης νέων τροφών
To the Rev. William Cawthorne Unwin, Rector of Stock in Essex, the tutor of his two sons, the following poem, recommending private tuition in preference to an education at school, is inscribed, by his affectionate friend,
IT is not from his form, in which we trace Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace, That man, the master of this globe, derives His right of empire over all that lives. That form, indeed, the associate of a mind Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind, That form, the labour of Almighty skill, Framed for the service of a freeborn will, Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control, But borrows all its grandeur from the soul. Hers is the state, the splendour, and the throne, An intellectual kingdom, all her own. For her the memory fills her ample page With truths pour'd down from every distant age; For her amasses an unbounded store,
The wisdom of great nations, now no more; Though laden, not encumber'd with her spoil; Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil;
When copiously supplied, then most enlarged; Still to be fed, and not to be surcharged. For her the Fancy, roving unconfined, The present muse of every pensive mind, Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hue To Nature's scenes than Nature ever knew. At her command winds rise and waters roar, Again she lays them slumbering on the shore: With flower and fruit the wilderness supplies, Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arise. For her the Judgment, umpire in the strife That Grace and Nature have to wage through life,
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