Of moral uses take the strife;
Leave me the elegance of life.
Whatever charms the ear or eye,
All beauty and all harmony;
If sweet sensations these produce,
I know they have their moral use.
I know that Nature's charms can move

The springs that strike to Virtue's love.'

THE MISLETOE AND THE PASSIONFLOWER.

In this dim cave a druid sleeps,

Where stops the passing gale to moan;
The rock he hollow'd o'er him weeps,
And cold drops wear the fretted stone.

In this dim cave, of different creed,
An hermit's holy ashes rest;

The school-boy finds the frequent bead,
Which many a formal matin blest.

That truant-time full well I know
When here I brought in stolen hour,
The druid's magic Misletoe,

The holy hermit's Passion-flower.

The offerings on the mystic stone
Pensive I laid, in thought profound,
When from the cave a deepening groan
Issued, and froze me to the ground.

I hear it still-Dost thou not hear?
Does not thy haunted fancy start?
The sound still vibrates through mine ear-
The horror rushes on my heart.

Unlike to living sounds it came,

Unmix'd, unmelodiz'd with breath; But grinding through some scrannel frame, Creak'd from the bony lungs of Death. I hear it still-Depart, (it cries ;) No tribute bear to shades unblest: Know, hear a bloody druid lies,

Who was not nurs'd at Nature's breast. 'Associate he with demons dire,

O'er human victims held the knife, And pleas'd to see the babe expire, Smil'd grimly o'er its quivering life. 'Behold his crimson-streaming hand Erect; his dark, fix'd, murderous eye;' In the dim cave I saw him stand; And my heart died-I felt it die. I see him still-Dost thou not see

The haggard eye-ball's hollow glare? And gleams of wild ferocity

Dart through the sable shade of hair; What meagre form behind him moves, With eye that rues the' invading day ; And wrinkled aspect wan, that proves The mind to pale remorse a prey? What wretched-Hark-the voice replies, 'Boy, bear these idle honours hence! For, here a guilty hermit lies,

Untrue to Nature, Virtue, Sense.

Though Nature lent him powers to aid The moral cause, the mutual weal; Those powers he sunk in this dim shade, The desperate suicide of zeal.

Go, teach the drone of saintly haunts, Whose cell's the sepulchre of time; Though many a holy hymn he chaunts, His life is one continued crime.

And bear them hence, the plant, the flower;

No symbols those of systems vain!

They have the duties of their hour;

Some bird, some insect to sustain.

THE

ENLARGEMENT OF THE MIND.

EPISTLE I.

TO GENERAL CRAUFURD.

WRITTEN AT BELVIDERE, IN KENT. 1763.

WHERE is the man, who, prodigal of mind,
In one wide wish embraces human kind?
All pride of sects, all party zeal above,
Whose Priest is Reason, and whose God is Love;
Fair Nature's friend, a foe to fraud and art-
Where is the man, so welcome to my heart?

The sightless herd sequacious, who pursue
Dull Folly's path, and do as others do;
Who look with purblind prejudice and scorn,
On different sects, in different nations born,
Let us, my Craufurd, with compassion view,
Pity their pride, but shun their error too.

From Belvidere's fair groves, and mountains green, Which Nature rais'd, rejoicing to be seen,

Let us,

while raptur'd on her works we gaze, And the heart riots on luxurious praise,

The' expanded thought, the boundless wish retain,
And let not Nature moralize in vain.

O sacred guide! preceptress more sublime
Than sages boasting o'er the wrecks of time!
See on each page her beauteous volume bear
The golden characters of good and fair.

All human knowledge (blush collegiate pride !)
Flows from her works, to none that reads denied.

Shall the dull inmate of pedantic walls,

On whose old walk the sunbeam seldom falls,
Who knows of nature, and of man no more
Than fills some page of antiquated lore-
Shall he, in words and terms profoundly wise,
The better knowledge of the world despise,
Think Wisdom centerd in a false degree,
And scorn the scholar of Humanity?

Something of men these sapient drones may know,
Of men that liv'd two thousand years ago.

Such human monsters if the world e'er knew,
As ancient verse, and ancient story drew!

If to one object, system, scene confin'd,
The sure effect is narrowness of mind.
'Twas thus Saint Robert, in his lonely wood,
Forsook each social duty-to be good.
Thus Hobbes on one dear system fix'd his eyes,
And prov'd his nature wretched-
-to be wise.
Each zealot thus, elate with ghostly pride,
Adores his God, and hates the world beside.

Though form'd with powers to grasp this various
Gods! to what meanness may the spirit fall! [ball,
Powers that should spread in Reason's orient ray,
How are they darken'd, and debarr'd the day!