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Holds ev'n th' Almighty in her airy chain,
Gives back his laws, well meant, but meant in
Its bravery at best a blundering hit, [vain;
Its freedom treason, obloquy its wit:
Its vast request just purely to declaim,
And the dear little licence-to blaspheme :-
Say, can cool virtue here dissuade from ill?
Or exil'd reason-pander to the will?
At most a voice or miracle may save,
And only terrours snatch us from the grave.
Suppose (though we disown it oft to be)
Man from these errours and these passions free:
Well taught by art, by nature well inclin'd,
Steady of judgment, tractable of mind,
The first step is, the giving folly o'er;
The last, to practice truth, is ten times more,

Ah me! what lengths of valley yet remain,
What hills to climb, ere reason's height he gain?
What strength to toil, what labour to pursue,
Still out of reach, and often out of view.

Then, gracious God, how well dost thou provide
For erring reason an unerring guide!
To silence explanation (myst'ry's foe),
To lead the tim'rous, and exalt the low:
Ev'n to the best (as all are oft perplext)
Instructive, as true comments on a text.
Then let each hour's new whim the witlings
swell,

Heav'n let them tutor, and extinguish Hell:
Refuse to trust Omniscience on its troth,
Yet take a lawyer's word, or harlot's oath :
Then bigots, when 'gainst bigots they complain;
And only singular, because they're vain.
Grant none but they the narrow path can hit-
When will two wits allow each other wit?

Far other views the solid mind employ,
A bounded prospect, but a surer joy :-
True knowledge when she conquers or abstains,
Like the true hero, equal glory gains.
This, this is science, sacred in its end,
True to the views of Heav'n, one's self, and friend,
The earliest study, as the latest care,
The surest refuge, and the only pray'r.
O thou, the God, who high in Heav'n pre-
sides,
[guides,
Whose eye o'ersees me, and whose wisdom
Deal me that portion of content and rest, [best:
That unknown health, and peace, which suit me
Save me from all the guilt and all the pain,
That lust of pleasure brings, and lust of gain:
In trial fix me, and in peril shade,
'Gainst foes protect me, 'gainst my passions aid:
In wealth my guardian, and in want any guide,
'Twixt a mean flattery, and drunken pride:
With life's more dear sensations warm my heart,
Transport to feel, benevolence t' impart,
Each homefelt joy, each public duty send,
Make me, and give me, all things in the friend.
But most protect and guard me in a mind
Not rashly bold, nor abjectly resigned.

And oh, when interest every virtue hides,
When errour blinds, and prejudice misguides,
Alike thy grace, alike thy truth impart,
Beam on my soul, and triumph o'er my heart.
Thus let me live unbeard of, or forgot,
My wealth content, praise, silence, truth my lot:
Thy word, O God! my science and delight,
Task of my day and transport of my night:
There taught that he who suffers is but tried,
And he who wonders still may find a guide;
Sanction with truth, reward with virtue join'd,
Life without end,and laws that reach the mind!
Happy the man that such a guide can take,
Whose character is, never to forsake,

TO THE PRINCE OF ORANGE,

ON HIS PASSING THROUGH OXFORD IN HIS RETURN
FROM BATH'.

Ar length, in pity to a nation's prayer,
Thou liv'st, O Nassau, Providence's care!
Life's sun, which lately with a dubious ray
Gave the last gleams of a short glorious day,
Again with more than noon tide lustre burns;
The dial brightens, and the line returns.

Some guardian power, who o'er thy fate pre

sides,

Whose eyes unerring Albion's welfare guides,
Taught yonder streams with new-felt force to flow,
And bade th' exalted minerals doubly glow.
Thus cold and motionless Bethesda stood,
Till heavenly influence brooded o'er the flood.

Lo! while our isle with one loud pœan rings,
Equal, though silent, homage Isis brings;
Isis, whose erring on the modest side
Th' unkind and ignorant mistake for pride.
Here's the task of reason, not of art,
Words of the mind, and actions of the heart!
And sure that unbought praise which learning

brings

Outweighs the vast acclaim that deafens kings;
For souls, supremely sensible and great,
See through the farce of noise,and pomp of state;
Mark when the fools huzza, or wise rejoice,
And judge exactly between sound and voice.

Hail, and proceed! be arts like ours thy care,
Nor slight those laurels thou wert born to wear :
Adorn and emulate thy glorious line,

Take thy forefather's worth, and give them thine.
Blest with each gift that human hearts can move,
In science blest, but doubly blest in love.

Power, beauty, virtue, dignify thy choice,
Each public suffrage, and each private voice.

'From the Epithalamia Oxoniensia, &c 1734. K.

THE AMARANTH,

OR, RELIGIOUS POEMS;

CONSISTING OF FABLES, VISIONS, EMBLEMS, &c.

-Deus ora movet: Sequar ora moventem
Rite Deum!-

THE AMARANTHINE CROWN DESCRIBED BY MILTON.

A CROWN inwove with amarant and gold;
Immortal Amarant! a flow'r which once
In Paradise fast by the tree of life

Pegan to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To Heav'n remov'd, where first it grew; there
grows,

And flow'rs aloft, shading the fount of life.

Par. Lost, I. III, v. 352.

PREFACE.

I SHALL not trouble the public with excuses for venturing to send these Religious Poems into the world; having long since observed, that all apologies made by authors, far from gaining the end proposed, serve only to supply an ill-natured critic with weapons to attack them. This being the case, it shall suffice me to say, that I drew up the present writings for my own private consolation under a lingering and dangerous state of health, which it has pleased God to make my portion: nor had I any better opportunity or power of discharging the duties of my profession to mankind. The goodness of my cause may perhaps supply the defects of my poetry; since, in this sense, "the very gleanings of the grapes of Ephraim will be better than the vintage of Abiezer." I promise my readers no extraordinary art in composition or style; but flatter myself they will find some nature, some flame, and some truth.

Parables, fables, emblematic visions, &c. are the most ancient method of conveying truth to mankind. Upwards of forty of the finest and most poetical parts of the Old and New Testament are of this cast, and force their way upon the mind and heart irresistibly, though they are written in prose.

From a just sense of this humble simplicity, I have here translated the plainest and least figurative parable that our Blessed Saviour has delivered to us, relating only to a few un-ornament. ed circumstances in agriculture.

To express such humble allusions with clearness, propriety, and dignity, was, it must be confessed, one of the hardest pieces of poetry I ever yet undertook; nevertheless, I flattered myself that I was in some degree master of one part of the subject (namely, the culture of land) upon which the parable is founded.

Yet the great and real difficulty still recurred; Difficile est propriè communia dicere. How far I have succeeded in this, or any other particular, is more than I shall take upon me

to conjecture. Nor shall it be dissembled, but that I had a great inclination to give a paraphrase (or metaphrase rather) of the xxviiith chapter of Deuteronomy; which, I believe, hath never yet been turned into English verse. It is doubtless one of the noblest pieces of poetry in Holy Scripture; being at the same time sublime, and yet plain; seemingly familiar, and yet richly diversified.

In this chapter, the change of ideas and events from a state of obedience to a state of disobedience, exhibits a power of language, imagery, and just thinking, which no un-inspired writings ever have laid claim to with justice, or ever shall, But, when I came to take a closer view of the precipice and its dangers," my heart trembled," as Job says, "and was moved out of its place ;" I threw down the pencil in despair, and left the undertaking to some abler hand; namely, to some future Milton, Dryden, or Pope.

Upon the whole, I may perhaps venture to persuade myself, that the intention of the present work is commendable, and that the work when perused, may prove useful (more or less) to my fellow-christians.

Conscious of my own inabilities, and being desirous that the reader may receive soine advantage by casting his eyes over these poems, I have added in a few notes, the most remarkable passages I had an eye to in the Holy Scriptures, and in the writings of the primitive fathers; they being the only compass and charts which I have made use of in my navigation.

A mixture of pleasing and instructive poetry cannot fail to engage the attention of all rational and serious readers: "For, as it is hurtful to drink wine, or water, alone; and as wine mingled with water is pleasant, and delighteth the taste; even so speech, finely framed, delighteth the ears of them that read the story."

2 MACCAB. Ch. ult. v. ult.

CHRIST'S PARABLE OF THE
SOWER.

I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp. PSALM xlix,

v. 4.

All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude

in parables. Without a parable spake he not unto them. MATTH. C, xiii. v. 34.

A wise man will hear, and increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels to understand a proverb (a parable) and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings, PROV. c. i. v. 5, 6.

INTRODUCTION.

LONG e'er th' Ascréan bard had learnt to
sing,

Or Homer's fingers touch'd the speaking string;
Long e'er the supplemental arts had found
Th' embroid'ry of auxiliary sound;

The Heav'n-born Muse the paths of nature chose:
Emblems and fables her whole mind disclose,
Victorious o'er the soul with energy of prose !
True poetry, like Ophir's gold, endures
All trials, yet its purity secures;
Invert, disjoint it, change its very name,
The essence of the thoughts remains the same.
Something there is, which endless charms affords,
And stamps the majesty of truth on words.

The son of Gideon", 'midst Cherizim's snow,
Unskill'd in numbers taught the stream to flow,
With conscious pride disdain'd the aids of art,
And pour'd a full conviction on the heart:
His Cedar, Fig-tree, and the Bry'r convey
The highest notions in the humblest way.

In Nathan's fable strong and mild conspire,
The suppliant's meekness and the poet's fire:
Till waken'd nature bade the tears to flow,
And David's muse assum'd the voice of woe 4.
The wise, all-knowing Saviour of mankind
Mix'd ease with strength, and truth with em-
blem join'd:

Omniscience, vested with full pow'r to choose,
O'erlooks the strong, nor does the weak refuse 5:
Leaves pageantry of means to feebler man,
And builds the noblest, on the plainest plan;
Divine simplicity the work befriends,
And humble causes reach sublimest ends.

True flame of verse, O sanctifying fire 6!
Warm not my genius, but my heart inspire!
On my cleans'd lips permit the coals to dwell
Which from thy altar on Isaiah fell 7!
Cancel the world's applause; and give thy grace
To me, the meanest of the tuneful race.
Teach ine the words of Jesus to impart
With energy of pow'r, but free from art.
Thy emanations light and heat dispense;
To sucklings speech, to children eloquence !-
Like Habakkuk 8, I copy, no indite;
Tim'rous like him, I tremble whilst I write !
But Jeremiah with new boldness sung,
When inspiration rush'd upon his tongue 9.
The pow'rs of sacred poesy were giv'n
By Him that bears the signature of Heav'n 1.

'Hesiod.

2 Jotham. 3 See the whole parable, Judg. c. ix. v. 7—21. On this occasion David composed the 50th psalm.

s It is the uniform doctrine of Scripture, "That flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself." Amos, c. ii. v. 14.

6 Rom. c. xv. v. 16. 2 Thess. c. ii. v. 13. 1 Pet. c, i. v. 2.

7 Isaiah c. vii. v. 6.

8 Hab. c. ii. v. 2.

9 Jer. c. i. v. 6, &c. 8, 9.

10 John, c. vi. ver. 27.

PARABLE.

WHEN vernal show'rs and sunshine had un-
The frozen bosom of the torpid ground, [bound
When breezes from the western world repair
To wake the flow'rs and vivify the air,
Th' industrious peasant left his early bed,
And o'er the fields his seeds for harvest spread,
With equal hand, and at a distance due,
(Impartially to ev'ry furrow true)
The life-supporting grain he justly threw'.
As was the culture, such was the return;
Of weeds a forest, or a grove of corn⚫.
But, where he dealt the gift on grateful soils,
Harvests of industry o'er-paid his toils.

Some seeds by chance on brashy 3 grounds he

threw,

And some the winds to flinty head-lands blew ;
Sudden they mounted, pre-mature of birth,
But pin'd and sicken'd, unsupply'd with earth:
Whilst burning suns their vital juice exhal'd,
And, as the roots decay'd, the foliage fail'd.

Some seeds he ventur'd on ungrateful lands,
Tough churlish clays, and loose unthrifty sands;
The step-dame soil refus'd a nurse's care:
The plants were sickly, juiceless, pale, and bare.
On trodden paths a casual portion fell:
Condemn'd in scanty penury to dwell,
And half-deny'd the matrix of a cell;
While other seeds, less fortunate than they,
Slept, starv'd and naked, on the hard high-way,
From frost defenceless, and to birds a prey.
Here daws with riotous excesses feed,
And choughs, the cormorants of grain, succeed;
Next wily pigeons take their silent stand,
And sparrows last, the gleaners of the land.

Another portion mock'd the seedsman's toil,
Dispens'd upon a rich, but weedy soil:
Fat unctuous juices gorg'd the rank-fed root;
And plethories of sap produc'd no fruit.
Hence, where the life-supplying grain was spread,
The rav'nous dock uprears its miscreant head;
Insatiate thistles, tyrants of the plains;
And lurid-hemloc, ting'd with pois'nous stains.
What these might spare, th' incroaching thorns
demand;

Exhaust earth's virtue, and perplex the land 4
At last, of precious grain a chosen share
Was sown on pre-dilected land with care;
(A cultur'd spot, accustom'd to receive
All previous aids that industry can give ;)

"Bless God, who hath given thee two denarii, namely, the law and the gospel, in recompence for thy submission and labour." Chrysost. Hom. in Luc. c. 10.

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"They that fear the Lord are a sure seed, and they that love him an honourable plant: they that regard not the law, are a dishonourable seed: they that transgress the commandments, are a deceitful seed." E clus. c. x. v. 19.

3 Brashy lands, in an husbandry-sense, signify lands that are dry, shallow, gravelly, and pebbly. Such sort of grounds the old Romans called glareous:

-Jejuna quidem clivosi glarea ruris.
Virg. Georg. II.

See Hosea, c. x, v. 4 and 9.

The well-turn'd soil with auburn brightness shone,
Mellow'd with nitrous air and genial sun:
An harmony of mould, by nature mixt!
Not light as air, nor as a cement fix'd:
Just firm enough t' embrace the thriving root,
Yet give free expanse to the fibrous shoot;
Dilating, when disturb'd by lab'ring hands,
And smelling sweet, when show'rs refresh the
[tain,
Scarce could the reapers' arms the sheaves con-
And the full garners swell'd with golden grain;
Unlike the harvests of degen❜rate days,
One omer sown, one hundred-fold repays:
Rich product, to a bountiful excess !-
Nor ought we more to ask, nor more possess.
The harvest overcomes the reapers' toil;
So feeble is the hind, so strong the soil 5.

lands.

Man's Saviour thus his parable exprest; He that hath ears to hear, may feel the rest.

INTERPRETATION.

| Whenever adverse fortune choaks the way,
When danger threats, or clouds o'ercast the day,
This plant of casualty, unfix'd at root,
Shakes with the blast, and casts his unripe fruit;
But, when the storms of poverty arise,
And persecution ev'ry virtue tries,
Mindless of God, and trusting to himself 8,
He strands Heav'n's freightage on a dang'rous
Averse to learn, and more averse to bear, [shelf.
He sinks, the abject victim of despair!

THE gift of knowing is to all men giv'n ❝;
All know, but few perform, the will of Heav'n ;
They hear the sound, but miss the sense convey'd,
And lose the substance, whilst they view the
shade.

When specious doctrines hover round a mind
Which is not vitally with Heav'n conjoin'd,
The visionary objects float and pass
Transient as figures gliding o'er a glass:
Each but a momentary visit makes,
And each supplies the place the last forsakes.-
Satan for ever fond to be employ'd,

(And changing minds ev'n ask to be destroy'd',)
Marks well th' infirm of faith; and soon supplies
Phantoms of truth, and substances of lyes:
Killing the dying, he a conquest gains;
And, from a little, steals the poor remains.
Reason, man's guardian, by neglect, or sleep,
Loses that castle, he was meant to keep.
The seeds upon a flinty surface cast,
Denote the worldly-wise, who think in haste:
Who change, for changing's sake, from right

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The men of pow'r and pomp resemble seeds Sown on rich earth, but choak'd with thorns and weeds.

With zeal they flatter, and with zeal decry.
Such is the fool of wit! who strives with pains
To lose that paradise the peasant gains.-

Religion strikes them, but they shun the thought;
Behold the profit, and yet profit nought.
Heav'n's high rewards they silently contemn,
And think the present world suffices them.
Mean-while ambition leads the soul astray,
Far from its natal walk, th' ethereal way;
Int'rest assassins friendship ev'ry hour,
Truth warps to custom,conscience bends to pow'r,
Till all the cultivating hand receives
Is empty blossom, and death-blasted leaves.
Idiots in judgment, baffled o'er and o'er;
Still the same bait, still circumvented more;
Self-victims of the cunning they adore!
Wise without wisdom, busy to no end;
Man still their foe, and Heav'n itself no friend!
The chosen seed, on cultur'd ground, are they
Who humbly tread the evangelic way.
The road to Heav'n is uniform and plain :
All other paths are serpentine and vain.
The true disciple takes the word reveal'd,
Nor rushes on the sanctu'ry conceal'd,
Whilst empty reas'ners emptiest arts employ;
Nothing they build, and all things they destroy!
The provident of Heav'n unlocks his store,
To clothe the naked, and to feed the poor:
To each man gen'rous, and to each man just,
Conscious of a depositary trust.

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Patient of censure, yet condemning none :
Placid to all, accountable to One.
Ev'n in prosperity he fears no loss,
Expects a change, and starts not at the cross.
All injuries by patience he surmounts;
All suff'rings God's own med'cines he accounts9:

8 We are all careful about small matters, and negligent in the greatest; of which this is the reason, we know not where true felicity is." St. Hieron.

9 The preacher writes beautifully upon this if thou come subject. Ecclus. C. ii. "My son, to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for trial, set thy heart aright, and constantly endure, and make not haste in time of trouble;" i. e. be not impatient to get over thy trouble. "Cleave unto him, and depart not away, that thou mayest be increased at thy last end. Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.-Look at the generations of old, and see, did ever any trust in the Lord and was confounded? or did any abide in his fear and was forsaken? or whom did he ever despise, that called upon him? for the Lord is full of compassion and mercy; he forgiveth sins, and saveth in time of affliction.-Wo be to the siuner that goeth two ways;" i, e, that hath recourse

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At the end of the 12th stanza in this poem, I had several inducements for venturing to change the ode into heroic measure. The first was, that I might diversify the doctrinal part from the descriptive. The second was, that our excellent and most learned poet, Cowley, had given me his authority for making this change, in his poem de Plantis, But the third and truer reason was, that I found it next to impracticable, to deliver short, unadorned, didactical sentences consistently with the copiousness, irregularity, and enthusiasm peculiar to ode-writing.-Let the reader only make the experiment, and I flatter anyself he will join with me in opinion.-Nor have I departed any further than in a metaphor or two from that original simplicity which characterises my author, however difficult and self-denying such an undertaking might be in a poetical composition. What gave me warning was, that Castalio and Stanhope had both spoiled Thomas a Kempis by attempting to adorn him with flowery language, false elegance, and glaring imagery. And, by the way, to this cause may be attributed the miscarriages of many poets, (otherwise confessedly eminent) in their paraphrases of the Psalms of David, the Book of Job,

&c. The grandeur of scriptural sublimity, or simplicity, admits of few or no embellishments. George Sandys, in the reign of Charles I. seems only to have known this secret.

to man as well as God. "Wo unto him that is faint-hearted; for he believeth not, therefore shall he not be defended. Wo unto you that have lost patience: what will ye do when the Lord shall visit you?-they that fear the Lord will say, we will fall into the hands of the Lord,

and not into the hands of men: for as his majesty is, so is his mercy."

In like manner St. Chrysostom informs us, "That, in proportion as God adds to our tribulation, he adds likewise to our retribution."

This river takes its rise from one of the highest ice-mountains in Switzerland.

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.

2 The species of larch-tree here meant is called sempervirens: the other larches are deciduis foliis.

Mark, c. i. v. 35.
DEEP in a vale, where cloud-born Rhyne 1
Through meads his Alpine waters roll'd,
Where pansies mixt with daisies shine,
And asphodels instarr'd with gold;
Two forests, skirting round the feet
Of everlasting mountains, meet,
Half parted by an op'ning glade;
Around Hercynian oaks are seen.-
Larches 2, and cypress ever green,
Unite their hospitable shade.

Impearl'd with dew, the rosy Morn
Stood tip-toe on the mountain's brow;
Gleams following gleams the Heav'ns adorn,
And gild the theatre below:

Nature from needful slumber wakes,
And from her misty eye-balls shakes
The balmy dews of soft repose:
The pious lark with grateful lays
Ascends the skies, and chants the praise
Which man to his Creator owes 4.
When lo! a venerable sire appears,
With sprightly footsteps hast'ning o'er the plain;
His tresses bore the marks of fourscore years,
Yet free from sickness he, and void of pain:
His eyes with half their youthful clearness shones.
Still on his cheeks health's tincture gently glow'd,'
His aged voice retain'd a manly tone,
His peaceful blood in equal tenour flow'd.
At length, beneath a beechen shade reclin'd,
He thus pour'd forth to Heav'n the transports of
his mind.

3 Tip-toe. Shakespeare.

4" Before we engage in worldly business, or any common amusements of life, let us be careful to consecrate the first-fruits of the day, and the very beginning of our holy thoughts unto the service of God." St. Basil.

Thomas à Kempis had no manifest infirmities of old-age, and retained his eye-sight perfect to the last.

All that I have ever been able to learn in Germany upon good authority, concerning him, is as follows: He was born at Kempis, or Kempen, a small walled town in the dutchy of Cleves, and diocese of Cologn. His family-name was Hamerlein, which signifies in the German language a little baminer. We find also that his parents were named John and Gertrude Hamerlein. He lived chiefly in the monastery of Mount St. Agnes; where his effigy, together with a prospect of the monastery, was engraven on a plate of copper that lies over his body. The said inonastery is now called Bergh-Clooster, or, as we might say in English, Hill-Cloyster. Many strangers in their travels visit it. Kempis was certainly one of the best and greatest men since the primitive ages. His book of the Imitation of Christ has seen near forty editions in the ori

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