THE cheerful supper done, with serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The Sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big Ha'-Bible, once his father's pride:
His bonnet reverently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And Let us worship God!' he says with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays.
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame:
The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
No unison have they with our Creator's praise.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny ;
Or, how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of heav'n's avenging ire;
Or, Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry;
Or, rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or, other holy secrs that tune the sacred lyrc.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed
How He, who hore in heaven the second nams
Had not on earth whereon to lay his hea
How his first followers and servants sped.
The precepts sage they wrote to manƒ...........
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the Sun a mighty angel stand;
And heard great Babylon's doom pronounc'd by
Heaven's command.
Then, kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King
The saint, the father, and the husband, prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There ever hask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, nor shed the bitter tear
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear,
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.
Compared with this, how poor religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display, to congregations wide, Devotion's every grace except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous train, the sacerdotal stole ; But haply, in some cottage far apart
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul, And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol.
SIXTH CHAPTER OF MATTHEW.
WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear,
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh let me listen to the word of life!
Raptures, deep felt, his doctrine did impart,
And thus he raised from earth the drooping heart.
Think not, when all your scanty stores afford
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again,
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the frail body its investing weed?
Behold and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air:
To them, nor stores, nor granaries belong,
Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song;
Yet
your kind heavenly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
To him they sing, when spring renews the plain,
To him they cry, in winter's pinching reign:
Nor is their music nor their plaint in vain;
He hears the gay and the distressful call,
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
Observe the rising lilies snowy grace,
Observe the various vegetable race;
They neither toil, nor spin, but careless grow,
Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare!
What king so shining, or what queen so fair!
If ceaseless thus the fowls of heaven he feeds,
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads,
Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say!
Is he unwise, or are ye less than they!
death the day is come,
Wherein the equal hand of death must sum
The several items of man's fading glory
Into the easy total of one story.
The brows that sweat for kingdoms and renown,
To glorify their temples with a crown;
At length grow cold, and leave their honoured name
To flourish in the uncertain blast of fame.
This is the height that glorious mortals can
Attain; this is the highest pitch of man.
The mighty conqueror of the earth's great ball,
Whose unconfined limits were too small
For his extreme ambition to deserve,--
Six feet of length and three of breadth must serve.
This is the highest pitch that man can fly;
And, after all his triumph, he must die.
Lives he in wealth? Does well-deserved store
Limit his wish, that he can wish no more?
And does the fairest bounty of increase
Crown him with plenty, and his days with peace
It is a right-hand blessing: but supply
Of wealth cannot secure him; he must die.
Lives he in pleasure? Does perpetual mirth
Lend him a little heaven upon this earth?
Meets he no sullen care, no sudden loss
To cool his joys? Breathes he without a cross?
Wants he no pleasure that his wanton eye
Can crave or hope from fortune? He must dic.
Lives he in honour? hath his fair desert
Obtain'd the freedom of his prince's heart?
Or may his more familiar hands disburse
His liberal favours from the royal purse?
Alas! his honour cannot soar too high
For pale-fac'd Death to follow; he must die.
Lives he a conqueror? and doth heaven bless
His heart with spirit: that spirit with success;
Success with glory; glory with a name,
To live with the eternity of fame?
The progress of his lasting fame
With time but yet the conqueror must die.
Great and good God! thou Lord of life and death,
In whom the creature hath its being, breath;
Teach me to under-prize this life, and I
Shall find my loss the easier when I die.
So raise my feeble thoughts and dull desire,
That, when these vain and weary days expire,
I may discard my flesh with joy, and quit
My better part of this false earth, and it
Of some more sin; and for this transitory
And tedious life enjoy a life of glory.
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