-O LUXURY!

Bane of elated life, of affluent states,

What dreary change, what ruin is not thine!
How doth thy bowl intoxicate the mind!
To the soft entrance of thy rosy cave,

How dost thou lure the fortunate and great!
Dreadful attraction!

VIRTUOUS ACTIVITY.

Seize, mortals! seize the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies:
Life's a short summer-man a flower;
He dies-Alas!-how soon he dies!

THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS.

Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, O, virtue! peace is all thy own.

PLACID EMOTION.

Who can forbear to smile with nature? Can
The stormy passions in the bosom roll,
While every gale is peace, and every grove
Is melody?

SOLITUDE*

O, sacred solitude! divine retreat!

Choice of the prudent! envy of the great!
By thy pure stream, or in thy waving shade,
We court fair wisdom, that celestial maid :
The genuine offspring of her lov'd embrace,
(Strangers on earth) are innocence and peace.
There from the ways of men laid safe ashore,
We smile to hear the distant tempest roar;
There, bless'd with health, with business unperplex'd,
This life we relish, and ensure the next.

PRESUME NOT ON TO-MORROW.

In human hearts what holder thoughts can rise,
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.

For numbers this is certain; the reverse

Is sure to none.

DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS (WHILE WE LIVE, LET US LIVE.) "Live while you live," the epicure would say, "And seize the pleasures of the present day." "Live while you live," the sacred preacher cries; "And give to God each moment as it flies."

By solitude here is meant, a temporary seclusion from the world..

Lord in my views, let both united be;
I live in pleasure, when I live to thee!

SECTION IV.

Verses in various forms.

THE SECURITY OF

DODDRINGE.

VIRTUE.

LET coward guilt, with pallid fear,
To sheltering caverns fly,
And justly dread the vengeful fate,
That thunders through the sky.
Protected by that hand, whose law
The threat'ning storms obey,
Intrepid virtue smiles secure,
As in the blaze of day.

RESIGNATION.

And O! by error's force subdu'd,
Since oft my stubborn will
Preposterous shuns the latent good,
And grasps the specious ill.
Not to my wish, but to my want,
Do thou thy gifts apply;
Unasked, what good thou knowest grant;
What ill, though ask'd, deny.

COMPASSION.

I have found out a gift for my fair;

I have found where the wood pigeons breed But let me that plunder forbear!

She will say, 'tis a barbarous deed, For he ne'er can be true she averr'd, Who can rob a poor bird of its young; And I loved her the more, when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue.

EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He
gave to misery all he had a tear.

He gain'd from heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

JOY AND SORROW CONNECTED.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue;
Behind the steps that misery treads,
Approaching comforts view.

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastis'd by sable tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

THE GOLDEN MEAN.

He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Imbittering all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the power.
Of wint'ry blast; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground.
The bolts that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide ;

And spread the ruin round.

MODERATE VIEWS AND AIMS RECOMMENDED.

With passions unruffled, untainted with pride,
By reason my life let me square;

The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied;
And the rest are but folly and care.
How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife,
The many their labours employ !
Since all that is truly delightful in life,
Is what all, if they please, may enjoy.

ATTACHMENT TO LIFE.

The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
'Twas therefore said by ancient sages,
That love of life increas'd with
So much, that in our later stages,

years,

When pain grows sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.

VIRTUE'S ADDRESS TO PLEASURE.
Vast happiness enjoy thy gay allies!

A youth of follies, an old age of cares; Young yet enervate, old yet never wise,

Vice wastes their vigour, and their mind impairs. Vain, idle, delicate, in thoughtless, ease,

Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend ; All wretched, hopeless, in the evil days,

[named.

With sorrow to the verge of life they tend.
Griev'd with the present, of the past asham'd,
They live, and are despised; they die, nor more are
SECTION V.

Verses in which sound corresponds with signification.

SMOOTH AND ROUGH VERSE.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.

SLOW MOTION IMITATED.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow.

SWIFT AND EASY MOTION'

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

FELLING TREES IN A WOOD.

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes ;
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks

Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown;
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.

SOUND OF A BOW-STRING.

-The string let fly

"Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry.

THE PHEASANT.

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.

SCYLLA AND CHARYEDIS.

Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,

And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves,
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves.

BOISTEROUS AND GENTLE SOUNDS.

Two craggy rocks projecting to the main,
The roaring wind's tempestuous rage restrain:
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide;
And ships secure without their halsers ride.

LABORIOUS AND IMPETUOUS MOTION.

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.

REGULAR AND SLOW MOVEMENT.

First march the heavy mules securely slow;

O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks, they go.

MOTION SLOW AND DIFFICULT.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
A Rock torn from the brow of a Mountain.
Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and urg'd amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous, to the plain.

EXTENT AND VIOLENCE OF THE WAVES.

The waves behind impel the waves before,
Wide rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore.

PENSIVE NUMBERS.

In those deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heavenly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns.

BATTLE.

-Arms on armour clashing bray'd

Horrible discord; and the madding wheels
Of brazen fury rag'd.

SOUND IMITATING RELUCTANCE.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd;
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

SECTION VI.

CONNUBIAL AFFECTION.

THE love that cheers life's latest stage,
Proof against sickness and old age,
Preserv'd by virtue from declension,
Becomes not weary of attention ;
But lives, when that exterior grace,
Which first inspir'd the flame, decays.
'Tis gentle, delicate, and kind,
To faults compassionate, or blind;
And will with sympathy endure
Those evils it would gladly cure.
But angry, coarse, and harsh expression,
Shows love to be a mere profession,
Proves that the heart is none of his,
Or soon expels him if it is.

SWARMS OF FLYING INSECTS.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,

Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd,