Though dark the shade, yet safe the vale.
This path the best of men have trod ;
And who'd decline the road to God!
Oh! tis a glorious boon to die!
This favour can't be prized too high."
While thus she spoke, my looks expressed
The raptures kindling in my breast;
My soul a fix'd attention gave;
When the stern monarch of the grave,
With haughty strides approached-amazed
I stood and trembled as I gazed.
The seraph calmed each anxious fear,
And kindly wiped the falling tear :
Then hastened with expanded wing
To meet the pale, terrific king.
But now what milder scenes arise !
The tyrant drops his hostile guise;
He seems a youth divinely fair,
In graceful ringlets waves his hair;
His wings their whit'ning plumes display,
His burnish'd plumes reflect the day;
Light flows his shining azure vest,
And all the angel stands confessed.
I viewed the change with sweet surprize ;
And, Oh! I panted for the skies;
Thank'd heav'n, that e'er I drew my breath;
And triumphed in the thoughts of death.
CHAPTER III.
DIDACTIC PIECES.
SECTION I
THE VANITY OF WEALTH.
O more thus brooding o'er yon heap,
With av'rice painful vigils keep,
Still unenjoy'd the present store,
Still endless sighs are breath'd for more.
Oh! quit the shadow, catch the prize,
Which not all India's treasure buys!
To purchase heav'n has gold the pow'r?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No-all that's worth a wish-a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought.
Cease, then, on trash thy hopes to bind ;
Let nobler views engage thy mind.
SECTION II.
NOTHING FORMED IN VAIN.
Let no presuming impious railer tax Creative wisdom as if aught was form'd In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if upon a full-proportioned dome,
On swelling columns heav'd, the pride of art!
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
And lives the man whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,
As with unfalt'ring accent to conclude,
That this availeth nought? Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, less'ning down
From infinite perfection, to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!
From which, astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder to that POWER,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely in our minds,
As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.
Or all the causes, which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never failing vice of fools,
Whatever nature has in worth deny'd,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind.
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
2. If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring ·
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While, from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold, with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So, pleased at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last.
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.
CRUELTY TO BRUTES CENSURED.
I WOULD not enter on my list of friends,
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility,) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail,
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visitor unwelcome into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so, when held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field:
There they are privileg'd. And he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong;
Disturbs th' economy of nature's realm,
Who when she form'd, design'd them an abode.
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health,
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all-the meanest things that are-
As free to live and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who, in his sov'reign wisdom, made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your
To love it too. The spring time of our years
Is soon dishonour'd and defil'd in most,
By budding ills that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But alas! none sooner shoots
If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth,
Than cruelty, most dev'lish of them all.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,
By which heav'n moves in pard'ning guilty man;
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it, and not find it, in his turn.
Paraphrase on the latter part of the 6th Capt. of St. 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 words 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 further shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs again.
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low dispair-
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 heav'nly 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 ;
Ile hears the gay, and the distressful call;
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
Observe the rising lily's 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?
THE DEATH OF A GOOD MAN A STRONG INCENTIVE TO VIRTUE,
THE chamber where the good man meets his fate,
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance,
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestor'd by this, despair your cure.
For, here, resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
Here tired Dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here real, and apparent, are the same.
You see the man; you see his hold on heaven,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.
Heaven waits not the last moment: owns her friends
On this side death; and points them out to men;
A lecture, silent, but of sov'reign pow'r!
To vice, confusion! and to virtue, peace!
Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.
Reflections on a Future State, from a Review of Winter.
'Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful; Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
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