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What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do,

This teach me more than hell to shun, That more than heaven pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives Let me not cast away;

For God is paid when man receives: To enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.

Let not this weak unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;

If I am wrong, oh! teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,

At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quickened by thy breath;

O lead me, wheresoe'er I go,
Through this day's life or death.

This day be bread and peace my lot;
All else beneath the sun

Thou know'st if best bestowed or not,
And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all space;
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies;
One chorus let all being raise !
All nature's incense rise!

ODE ON Solitude.

HAPPY the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

1

EPITAPH ON MRS. ELIZABETH CORBETT.1

H'

ERE rests a Woman, Good without pretence,

Blest with plain Reason, and with sober Sense;

No Conquests she, but o'er her Self, desir'd,

No Arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd:
Passion and Pride were to her Soul unknown;
Convinc'd that Virtue only is our own.

So unaffected, so compos'd a Mind,

So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined,
Heaven, as its purest Gold, by Tortures tried;
The Saint sustain'd it, but the Woman died.

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JAMES THOMSON.

Born 1700. Died 1748.

FROM THE SEASONS.'

THE

A SNOW SCENE.

HE keener tempests come and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend-in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed.

Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;

And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.
Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes

Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields

Put on their winter-robe of purest white.

'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts

Along the mazy current. Low the woods

Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun
Fain from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon

Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,

In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first

Against the window beats; then brisk alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is-
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the black heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

THESE

A HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

HESE as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart, is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year. And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks ; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.

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