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 Let not this weak unknowing hand If I am right, thy grace impart If I am wrong, oh! teach my heart Save me alike from foolish pride, At aught thy wisdom has denied, Teach me to feel another's woe, Mean though I am, not wholly so, O lead me, wheresoe'er I go, This day be bread and peace my lot; Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, To thee, whose temple is all space; 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, 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, Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Steal from the world, and not a stone 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: So unaffected, so compos'd a Mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined, 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. At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day 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 Which Providence assigns them. One alone, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves Against the window beats; then brisk alights And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is- 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. |