If appetite, or what divines call lust,

Which men comply with, even because they must, Be punished with perdition, who is pure?

Then theirs, no doubt, as well as mine, is sure.

If sentence of eternal pain belong

To every sudden slip and transient wrong,
Then Heaven enjoins the fallible and frail
A hopeless task, and damns them if they fail.
My creed (whatever some creed-makers mean
By Athanasian nonsense, or Nicene),

My creed is, he is safe that does his best,
And death's a doom sufficient for the rest.'
'Right', says an ensign, and for aught I see,
Your faith and mine substantially agree;
The best of every man's performance here
Is to discharge the duties of his sphere.
A lawyer's dealing should be just and fair,
Honesty shines with great advantage there.
Fasting and prayer sit well upon a priest,
A decent caution and reserve at least.
A soldier's best is courage in the field,
With nothing here that wants to be concealed:
Manly deportment, gallant, easy, gay;

A hand as liberal as the light of day.

The soldier thus endowed, who never shrinks
Nor closets up his thought, whate'er he thinks,
Who scorns to do an injury by stealth,
Must go to heaven-and I must drink his health.
Sir Smug,' he cries (for lowest at the board,
Just made fifth chaplain of his patron lord,
His shoulders witnessing by many a shrug
How much his feelings suffered, sat Sir Smug),
'Your office is to winnow false from true;
Come, prophet, drink, and tell us, what think you?'
Sighing and smiling as he takes his glass,
Which they that woo preferment rarely pass,
'Fallible man,' the church-bred youth replies,
'Is still found fallible, however wise;

And differing judgments serve but to declare

That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where. Of all it ever was my lot to read,

Of critics now alive, or long since dead,

The book of all the world that pleased me most
Was-well-a-day, the title-page was lost;

The writer well remarks, a heart that knows
To take with gratitude what Heaven bestows,
With prudence always ready at our call,
To guide our use of it, is all in all.
Doubtless it is.-To which, of my own store
I superadd a few essentials more.
But these, excuse the liberty I take,

I waive just now, for conversation's sake.'-
'Spoke like an oracle!' they all exclaim,
And add Right Reverend to Smug's honoured name.
From Hope.

BOADICEA. AN ODE.

WHE

HEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,

Counsel of her country's gods,

Sage beneath a spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief,
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage and full of grief:

'Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 'Tis because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

'Rome shall perish-write that word In the blood that she has spilt; Perish hopeless and abhorred,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.

'Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground,-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates.

'Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name,

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command.

'Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.'

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow,
Rushed to battle, fought and died,
Dying, hurled them at the foe.

'Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the justice duc;

Empire is on us bestowed,

Shame and ruin wait for you!'

M

ROBERT BURNS.

Born 1759. Died 1796.

WE

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

VEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower, Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet

Wi' speckled breast,

When upward-springing, blithe, to greet The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm;

Scarce reared above the parent-earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield,
But thou, beneath the random bield

O' clod, or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betrayed,

And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless-starred !
Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,

He, ruined, sink!