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GRATITUDE.

BY THE SAME.

WHEN all thy mercies, O My God!
My rifing foul furveys;

Transported with the view, I'm loft
In wonder, love, and praife!

O! how shall words with equal warmth
The gratitude declare,

That glows within my ravifh'd heart?
But thou canft read it there.

Thy providence my life fuftain'd,
And all my wants redrest,
When in the filent womb I lay,
And hung upon the breast.

To all my weak complaints and cries,
Thy mercy lent an ear,

Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learnt
To form themselves in pray'r.

Unnumber'd comforts to my foul
Thy tender care bestow'd,
Before my infant heart conceiv'd

From whom those comforts flow'd.

When in the flipp'ry paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,

Thine arm, unfeen, convey'd me fafe,

And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths, It gently clear'd my way,

And through the pleafing fnares of vice, More to be fear'd than they.

When worn with fickness, oft haft thou
With health renew'd my face,
And when in fins and forrows funk,
Reviv'd my foul with grace.

Thy bounteous hand with worldly blifs
Has made my cup run o'er,
And in a kind and faithful friend

Has doubled all my store.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ,

Nor is the leaft a cheerful heart,

That tastes thofe gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I'll pursue;
And after death, in diftant worlds

The glorious theme renew.

H

When nature fails, and day and night
Divide thy works no more,
My ever-grateful heart, O Lord!
Thy mercy fhall adore.

Through all eternity to thee
A joyful fong I'll raise,
For, oh! eternity's too short
To utter all thy praife.

CREATION.

BY THE SAME.

THE lofty pillars of the sky,
And fpacious concave rais'd on high,
Spangled with stars, a fhining frame,
Their great original proclaim;
Th'unwearied fun, from day to day,
Pours knowledge on his golden ray,
And publishes to every land

The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as th' ev'ning shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the lift'ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth:

Whilft all the ftars, that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though, in folemn filence, all
Move round the dark terreftrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor found
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
In reafon's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,

For ever finging, as they shine,
"The hand that made us is divine."

A WINTER PIECE.

ADDRESSED TO THE DUKE OF DORSET.

BY PHILIPS.

FROM frozen climes, and endless tracts of snow,
From ftreams that northern winds forbid to flow;
What present shall the mufe to Dorset bring,
Or how, fo near the pole, attempt to fing?
The hoary winter here conceals from fight,
All pleafing objects that to verfe invite.

The hills and dales, and the delightful woods,
The flow'ry plains, and filver-ftreaming floods,

By fnow difguis'd in bright confufion lie,

And with one dazzling wafte fatigue the eye.

No gentle-breathing breeze prepares the fpring, No birds within the defert region fing.

The fhips unmov'd the boist'rous winds defy,
While rattling chariots o'er the ocean fly.
The vaft leviathan wants room to play,
And fpout his waters in the face of day,
The ftarving wolves along the main fea prowl,
And to the moon in icy vallies howl.
For many a fhining league the level main
Here fpreads itfelf into a glaffy plain:
There folid billows of enormous fize,
Alps of green ice in wild diforder rife,

And yet but lately have I feen ev'n here,
The winter in a lovely drefs appear.
E'er yet the clouds let fall the treasur'd fnow,
Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow.
At ev'ning a keen eastern breeze arofe;
And the defcending rain unfully'd froze.
Soon as the filent fhades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn difclos'd at once to view
The face of nature in a rich disguise,
And brighten'd ev'ry object to my eyes:
For ev'ry fhrub, and ev'ry blade of grafs,
And ev'ry pointed thorn, seem'd wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimfon berries glow.

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