And when the air with heat meridian glows,
And nature droops beneath the conqu'ring gleam,
Let us, slow wand'ring where the current flows,
Save sinking flies that float along the stream
• Or turn to nobler, greater tasks thy care,
To me thy sympathetic gifts impart:
Teach me in friendship's griefs to bear a share,
And justly boast the gen'rous feeling heart.
Teach me to sooth the helpless orphan's grief;
With timely aid, the widow's woes assuage
To mis'ry's moving cries to yield relief:

And be the sure resource of drooping age.
So when the genial spring of life shall fade,
And sinking nature own the dread decay,
Some soul congenial then may lend its aid,
And gild the close of life's eventful day.

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during Ma solitary abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez.

4 Religion! what treasure untold,
Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver or gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell,
These vallies and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smil❜d when a sabbath appear'd.
5 Ye winds that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore,
Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more.
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compar'd with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But, alas! recollection at hand,
Soon hurries me back to despair.
7 But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,
And I to my cabin repair.
There's mercy in every place;

And mercy-encouraging thought!

Gives even affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot.-cowPER.

WH

SECTION VI.

Gratitude.

VHEN all thy mercies, O my God!
My rising soul surveys,

Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love, and praise.

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

That glows within my ravish'd heart?
But thou canst read it there.

3 Thy providence my life sustain'd,
And all my wants redrest,

When in the silent womb I lay,

And hung upon the t

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

Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learn'd,
To form themselves in pray.

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

From whom those comforts flow'd.

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

Thine arm, unseen, convey'd me safe,
And led me up to man.

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

And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be fear'd than they.

8 When worn with sickness, oft hast thou,
With health renew'd my face;

And, when in sins and sorrows sunk,
Reviv'd my soul with grace.

9 Thy bounteous hand, with worldly bliss,
Has made my cup run o'er;

And, in a kind and faithful friend,
Has doubled all my store.

10 Ten thousand, thousand precious gifts,
My daily thanks employ;

Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy.

11 Through ev'ry period of my life,
Thy goodness I'll pursue;

And, after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.

12 When nature fails, and day and night
Divide thy works no more,

My ever-grateful heart, O Lord!
Thy merey shall adore.

13 Through all eternity, to thee,
A joyful song I raise;

For O! eternity's too short

To utter all thy praise.—ADDISON.

SECTION VIL

man perishing in the snow; from whence reflections are raised on the miseries of life.

S thus the snows arise; and foul and fierce,

A All winter drives along the darken'd air;

In his own loose-revolving field, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain;
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid

Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on,
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps.

Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt.

How sinks his soul!

What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When, for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and blest abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And ev'ry tempest howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent, beyond the pow'r of frost!
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,

Smooth'd up with snow; and what is land, unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen spring,

In the loose marsh or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.

These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th'officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingled storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife nor children, more shall be behold;

Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays himong the snows a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
6 Ah, little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasures, pow'r, and affluence surround;
They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel riot, waste;

Ah little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain!

How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame! How many bleed,
By shameful variance betwixt man and man!
7 How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs! How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery! Sore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty! How many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse!
8 How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop
In deep retir'd distress How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting nguish! Thought, fond man,
Of these, and all the the usand nameless ills,
That one incessant strug le render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,

Refining still, the social passions work.-THOMSON.