That Philosophy, which stops at secondary Causes, reproved.
HAPPY the man who fees a God employed
In all the good and ill that checker life!
Refolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wife of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The leaft of our concerns; (fince from the leaft
The greatest oft originate ;) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or difpofe
One lawless particle to thwart his plan ;
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The fmooth and equal courfe of his affairs.
This truth, philofophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And having found his inftrument, forgets
Or difregards, or, more prefumptuous ftill,
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist life; involves the heav'n
In tempefts; quits his grafp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrify the breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his fhriveled lips,
And taints the golden ear; he fprings his mines,
And defolates a nation at a blast;
Forth steps the spruce philofopher, and tells
Of homogenial and difcordant fprings
And principles; of caufes, how they work
By neceffary laws their fure effects,
Of action and reaction. He has found
The fource of the disease that nature feels;
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy difcovery of the cause
Sufpend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means fince firft he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation lefs
Than a capacious refervoir of means,
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?
Go, drefs thine eyes with eye falve; aşk of him,
Or ask of whomfoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine caufe of all. COWPER.
Indignant Sentiments on National Prejudices and Hatred; and on Slavery.
OH for a lodge in fome vaft wilderness,
Some boundlefs contiguity of fhade,
Where rumour of oppreffion and deceit,
Of unfuccefsful or fuccessful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My foul is fick with ev'ry days report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart
It does not feel for man, The nat ral bond.
Of brotherhood is fevered as the flax
That falls afunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not coloured like his own; and having pow'r
T' inforce the wrong, for fuch a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands interfected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpofed,
Make enemies of nations, who had elfe,"
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys :
And worse than all, and moft to be deplored,
As human nature's broadeft, fouleft blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With ftripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when the fees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man! And what man feeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a flave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I fleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That finews bought and fold have ever earned.
• No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Juft eftimation prized above all price;
I had much rather be myself the flave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no flaves at home; then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loofed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their fhackles fall.
That's noble, and befpeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the bleffing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through ev'ry vein
Of all your empire; that where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
THE meek ey'd morning appears, mother of dews,
At first faint gleaming in the dappled eaft;
Till far o'er ether fpreads the wid'ning glow;
And from before the luftre of her face
White break the clouds away. With quickened step
Brown night retires: young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny profpect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the fight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the fmoking currents fhine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, awkward: while along the foreft glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early paffenger. Mufic awakes
The native voice of undiffembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arife.
• Roufed by the cock, the foon clad fhepherd leaves
His moffy cottage, where with peace he dwells
And from the crowded fold in order, drives
His flock to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falfely luxurious, will not man awake;
And, fpringing from the bed of floth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the filent hour,
To meditation due and facred fong?
For is there aught in fleep can charm the wife?
To lie in dead oblivion, lofing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of the enlightened foul !
Or elfe to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and toffing through diftempered dreams?
Who would in fuch a gloomy ftate, remain
Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And ev'ry blooming pleasure waits without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
Rural Sounds, as well as Rural Sights, delightful.
NOR rural fights alone, but rural founds
Exhilarate the fpirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds,
That sweep the skirt of some far spreading wood
Of ancient growth, make music, not unlike
The dash of ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the fpirit while they fill the mind,
Unnumbered branches waving in the blast,
And all their leaves faft flutt'ring all at once.
Nor lefs compofure waits upon the roar
Of distant floods; or on the lofter voice
Of neighb'ring fountain; or of rills that flip
Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall
Upon loofe pebbles, lofe themfelves at length
In matted grafs, that, with a livelier green,
Betrays the fecret of their filent course.
Nature inanimate employs fweet founds,
But animated nature sweeter ftill,
To footh and fatisfy the human ear.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The live long night. Nor thefe alone, whole notes
Nice fingered art muft emulate in vain,
But cawing rocks, and kites that swim fublime,
In ftill repeated circles, fcreaming loud,
The jay, the pye, and ev'n the boding owl
That hails the rifing moon, have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themfelves, and harsh,
Yet heard in fcenes where peace forever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their fake.
THE rofe had been washed, just washed in a fhower, Which Mary to Anna conveyed;
The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, And weighed down its beautiful head.
The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet,
And it feemed to a fanciful view,
To weep for the buds it had left with regret,
On the flourishing bufh where it grew.
I hastily feized it, unfit as it was
For a nofegay, fo dripping and drown'd;
And fwinging it rudely, too rudely, alas!
I fnapped it; it fell to the ground.
And fuch, I exclaimed, is the pitiless part,
Some act by the delicate mind,
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart,
Already to forrow refigned.
This elegant rofe, had I fhaken it lefs,
Might have bloomed with its owner a while;
And the tear that is wiped with a little addrefs,
May be followed perhaps by a smile.
Care of Birds for their Young.
AS THUS the patient dam affiduous firs,
Not to be tempted from her tender tafk,
Or by fharp hunger, or by fmooth delight,
Tho' the whole loofened fpring around her blows,
Her fympathifing partner takes his ftand
High on th' opponent bank, and ceafelefs fings
The tedious time away; or elfe fupplies
Her place a moment, while fhe fudden flits
To pick the fcanty meal. The appointed time
With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young,
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