"I in high heaven will be ador'd,
"Above the stars of God exalt my throne;
66
My pow'r fhall facred Sien own,
"The mount of God's dread prefence hail me lord."
Such thy vain threats: Death's dark abode
Yawns to receive the vaunting god.
Thofe, who thy corfe fhall 'midft the flain behold,
Shall view thee with attentive look :
Is this the man, his thund'ring car who roll'd,
That with pale terror kingdoms fhook?
W Who wav'd o'er wafted towns his fpear,
Terror and Flight his van, Deftruction in his rear?
Is this the man, whose barb'rous hate
Bound captive monarchs in his galling chain;
While Outrage call'd his tort'ring train,
And Rigor clofed the dungeon's ruthless gate?
How from his high dominion hurl'd
The fpoiler of the ravag'd world!
Kings, monarchs, heroes, warriors of renown,
Who greatly fought their realms to fave,
Each in his houfe of Death in peace lies down,
With glory in his rock-hewn grave,
Amidit his chiefs, with honours grac'd,
His fword beneath his head, his arms beside him plac'd.
But thou shalt lie a thing abhor'd,
A fordid corfe among the vulgar flain,
Cloath'd with the carnage of the plain,
A loathfome texture by the falchion gor'd.
Shalt thou with honour'd chiefs repofe?
Her jaws 'gainst thee the grave shall close;
For where portentous thy proud banners wav'd,
Rapine rufh'd o'er the wafted land:
Thy country, too, her free-born fons enflav'd
Or flaughter'd, curft thy hoftile hand.
So falls the impious tyrant-race,
And fair Renown difdains their hated dust to grace.
prepare:
The dreadful work of death
The father's crimes for boundless vengeance call,
And all the tyrant's fons fhall fall;
Nor branch, nor offspring fhall my fury spare,
Left o'er the trembling earth again
Spread the wild horrors of their reign.
No more their haughty tow'rs fhall pierce the skies,
And fill the wide world with their fame;
Against them, faith Jehovah, I will rife,
Will rend from Babylon the name,
Smite from its courfe her stagnant stream,
Aad o'er its miry gulfs fhall clanging fea-mews fcream.
Thus hath God fworn, th' Almighty Lord:
Like the strong mountains fhall my purpose stand,
To crufh th' Affyrian in my land;
Through all their hofts fhall rage the vengeful fword;
Dreadful on Sion's facred brow
The God of Armies fhall they know.
Daughter of Sion, let thy joy arise,
From thy griev'd neck his yoke fhall fall;
Virgin, exult, thy haughty foe despise,
His chain no more thy arms fhall gall.
Thus hath God sworn, nor fworn in vain :
Th' Almighty's hand is ftretch'd, who fhali its force 1 rain?
删
ADDRESS to FRIENDSHIP.
[From Poems on several Occafions; by ANN YEARSLEY, a Milkwoman of Bristol.]
RIENDSHIP! thou nobleft ardor of the foul!
FImmortal effence! languor's beft fupport!
Chief dignifying proof of glorious man!
Firm cement of the world! endearing tie,
Which binds the willing foul, and brings along
Her chastest, strongest, and fublimest powers!
All elfe the dregs of fpirit. Love's foft flame,
Bewildering, leads th' infatuated foul:
Levels, depreffes, wraps in endless mifts,
Contracts, diffolves, enervates, and enflaves,
Relaxes, finks, diftracts, while Fancy fills
Th' inflaming draught, and aids the calenture.
Intoxicating charm! yet well refin'd
By Virtue's brightening flame, pure it ascends,
As incenfe in its grateful circles mounts,
Till, mixt and loft, with thee it boast thy name.
Thou unfound bleffing! woo'd with eager hope,
As clowns the nightly vapour fwift pursue,
And fain wou'd grafp to cheer their lonely way;
Vain the wide ftretch, and vain the shorten'd breath,
For, ah! the bright delufion onward flies,
While the fad fwain deceiv'd, now cautious treads
The common beaten track, nor quits it more.
Not unexifting art thou, but fo rare,
That delving fouls ne'er find thee; 'tis to thee,
When found, if ever found, fweet fugitive,
The noble mind opes all her richest stores;
Thy firm, ftrong hold fuits the courageous breaft,
Where stubborn virtues dwell in fecret league,
And each confpires to fortify the rest.
Etherial fpirits alone may hope to prove
Thy ftrong, yet foften'd rapture; soften'd more
When penitence fucceeds to injury;
When, doubting pardon, the meek, pleading eye
On which the foul had once with pleasure dwelt,
Swims in the tear of forrow and repentance.
The faultlefs mind with treble pity views
The tarnish'd friend, who feels the fting of fhame;
'Tis then too little barely to forgive;
Nor can the foul reft on that frigid thought,
But rushing swiftly from her Stoic heights,
With all her frozen feelings melted down
By Pity's genial beams, the finks, diftreft,
Shares the contagion, and with lenient hand
Lifts the warm chalice fill'd with confolation.
Yet Friendship's name oft decks the crafty lip,
With feeming virtue clothes the ruthlefs foul:
Grief-foothing notes, well feign'd to look like Truth,
Like an infidious ferpent foftly creep
To the poor, guilelefs, unfufpecting heart,
Wind round in wily folds, and finking deep
Explore her facred treafure, bafely heave
Her hoard of woes to an unpitying world;
First fooths, enfnares, expofes and betrays.
What art thou, fiend, who thus ufurp'it the form
Of the foft cherub? Tell me, by what name
The oftentatious call thee, thou who wreck'st
The gloomy peace of forrow-loving fouls?
Why thou art Vanity, ungenerous fprite,
Who tarnishest the action deem'd fo great,
And of foul-faving effence. But for thee,
How pure, how bright wou'd Theron's virtues fhine;
And, but that thou art incorp'rate with the flame,
Which elfe wou'd blefs where'er its beams illume,
My grateful fpirit had recorded here
Thy fplendid feemings. Long I've known their worth.
Ó, 'tis the deepest error man can prove,
To fancy joys difinterested can live,
Indiffoluble, pure, unmix'd with felf;
Why, 'twere to be immortal, 'twere to own
No part but fpirit in this chilling gloom.
My foul's ambitious, and its utmost stretch
Wou'd be, to own a friend-but that's deny'd.
Now, at this bold avowal, gaze, ye eyes,
Which kindly melted at my woe-fraught tale:
Start back, Benevolence, and fhun the charge;
Soft bending Pity, fly the fullen phrafe,
Ungrateful as it feems. My abject fate
Excites the willing hand of Charity,
The momentary figh, the pitying tear,
And inftantamous act of bounty bland,
2
1785.
To mifery fo kind; yet not to you,
Bounty, or charity, or mercy mild,
The penfive thought applies fair Friendship's name;
That name which never yet cou'd dare exist
But in equality
*
*
On Mrs. MONTAG U.
[From the fame Publication.]
W
HY boat, O arrogant, imperious man,
Perfections fo exclufive? are thy powers
Nearer approaching Deity? can't thou folve
Questions which high Inficity propounds,
Soar nobler flights, or dare immortal deeds,
Unknown to woman, if fhe greatly dares
To ufe the powers affign'd her? Active ftrength,
The boaft of animals, is clearly thine;
By this upheld, thou think it the leffon rare
That female virtues teach; and poor the height
Which female wit obtains. The theme unfolds
Its ample maze, for Montagu befriends
The puzzled thought, and, blazing in the eye
Of boldeft oppofition, ftrait prefents
The foul's beft energies, her kecneft powers,
Clear, vigorous, enlighten'd; with firm wing
Swift the o'ertakes his Mufe, which fpread afar
Its brightest glories in the days of yore;
Lo! where the, mounting, fpurns the ftedfaft earth,
And, failing on the cloud of fcience, bears
The banner of Perfection.
Afk Gallia's mimic fons how ftrong her powers,
Whom, flufh'd with plunder from her Shakspeare's page,
She swift detects amid their dark retreats
(Horrid as Cacus in their thievish dens);
Regains the trophies, bears in triumph back
The pilfer'd glories to a wand'ring world.
So Stella boafts, from her the tale I learn'd;
With pride she told it, I with rapture heard.
O, Montagu! forgive me, if I fing
Thy wisdom temper'd with the milder ray
Of foft humanity, and kindness bland:
So wide its influence, that the bright beams
Reach the low vale where mifts of ignorance lodge,
Strike on the innate fpark which lay immers'd,
Thick clogg'd, and almost quench'd in total night-
On me it fell, and cheer'd my joyless heart.
Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light
To the dark foul; impatient, the rejects,
And fain wou'd pufh the heavenly stranger back;
She loaths the cranny which admits the day;
Confus'd, afraid of the intruding guest;
Disturb'd, unwilling to receive the beam,
Which to herself her native darknefs fhews.
The effort rude to quench the cheering flame
Was mine, and e'en on Stella cou'd I gaze
With fullen envy, and admiring pride,
Till, doubly rous'd by Montagu, the pair
Confpire to clear my dull, imprifon'd fenfe,
And chafe the mifts which dimm'd my vifual beam.
Oft as I trod my native wilds alone,
Strong gufts of thought wou'd rife, but rife to die;
The portals of the fwelling foul ne'er op'd
By liberal converfe, rude ideas strove
Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died.
Thus ruft the mind's best powers. Yon ftarry orbs,
Majestic ocean, flowery vales, gay groves,
Eye-wafting lawns, and heaven-attempting hills,
Which bound th' horizon, and which curb the view;
All thofe, with beauteous imagery, awak'd
My ravish'd foul to extacy untaught,
To all the tranfport the rapt fenfe can bear;
But all expir'd, for want of powers to speak;
All perish'd in the mind as foon as born,
Eras'd more quick than cyphers on the fhore,
O'er which the cruel waves, unheedful, roll.
Such timid rapture as young Edwin feiz'd,
When his lone footsteps on the fage obtrude,
Whofe noble precept charm'd his wond'ring ear,
Such rapture fill'd Lactilla's vacant foul,
When the bright moralift, in foftness drest,
Opes all the glories of the mental world,
Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune
The budding fentiment, uprear the stalk
Of feeble fancy, bid idea live,
Woo the abstracted fpirit from its cares,
And gently guide her to the fcenes of peace.
Mine was that balm, and mine the grateful heart,
Which breathes its thanks in rough, but timid strains.
SONNET to LAURA.
[From Mr. PoLWHELE's Pictures from Nature, in Nineteen Sonnets.]
SUF
URVEY, my Laura, yonder rofe,
Its central folds fo fickly-pale;
While round its outward leaves difclofe
A lively crimson to the gale!
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