Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

No present health can health ensure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And O! that humble as my lot,

And scorned as in my strain,

Sad waste! for which no after-thrift atones,
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;
Dew-drops may deck the turf, that hides the bones,
But tears of godly grief, ne'er flow within.

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught
Of all these sepulchres, instructers true,

These truths, though known, too much forgot, That, soon or late, death also is your lot.

I may not teach in vain.

So prays your clerk with all his heart,

And ere he quits the pen,

Begs you for once to take his part,

And answer all-Amen!

And the next opening grave may yawn for you.

[blocks in formation]

Improve the present hour, for all beside
Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide.

COULD I, from heaven inspired, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,
As I can number in my punctual page,
And item down the victims of the past;

How each would trembling wait the mournful
sheet,

On which the press might stamp him next to die;
And, reading here his sentence, how replete
With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his
eye!

Time then would seem more precious than the
joys

In which he sports away the treasure now;
And prayer more seasonable than the noise
Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.

Then doubtless many a trifler on the brink
Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore,
Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say
Who next is fated, and who next to fall,
The rest might then seem privileged to play;
But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to ALL.

Observe the dappled foresters, how light
They bound and airy o'er the sunny glade—
One falls the rest, wide-scattered with affright,
Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warned,
Still need repeated warnings, and at last,
A thousand awful admonitions scorned,
Die self-accused of life run all to waste?

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1789.

-Placidaque ibi demum morte quievit.-Virg.
There calm at length he breathed his soul away.

"O MOST delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,

The hour that terminates his span,
His folly, and his wo!

"Worlds should not bribe me back to tread

Again life's dreary waste,

To see again my days o'erspread
With all the gloomy past.

"My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun adieu!
All heaven unfolded to mine eyes,

I have no sight for you."

So spake Aspasio, firm possessed
Of faith's supporting rod,
Then breathed his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God.

He was a man among the few

Sincere on virtue's side;

And all his strength from Scripture drew
To hourly use applied.

That rule he prized, by that he feared,

He hated, hoped, and loved;
Nor ever frowned, or sad appeared,
Bur when his heart had roved.

For he was frail as thou or I,

And evil felt within:

But, when he felt it, heaved a sigh,

And loathed the thought of sin.

Such lived Aspasio; and at last

Called up from earth to heaven,
The gulf of death triumphant passed,
By gales of blessing driven.

His joys be mine, each reader cries,
When my last hour arrives:
They shall be yours, my verse replies,
Such only be your lives.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1790.

Ne commonentem recta sperne.-Buchanan.
Despise not my good counsel.

HE who sits from day to day,

Where the prisoned lark is hung, Heedless of his loudest lay,

Hardly knows that he has sung.

Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustomed to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry.
So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my song proclaim
Death at hand-yourselves his mark-
And the foe's unerring aim.

Duly at my time I come,

Publishing to all aloud—

Soon the grave must be your home,
And your only suit, a shroud.

But the monitory strain,

Oft repeated in your ears, Seems to sound too much in vain, Wins no notice, wakes no fears.

Can a truth, by all confessed

Of such magnitude and weight Grow, by being oft impressed,

Trivial as a parrot's prate? Pleasure's call attention wins, Hear it often as we may; New as ever seem our sins,

Though committed every day.

Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell-
These alone, so often heard,

No more move us than the bell,
When some stranger is interred.

O then, ere the turf or tomb

Cover us from every eye, Spirit of instruction come,

Make us learn, that we must die.

[blocks in formation]

Though 'tis his privilege to die,

Would he improve the boon.

But he, not wise enough to scan
His blest concerns aright,
Would gladly stretch life's little span
To ages, if he might.

To ages in a world of pain,

To ages, where he goes

Galled by affliction's heavy chain,
And hopeless of repose.

Strange fondness of the human heart,
Enamoured of its harm!

Strange world, that costs it so much smart,
And still has power to charm.

Whence has the world her magic power?
Why deem we death a foe?

Recoil from weary life's best hour,
And covet longer wo?

The cause is Conscience-Conscience oft
Her tale of guilt renews:
Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death ensues.

Then anxious to be longer spared,

Man mourns his fleeting breath: All evils then seem light, compared With the approach of Death.

'Tis judgment shakes him; there's the fear, That prompts the wish to stay;

He has incurred a long arrear,
And must despair to pay.

Pay!-follow Christ, and all is paid:
His death your peace ensures;
Think on the grave where he was laid,
And calm descend to yours.

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION.

FOR THE YEAR 1793.

De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur. Cic. de Leg.

But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sacred be inviolate.

He lives, who lives to God alone,
And all are dead beside;
For other source than God is none
Whence life can be supplied.

To live to God is to requite

His love as best we may;
To make his precepts our delight,
His promises our stay.

But life, within a narrow ring
Of giddy joys comprised,

Is falsely named, and no such thing, But rather death disguised.

Can life in them deserve the name,

Who only live to prove

For what poor toys they can disclaim An endless life above?

Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel,

Much menaced, nothing dread; Have wounds, which only God can heal, Yet never ask his aid?

Who deem his house a useless place,

Faith, want of common sense;
And ardour in the Christian race,
A hypocrite's pretence?

Who trample order; and the day,
Which God asserts his own,
Dishonour with unhallowed play,
And worship chance alone?

If scorn of God's commands, impressed
On word and deed, imply
The better part of man unblessed
With life that can not die:

Such want it, and that want, uncured
Till man resigns his breath,
Speaks him a criminal, assured
Of everlasting death.

Sad period to a pleasant course!

Yet so will God repay

Sabbaths profaned without remorse,
And mercy cast away.

INSCRIPTION

FOR THE TOMB OF MR. HAMILTON.

PAUSE here, and think; a monitory rhyme
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.

Consult life's silent clock, thy bounding vein;
Seems it to say "Health here has long to reign?"
Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
That beams delight? a heart untaught to sigh?
Yet fear. Youth ofttimes healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never sees;

And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud
Exclaims, "Prepare thee for an early shroud."

EPITAPH ON A HARE.

HERE lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose feet ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo'.

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, Who nursed with tender care, And to domestic bounds confined, Was still a wild Jack-hare.

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,
He did it with a jealous look,

And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of wheaten bread,

And milk and oats, and straw; Thistles, or lettuces instead,

With sand to scour his maw.

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
Or pippin's russet peel,
And, when his juicy salads failed,

Sliced carrot pleased him well.
A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he loved to bound,
To skip and gambol like a fawn,

And swing his rump around.

His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear,

But most before approaching showers,
Or when a storm drew near.

Eight years and five round rolling moons
He thus saw steal away,

Dozing out all his idle noons,
And every night at play.

I kept him for his humour's sake,

For he would oft beguile

My heart of thoughts that made it ache, And force me to a smile.

But now beneath his walnut shade

He finds his long last home, And waits, in snug concealment laid, Till gentler Puss shall come.

He, still more aged, feels the shocks, From which no care can save, And, partner once of Tiney's box, Must soon partake his grave.

EPITAPHIUM ALTERUM.

Hic etiam jacet,

Qui totum novennium vixit, Puss.

Siste paulisper, Qui præteriturus es, Et tecum sic reputaHunc neque canis venaticus, Nec plumbum missile, Nec laqueus,

Nec imbres nimii,
Confecêre:

Tamen mortuus est-
Et moriar ego.

STANZAS

ON THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF SIR CHARLES
GRANDISON, IN 1753.

To rescue from the tyrant's sword
Th' oppressed;-unseen and unimplored,
To cheer the face of wo;

From lawless insult to defend
An orphan's right-a fallen friend,
And a forgiven foe;

These, these distinguish from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,

The guardians of mankind;.
Whose bosoms with these virtues heave
O, with what matchless speed, they leave
The multitude behind!

Then ask ye, from what cause on earth
Virtues like these derive their birth,

Derived from heaven alone,
Full on that favoured breast they shine,
Where faith and resignation join

To call the blessing down.

Such is that heart-but while the Muse
Thy theme, O RICHARDSON, pursues,
Her feeble spirits faint:

She can not reach, and would not wrong,
That subject for an angel's song,

The hero, and the saint!

ADDRESS TO MISS

ON READING THE PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE.

AND dwells there in a female heart,

By bounteous heaven designed
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined-

Dwells there a wish in such a breast
Its nature to forego,

To smother in ignoble rest

At once both bliss and wo?

Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe'er the verse complain,
Though Phoebus string the lyre.
Come then, fair maid, (in nature wise)
Who, knowing them, can tell

From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell.

In justice to the various powers

Of pleasing, which you share, Join me, amid your silent hours, To form the better prayer.

With lenient balm, may Ob'ron hence To fairy-land be driven;

With every herb that blunts the sense Mankind received from heaven.

"Oh! if my Sovereign Author please, Far be it from my fate, To live, unblest in torpid ease

And slumber on in state.

"Each tender tie of life defied

Whence social pleasures spring,
Unmoved with all the world beside,
A solitary thing-"

Some alpine mountain, wrapt in snow,
Thus braves the whirling blast,
Eternal winter doomed to know,
No genial spring to taste.

In vain warm suns their influence shed
The zephyrs sport in vain,
He rears, unchanged, his barren head,
Whilst beauty decks the plain.

What though in scaly armour drest, Indifference may repel

The shafts of wo-in such a breast No joy can ever dwell.

'Tis woven in the world's great plan, And fixed by heaven's decree, That all the true delights of man Should spring from Sympathy.

'Tis nature bids, and whilst the laws Of nature we retain,

Our self-approving bosom draws
A pleasure from its pain.

Thus grief itself has comforts dear,
The sordid never know;
And ecstacy attends the tear,
When virtue bids it flow.

For, when it streams from that pure source,
No bribes the heart can win,
To check, or alter from its course
The luxury within.`

Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves,

Who, if from labour eased, Extend no care beyond themselves, Unpleasing and unpleased.

Let no low thought suggest the prayer,
Oh! grant, kind heaven, to me,
Long as I draw ethereal air,
Sweet Sensibility.

Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen,

With lustre-beaming eye,

A train, attendant on their queen
(Her rosy chorus) fly.

The jocund Loves in Hymen's band,
With torches ever bright,

And generous Friendship hand in hand,
With Pity's watery sight.

The gentler virtues too are joined,
In youth immortal warm,
The soft relations, which, combined,
Give life her every charm.

The arts come smiling in the close,
And lend celestial fire,

The marble breathes, the canvass glows,
The muses sweep the lyre.

"Still may my melting bosom cleave

To sufferings not my own,
And still the sigh responsive heave,
Where'er is heard a groan.

"So Pity shall take Virtue's part,
Her natural ally,

And fashioning my softened heart,
Prepare it for the sky."

This artless vow may heaven receive,
And you, fond maid, approve;
So may your guiding angel give
Whate'er you wish or love:

So may the rosy fingered hours

Lead on the various year,

And every joy, which now is yours,
Extend a larger sphere;

And suns to come, as round they wheel,
Your golden moments bless,
With all a tender heart can feel,

Or lively fancy guess.

A TALE,

FOUNDED ON A FACT WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY,

1779.

WHERE Humber pours his rich commercial stream, There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme.

In subterraneous caves his life he led,

Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread.
When on a day, emerging from the deep,
A sabbath-day, (such sabbaths thousands keep!)
The wages of his weekly toil he bore

To buy a cock-whose blood might win him more;

As if the noblest of the feathered kind
Were but for battle and for death designed;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanced (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed;
But now the savage temper was reclaimed.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;

For all plead well who plead the cause of grace:
His iron-heart with Scripture he assailed,
Wooed him to hear a sermon, and prevailed.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew.
Swift, as the lightning-glance, the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wondered he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.

Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day which washed with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learned, by his altered speech-the change divine
Laughed when they should have wept, and swore
the day

Was nigh, when he would swear as fast as they.
"No, (said the penitent,) such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou see'st (thine eye the future sees)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these;
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;

Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,
Thy presence, thy embrace!"-He spoke and died.

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.

THAT Ocean you have late surveyed,
Those rocks I too have seen,
But I, afflicted and dismayed,
You tranquil and serene.

You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretched before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,
No longer such to you.

To me, the waves that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.

Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;

I, tempest-tossed, and wrecked at last,
Come home to port no more.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »