But now what milder scenes arife!
The tyrant drops his hoftile guife;
He feems a youth divinely fair,
His graceful ringlets wave his hair;
His wings their whit'ning plumes difplay,
His burnish'd plumes reflect the day;
Light flows his shining azure veft,
And all the angel stands confefs'd.
I view'd the change with fweet surprise;
And, Oh! I panted for the skies;
Thank'd Heav'n, that e'er I drew my breath;
And triumphed in the thoughts of Death.
N.
O MORE thus brooding o'er yon heap,
With Av'rice painful vigils keep;
Still unenjoy'd the present store,
Still endless fighs are breath'd for more
O! quit the shadow, catch the prize,
Which not all India's treasure buys!
To purchase heav'n has gold the pow'r?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?.
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are Friendship's pleasures to be fold?
No-all that's worth a wish-a thought,
Fair Virtue gives unbrib'd, unbought.
Ceafe then on trash thy hopes to bind;
Let nobler views engage thy mind.
Nothing formed in Vain.
LET no presuming impious railer tax
Creative Wisdom, as if aught was form'd
In vain or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty Ignorance pronounce
His works unwife, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if, upon a full-proportion'd dome,
On fwelling columns heav'd, the pride of art!
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
And lives the man, whose universal eye
Has fwept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,
As with unfault'ring accent to conclude,
That This availeth nought? Has any feen
The mighty chain of beings, less'ning down
From infinite perfection, to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!
From which astonish'd Thought, recoiling, turns?
Till then alone let zealous praife afcend,
And hymns of holy wonder, to that POWER,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely in our minds,
As on our smiling eves his fervant-fun.
Or all the caufes, which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever Nature has in worth deny'd
She gives in large recruits of needless pride!
For, as in bodies, thus in fouls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind..
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of fenfe.
If once right Reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with refiftless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or tafte not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely fobers us again.
Fir'd at first fight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While, from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor fee the lengths behind;
But, more advanc'd, behold, with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rife!
So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already paft,
And the first clouds and mountains feem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to furvey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arife.
Cruelty to Brutes cenfured.
I WOULD not enter on my lift of friends,
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility,) the man
Who needlessly fets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail,
That crawls at evening in the public path;.
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermine, loathsome to the fight,
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A vifiter unwelcome into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repofe, th' alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not fo, when held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field:
There they are privileg'd. And he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong;
Disturbs th' economy of Nature's realm,
Who when she form'd, defign'd them an abode.
The fum is this; if man's convenience, health,
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Elfe they are all the meanest things that are,
As free to live and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who, in his fov'reign wisdom, made them all.
Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your fons
To love it too. The spring-time of our years
Is foon dishonour'd and defild, in most,
By budding ills, that afk a prudent hand
To check them. But, alas! none fooner shoots,
If unreftrain'd, into luxuriant growth,
Than cruelty, most dev'lish of them all.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,
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