Yet gave me in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.
What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun,
That more than heav'n pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid, when man receives;
T' enjoy is to obey.
Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy foe.
If I am right, thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay
If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way!
Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's wo,
To hide the fault I see;
The mercy I to others show;
That mercy show to me.
Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Through this day's life or death!
This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun.
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let thy will be done.
To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, seas, skies!
One chorus let all beings raise !
All nature's incense rise.
O TREACH'ROUS conscience! while she seems to sleep
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song;
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the slacken'd rein,
And give us up to license unrecall'd,
Unmark'd;-see, from behind her secret stand,
The sly informer minutes ev'ry fault,
And her dread diary with horror fills.
Not the gross act alone employs her pen;
She reconnoitres fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe! the formidable spy,
List'ning o'erhears the whispers of our camp;
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.
As all rapacious usurers conceal
Their doomsday-book from all-consuming heirs;
Thus, with indulgence most severe, she treats
Us spendthrifts of inestimable time;
Unnoted, notes each moment misapplied;
In leaves more durable than leaves of brass,
Writes our whole history; which death shall read
In ev'ry pale delinquent's private ear;
And judgment publish; publish to more worlds
Than this; and endless age in groans resound.
SECTION XVII.
On an Infant.
To the dark and silent tomb,
Soon I hasten from the womb,
Scarce the dawn of life began,
Ere I measur'd out my span.
I no smiling pleasures knew;
I no gay delights could view :
Joyless sojourner was 1,
Only born to weep and die.-
Happy infant, early bless'd!
Rest, in peaceful slumber, rest;
Early rescu'd from the cares,
Which increase with growing years-
No delights are worth thy stay,
Smiling as they seem, and gay;
Short and sickly are they all,
Hardly tasted ere they pall.
All our gaiety is vain,
All our laughter is but pain;
Lasting only, and divine,
Is an innocence like thine...
SECTION XVIII.
The Cuckoo.
HALL, beauteous stranger of the wood,
Attendant on the Spring!
Now heav'n repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing..
Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear:
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year ?
Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flow'rs,
When heav'n is fill'd with music sweet
Of birds among the bow'rs.
The school-boy, wand'ring in the wood,
To pull the flow'rs so gay,
Starts, thy curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.
Soon as the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fly'st thy vocal vale,
An annual guest, in other lands,
Another spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!
O could I fly, I'd fly with thee :
We'd make, with social wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the Spring.
Day.. A Pastoral in Three Parts.
In the barn the tenant cock,
Close to Partlet perch'd on high,
Briskly crows (the shepherd's clock!)
Jocund that the morning's nigh.
Swiftly from the mountain's brow,
Shadows, nurs'd by night, retire;
And the peeping sunbeam, now
Paints with gold the village spire.
Philomel forsakes the thorn,
Plaintive where she prates at night;
And the lark, to meet the morn,
Soars beyond the shepherd's sight.
From the low roof'd cottage ridge,
See the chatt'ring swallow spring;
Darting through the one arch'd bridge,
Quick she dips her dappled wing.
Now the pine tree's waving top
Gently greets the morning gale:
Kidlings, now, begin to crop
Daisies on the dewy dale.
From the balmy sweets, uncloy'd,
(Restless till her task be done,
Now the busy bee's employ'd,
Sipping dew before the sun.
Trickling through the crevic'd rock,
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock,
When 'tis sun-drove from the hills.
Colin's for the promis'd corn
(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe)
Anxious; while the huntsman's horn,
Boldly sounding, drowns his pipe.
Sweet; O sweet, the warbling throng,
On the white emblossom'd spray !
Nature's universal song
Echoes to the rising day.
FERVID on the glitt'ring flood,
Now the noontide radiance glows:
Drooping o'er its infant bud,
Not a dew-drop's left the rose.
By the brook the shepherd dines,
From the fierce meridian heat,
Shelter'd by the branching pines,
Pendant o'er his grassy seat.
Now the flock forsakes the glade,
Where uncheck'd the sunbeams fall,
Sure to find a pleasing shade
By the ivy'd abbey wall.
Echo, in her airy round,
O'er the river, rock, and hill,
Cannot catch a single sound,
Save the clack of yonder mill.
Cattle court the zephyrs bland,
Where the streamlet wanders cool,
Or with languid silence stand,
Midway in the marshy pool.
But from mountain. dell, or stream,
Not a flutt'ring zephyr springs;
Fearful lest the noontide beam
Scorch its soft, its silken wings.
Not a leaf has leave to stir,
Nature's lull'd, serene and still!
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