Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less man,
Or aught that might his happy state secure,
Secure from outward force. Within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his pow'r:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
2. But God left free the will: for what obeys
Reason is free, and reason he made right;
But bid her well beware, and still erect,
Lest by some fair appearing good surpris'd
She dictate false, and misinform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins
That I should mind thee oft: and mind thou me.
3. Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve,
Since reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborn'd,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warn'd.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not; trial will come unsought.
4. Wouldst thou approve thy constancy? approve
First thy obedience; th' other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warn'd thou seem'st,
Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more:
Go in thy native innocence; rely
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all;
For God towards thee hath done his part; do thine,"
SECTION IX.
On Procrastination.
1. BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Year after year it steals, till all are fled;
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
2. Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live:"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think,
They one day shall not drivel; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future selves applauds;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign;.
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more. 3. All promise is poor dilatory man;
And that through ev'ry stage. When young, indeed,
In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay;
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.
4. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal,
All men think all men mortal but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing no sear the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we dropt it in their grave.
That philosophy, which stops at secondary causes, reproved.
1. HAPPY the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns; (since from the least
The greatest oft originate;) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
2. This truth, philosophy, though eagle ey'd
In nature's tendencies, oft o'erlooks;
And having found his instrument, forgets
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
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 tempests; quits his grasp 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;
8. He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear; he springs his mines,
And desolates a nation at a blast:
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and re-action.
The source of the disease that nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause
Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means since first he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means,
To drown it? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means,
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye salve: ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.
Indignant sentiments on national prejudices and hatred;
1. Ou, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart;
It does not feel for man. The nat'ral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
2. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own; and having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
3. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
4. Then what is man! And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd,
5. No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd above all price;
I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home-then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd. 6. Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. 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.
SECTION I.
The morning in summer.
1. THE meek ey'd morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint gleaming in the dappled east;
Till far o'er ether spreads the wid'ning glow;
And from before the lustre of her face
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step
Brown night retires: young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
2. The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, thro' the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps awkward: while along the forest-glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
3. Rous'd by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives
His flock to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake;
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour
To meditation due and sacred song?
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wiset 4. To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of th' enlightened soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wilder', and tossing thro' distemper'd dreams?
Who would, in such a gloomy state, remain
Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And every blooming pleasure waits without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk? THOMSON,
SECTION II.
Rural sounds, as well as rural sights, delightful.
NOR rural sights alone, but rural sounds
Exhilarate the spirit. and restore
|