Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

To full the wayward soul to rest,
When hopes and fears distract the breast.
Reason may calm this doubtful strife,
And steer thy bark through various life :
But when the storms of death are nigh,
And midnight darkness veils the sky,
Shall Reason then direct thy sail,
Disperse the clouds, or sink the gale?
Stranger, this skill alone is mine,
Skill that transcends his scanty line."
"Revere thyself—thou'rt near allied
To angels on thy better side.

How various e'er their ranks or kinds,
Angels are but unbodied minds:
When the partition-walls decay,
Men emerge angels from their clay.
Yes, when the frailer body dies,
The soul asserts her kindred skies.
But minds, though sprung from heav'nly race,
Must first be tutor'd for the place:

The joys above are understood,
And relish'd only by the good.

Who shall assume this guardian care;
Who shall secure their birth-right there?
Souls are my charge-to me 'tis giv'n
To train them for their native heav'n."
"Know then-who bow the early knee,
And give the willing heart to me;
Who wisely, when Temptation waits,
Elude her frauds, and spurn her baits;
Who dare to own my injur'd cause,
Though fools deride my sacred laws;
Or scorn to deviate to the wrong,
Though persecution lifts her thong;
Though all the sons of hell conspire
To raise the stake and light the fire;
Know, that for such superior souls,
There lies a bliss beyond the poles :
Where spirits shine with purer ray,
And brighten to meridian day;

Where love, where boundless friendship rules; (No friends that change, no love that cools ;) Where rising floods of knowledge roll,

And pour, and pour upon the soul!?

"But where's the passage to the skies ?— The road through death's black valley lies. Nay, do not shudder at my tale;

Tho' dark the shades, yet safe the vale.
This path the best of men have trod;
And who'd decline the road to God?
Oh! 'tis a glorious boon to die!
This favour can't be priz'd too high."
While thus she spoke, my looks express'd
The raptures kindling in my breast;
My soul a fix'd attention gave;
When the stern monarch of the grave,
With haughty strides approach'd :-amaz'd
I stood, and trembled as I gaz'd.
The seraph calm'd each anxious fear,
And kindly wip'd the falling tear;
Then hasten'd with expanded wing
To meet the pale, terrific king.
But now what milder scenes arise !
The tyrant drops his hostile guise ;
He seems a youth divinely fair,
In graceful ringlets waves his hair;
His wings their whit'ning plumes display,
His burnish'd plumes reflect the day;
Light flows his shining azure vest,
And all the angel stands confess'd.

I view'd the change with sweet surprise ;

And, Oh! I panted for the skies :

Thank'd heav'n, that e'er I drew my breath;
And triumph'd in the thoughts of death.-COTTON.

CHAP III.

DIDACTIC PIECES.

SECTION I.
The vanity of wealth.

No more thus brooding o'er yon heap,
With av'rice painful vigils keep;
Still unenjoy'd the present store,
Still endless sighs are breath'd for more.
Oh! 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 sold?
No-all that's worth a wish-a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbrib'd, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind ;
Let nobler views engage thy mind.-

SECTION II.

Nothing formed in vain.

-DR. JOHNSON.

LET no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom; as if ought was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if, upon a full-proportion'd dome,
On swelling 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 swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,
As with unfalt'ring accent to conclude,

That this availeth nought? Has any seen

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 praise ascend,

And hymns of holy wonder, to that POWER,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely in our minds,
As on our smiling eyes his servant sun.-THOMSON.

SECTION III.

On Pride.

Or all the causes, 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 needful pride!
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, 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 sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain ;
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first sight 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 see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd, behold, with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
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 past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last :
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
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 arise.—POPE.
SECTION IV.

Cruelty to brutes censured.

I WOULD not enter on my list of friends,

(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility,) the man

Who needlessly sets 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 vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visiter unwelcome into scenes

Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.

A necessary act incurs no blame.

Not so, 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, design'd them an abode.
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health,
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims,
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else 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 sovereign wisdom, made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too. The spring time of our years
Is soon dishonour'd and defil'd, in most,
By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots
If unrestrain'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,

By which heav'n moves in párd'ning guilty man :
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,

And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it, and not find it in His turn.-cOWPER.

SECTION V.

A paraphrase on the latter part of the sixth chapter of St.
Matthew.

WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh! let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt his doctrine did impart,
And thus he rais'd from earth the drooping heart.
"Think not, when all your scanty stores afford,
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs again.
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed ?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air :
S

« ÎnapoiContinuă »