ODE III.

то

THE ATHEIST.

BY R. SHEPHERD, D. D.

EXPATIATE long in nice debate,
On Chance, Necessity, and Fate:

With learn'd Lucretius stray
In Epicurus' magic grove,
Where the self-motion’d atoms rove

In mazy mystic play.

Some vain hypothesis admit,
The specious cobweb-work of wit;

And daringly deny
What every object round avows,
What every act of Reason shews,

An All-wise Deity.

The clearest evidence contest,
Divinely stampt on every breast,

Since Time was taught to roll ;
In Errors gloomy coverts stray,
From Truth's indisputable ray

Remote, as pole from pole.

So shuts the moping bird of night
Her feeble eyes against the light,

That glads the cheerful day ;
And when prevailing darkness reigns,
Thro' groves obscene, or dreary plains,

She wings her dubious way.
Consult the blue expanse on high,
The blush that paints the morning sky,

The cloud that nimbly rides,
The orbs that mark with lustre bright
The spangled mantle of the night,

Who there supreme resides.
Question the gaudy flowers around,
That scent the air, or paint the ground,

Whose influence they obey:
Whose hand imparts the various dyes,
At whose command they bud and rise,

At whose command decay.

Say ye, on down, or mountain steep,
That stately tread, or lowly creep;

And ye aerial throng,
That cheer the woodland scene and fields
With vocal strains ; whose bounty yields,

Or sustenance or song :

Who, in the ocean's waste domain,
The tenants of the watry plain

With liberal hand supplies ?

The floods in icy fetters binds,
Smooths the rough surge, and lulls the winds,

Or bids the tempest rise ?

Nature in every mystic scene
Declares a plastic author's reign :

Above the morning's wings,
Beyond the sea's remotest tides,
Beneath the daedal earth resides

Th’ Almighty King of Kings.

ODE IV.

THE ENTHUSIAST.

BY WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, ESQ.

[Late Poet-Laureat. )

Once, I remember well the day, 'Twas ere the blooming sweets of May

Had lost their freshest hues: When every Aower on ev'ry hill, In ev'ry vale had drank its fill

Of sun-shine and of dews.

In short, 'twas that sweet season's prime,
When Spring gives up the reins of Time

To Summer's glowing hand,
And doubting mortals hardly know,
By whose command the breezes blow

Which fan the smiling land.

'Twas then, beside a green-wood shade, Which cloth'd a lawn's aspiring head,

I urg'd my devious way,
With loitering steps regardless where,
So soft, so genial was the air,

So wondrous bright the day.

And now my eyes with transport rove
O’er all the blue expanse above,

Unbroken by a cloud!
And now beneath delighted pass,
Where, winding through the deep-green grass,

A full brimm'd river flow'd.

I stop, I gaze; in accents rude,
To thee, serenest Solitude,

Burst forth th' unbidden lay ;
“ Begone, vile world, the learn'd, the wise,
The great, the busy I despise,

And pity e'en the gay.

“ These, these are joys alone, I cry;
'Tis here, divine Philosophy,

Thou deign'st to fix thy throne!
Here Contemplation points the road
Thro’ Nature's charms to Nature's God!

These, these are joys alone!

“ Adieu, ye vain low-thoughted cares, Ye human hopes, and human fears,

Ye pleasures and ye pains !” While thus I spake, o'er all my

soul A philosophic calmness stole,

A stoic stillness reigns.