With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor facred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter feizes; fhuts up fenfe;
And, o'er his inmoft vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the fnows, a stiffened corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence furround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;

Ah little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death
And all the fad variety of pain.

How many fink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed,
By fhameful variance betwixt Man and Man.
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms;
Shut from the common air, and common ufe
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of mifery. Sore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How
many fhrink into the fordid hut,
Of cheerlefs poverty. How many fhake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,

Unbounded paffion, madness, guilt, remorse;
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the tragic Muse.

Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,
With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd,
How many, rack'd with honeft paffions, droop
In deep retir'd diftrefs. How many ftand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond Man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one inceffant ftruggle render life,
One fcene of toil, of fuffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would ftand appall❜d,
And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of Charity would warm,
And her wide with Benevolence dilate ;
The focial tear would rife, the focial figh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining ftill, the focial paffions work.

And here can I forget the generous band *, Who, touch'd with human woe, redressive search'd Into the horrors of the gloomy jail?

Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans;

* The Jail Committee, in the year 1729.

Where fickness pines; where thirst and hunger burn,
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice.
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd;
Snatch'd the lean morfel from the starving mouth;
Tore from cold wintry limbs the tatter'd weed;
Even robb'd them of the laft of comforts, fleep;
The free-born BRITON to the dungeon chain'd,
Or, as the luft of cruelty prevail❜d,

At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes;
And crush'd out lives, by fecret barbarous ways,
That for their country would have toil❜d, or bled.
O great defign! if executed well,

With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zeal.
Ye fons of mercy! yet resume the search;
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppreffion's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much ftill untouch'd remains; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir'd.
The toils of law, (what dark infidious Men
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen fimple justice into trade,)

How glorious were the day! that faw these broke, And every Man within the reach of right.

By wintry famine rous'd, from all the tract
Of horrid mountains which the fhining Alps,
And wavy Apennine, and Pyrenees,

Branch out ftupendous into distant lands;
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave!
Burning for blood! bony, and gaunt, and grim!
Affembling wolves in raging troops defcend;
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along,
Keen as the north-wind fweeps the gloffy fnow.
All is their prize. They faften on the steed,
Prefs him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the bull his awful front defend,
Or fhake the murdering favages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of Man avails him nought.
Even beauty, force divine! at whose bright glance
The generous lion stands in softened gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguish'd prey.
But if, appriz'd of the fevere attack,
The country be fhut up, lur'd by the scent,
On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate!)
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig

The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which,
Mix'd with foul fhades, and frighted ghofts, they howl.
Among thofe hilly regions, where embrac'd
In peaceful vales the happy Grifons dwell;
Oft, rufhing fudden from the loaded cliffs,
Mountains of fnow their gathering terrors roll.
From steep to fteep, loud-thundering down they come,
A wintry wafte in dire commotion all;

And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and fwains,
And fometimes whole brigades of marching troops,
Or hamlets fleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the fmothering ruin whelm'd.
Now, all amid the rigours of the year,

In the wild depth of Winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat,
Between the groaning foreft and the shore
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves,
A rural, fhelter'd, folitary fcene;
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join,
To cheer the gloom.
There ftudious let me fit,
And hold high converse with the MIGHTY DEAD;
Sages of ancient time, as gods rever'd,

As gods beneficent, who bleft mankind

With arts, with arms, and humaniz'd a world.

Rous'd at th' infpiring thought, I throw afide