Into the mingling ftorm, demand their fire, 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 fense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the fnows, a ftiffened corfe,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blaft.
AH little think the gay licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence furround; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, 325 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 shameful variance betwixt Man and Man. How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms; Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup 335 Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of mifery. Sore pierc'd by wintry winds, How many fhrink into the fordid hut Of cheerless poverty. How many fhake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, Unbounded paffion, madness, guilt, remorfe;
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, 345 How many, rack'd with honeft paffions, droop In deep retir'd diftrefs. How many stand 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 struggle render life, One scene of toil, of fuffering, and of fate, Vice in his high career would stand appall'd,
And heedlefs rambling Impulse learn to think; The conscious heart of charity would warm, And her wide wish benevolence dilate; The focial tear would rife, the focial figh; And into clear perfection, gradual blifs, Refining ftill, the focial paffions work.
AND here can I forget the generous * band, 360 'Who, touch'd with human woe, redreffive fearch'd Into the horrors of the gloomy jail ?
Unpity'd, and unheard, where mifery moans;
Where fickness pines; where thirst and hunger burn, And poor misfortune feels the lafh of vice.
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whofe every street and public meeting glow
*The Jail Committee, in the Year 1729. 3
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; 370 Even robb'd them of the last 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 ftripes; And crush'd out lives, by fecret barbarous ways, 375 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 refume the fearch; 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 juftice intò trade)
How glorious were the day! that saw 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 Appenine, and Pirenees, Branch out ftupendous into diftant lands; Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave!
Burning for blood! bony, and ghaunt, 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 fasten 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 shut up, lur'd by the scent, On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate!) The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The fhrouded body from the grave; o'er which, Mix'd with foul fhades, and frighted ghofts, they howl.
AMONG thofe hilly regions, where embrac'd 416 In peaceful vales the happy Grifons dwell; Oft, rufhing fudden from the loaded cliffs, Mountains of fnow their gathering terrors roll. From keep to fteep, loud-thundering down they come, A wintry wafte in dire commotion all;
421 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. 425
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 forest and the shore, Beat by the boundless multitude of waves, A rural, shelter'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' inspiring thought, I throw afide The long-liv'd volume; and, deep-musing, hail The facred fhades, that flowly-rifing pafs Before my wondering eyes. First SOCRATES, Who firmly flood in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants fingle stood,
Invincible! calm Reason's holy law,
That Voice of GoD within th' attentive mind, Obeying, fearlefs, or in life, or death: Great moral teacher! Wifeft of Mankind! SOLON the next, who built his common-weal On equity's wide base; by tender laws
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