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AN EPISTLE

ΤΟ

A PROTESTANT LADY IN FRANCE.

MADAM,

A STRANGER'S purpose in these lays Is to congratulate, and not to praise. To give the creature her Creator's due Were sin in me, and an offence to you. From man to man, or ev'n to woman paid, Praise is the medium of a knavish trade, A coin by craft for folly's use designed, Spurious, and only current with the blind.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown; No traveller ever reached that blest abode, Who found not thorns and briars in his road.

The world may dance along the flowery plain,
Cheered as they go by many a sprightly strain,
Where nature has her mossy velvet spread,
With unshod feet they yet securely tread,
Admonished, scorn the caution and the friend,
Bent upon pleasure, heedless of its end.
Buthe, who knew what human hearts would
How slow to learn the dictates of his love,
That hard by nature and of stubborn will,
A life of ease would make them harder still,
In pity to the sinners he designed

To rescue from the ruins of mankind,

prove,

Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And said, "Go spend them in the vale of tears."
Oh balmy gales of soul-reviving air,

Oh salutary streams that murmur there,

These flowing from the fount of grace above,
Those breathed from lips of everlasting love!
The flinty soil indeed their feet annoys,

And sudden sorrow nips their springing joys,

An envious world will interpose its frown
To mar delights superior to its own,
And many a pang, experienced still within,
Reminds them of their hated inmate, sin;

But ills of every shape and every name
Transformed to blessings miss their cruel aim,
And every moment's calm, that sooths the breast,
Is given in earnest of eternal rest.

Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast
Far from the flock, and in a distant waste!
No shepherd's tents within thy view appear,
But the chief Shepherd is for ever near;
Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain
Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain;

Thy tears all issue, from a source divine,

And every drop bespeaks a Saviour. thine

"Twas thus in Gideon's fleece the dews were found,

And drought on all the drooping herbs around.

VOL. I.

2 F

TO THE

RÉV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN.

I.

UNWIN, I should but ill

repay

The kindness of a friend,

Whose worth deserves as warm a lay

As ever friendship penned,

Thy name omitted in a page,

That would reclaim a vicious age.

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III.

The bud inserted in the rind,

The bud of peach or rose,

Adorns, though differing in its kind,

The stock whereon it grows,

With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair,

As if produced by nature there.

IV.

Not rich, I render what I

may,

I seize thy name in haste,'

And place it in this first essay,

Lest this should prove the last.

"Tis where it should be-in a plan

That holds in view the good of man.

V.

The poet's lyre, to fix his fame,

Should be the poet's heart;

Affection lights a brighter flame

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