Is falsely named, and no such thing,
But rather death disguised.

Can life in them deserve the name,
Who only live to prove

For what poor toys they can disclaim
An endless life above?

Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel,
Much menaced, nothing dread;
Have wounds, which only God can heal,
Yet never ask his aid?

Who deem his house a useless place,

Faith, want of common sense;
And ardour in the Christian race,
A hypocrite's pretence?

Who trample order; and the day,
Which God asserts his own,
Dishonour with unhallowed play,
And worship chance alone?

If scorn of God's commands, impressed
On word and deed, imply
The better part of man unblessed
With life that can not die:

Such want it, and that want, uncured
Till man resigns his breath,
Speaks him a criminal, assured
Of everlasting death.

Sad period to a pleasant course!
Yet so will God repay,
Sabbaths profaned without remorse,
And mercy cast away.

INSCRIPTION

FOR THE TOMB OF MR. HAMILTON.

PAUSE here, and think; a monitory rhyme
Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.

Consult life's silent clock, thy bounding vein;
Seems it to say-"Health here has long to reign?"
Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
That beams delight? a heart untaught to sigh?
Yet fear. Youth ofttimes healthful and at ease,
Anticipates a day it never sees;

And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud Exclaims, "Prepare thee for an early shroud."

EPITAPH ON A HARE.

HERE lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose feet ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo'.

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who nursed with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confined
Was still a wild Jack-hare

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,
He did it with a jealous look,

And, when he could, would bite

His diet was of wheaten bread,

And milk and oats, and straw; Thistles, or lettuces instead,

With sand to scour his maw.

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
Or pippin's russet peel,
And, when his juicy salads failed,
Sliced carrot pleased him well.
A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he loved to bound,
To skip and gambol like a fawn,

And swing his rump around.

His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear,
But most before approaching showers,

Or when a storm drew near.

Eight years and five round rolling moons
He thus saw steal away,
Dozing out all his idle noons,
And every night at play.

I kept him for his humour's sake,
For he would oft beguile

My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile.

But now beneath his walnut shade
He finds his long last home,
And waits, in snug concealment laid,
Till gentler Puss shall come.

He, still more aged, feels the shocks,

From which no care can save, And, partner once of Tiney's box, Must soon partake his grave.

EPITAPHIUM ALTERUM.

Hic etiam jacet,

Qui totum novennium vixit,
Puss.
Siste paulisper,

Qui præteriturus es,
Et tecum sic reputa―
Hunc neque canis venaticus,
Nec plumbum missile,
Nec laqueus,

Nec imbres nimii,
Confecêre;

Tamen mortuus est-
Et moriar ego.

STANZAS

ON THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF SIR CHARLES

GRANDISON, IN 1753.

To rescue from the tyrant's sword
Th' oppressed;-unseen and unimplored,
To cheer the face of wo;

From lawless insult to defend
An orphan's right—a fallen friend,
And a forgiven foe;

These, these distinguish from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,
The guardians of mankind;
Whose bosoms with these virtues heave
O, with what matchless speed, they leave
The multitude behind!

Then ask ye, from what cause on earth
Virtues like these derive their birth,

Derived from heaven alone, Full on that favoured breast they shine, Where faith and resignation join

To call the blessing down.

Such is that heart:-but while the Muse Thy theme, O RICHARDSON, pursues, Her feeble spirits faint:

She can not reach, and would not wrong, That subject for an angel's song,

The hero, and the saint!

ADDRESS TO MISS

ON READING THE PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE.

AND dwells there in a female heart,

By bounteous heaven designed The choicest raptures to impart, To feel the most refined

Dwells there a wish in such a breast

Its nature to forego,

To smother in ignoble rest

At once both bliss and wo?

Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe'er the verse complain,
Though Phoebus string the lyre.
Come then, fair maid, (in nature wise)
Who, knowing them, can tell

"Each tender tie of life defied

Whence social pleasures spring, Unmoved with all the world beside, A solitary thing"

Some alpine mountain, wrapt in snow, Thus braves the whirling blast, Eternal winter doomed to know,

No genial spring to taste.

In vain warm suns their influence shed
The zephyrs sport in vain,
He rears, unchanged, his barren head,
Whilst beauty decks the plain.

What though in scaly armour drest,
Indifference may repel

The shafts of wo-in such a breast
No joy can ever dwell.

'Tis woven in the world's great plan, And fixed by heaven's decree, That all the true delights of man

Should spring from Sympathy.

'Tis nature bids, and whilst the laws
Of nature we retain,

Our self-approving bosom draws
A pleasure from its pain.

Thus grief itself has comforts dear,
The sordid never know;
And ecstacy attends the tear,
When virtue bids it flow.

For, when it streams from that pure source,
No bribes the heart can win,
To check, or alter from its course
The luxury within.

Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves,
Who, if from labour eased,
Extend no care beyond themselves,
Unpleasing and unpleased.

Let no low thought suggest the prayer,
Oh! grant, kind heaven, to me,
Long as I draw ethereal air,
Sweet Sensibility.

Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen,

With lustre-beaming eye,

A train, attendant on their queen,
(Her rosy chorus) fly.

The jocund Loves in Hymen's band,
With torches ever bright,

And generous Friendship hand in hand,
With Pity's watery sight.

The gentler virtues too are joined,
In youth immortal warm,

The soft relations, which, combined,'
Give life her every charm.

The arts come smiling in the close,
And lend celestial fire,

The marble breathes, the canvass glows,
The muses sweep the lyre.

"Still may my melting bosom cleave

To sufferings not my own,
And still the sigh responsive heave,
Where'er is heard a groan.

"So Pity shall take Virtue's part,
Her natural ally,

And fashioning my softened heart,
Prepare it for the sky."

This artless vow may heaven receive,
And you, fond maid, approve;
So may your guiding angel give
Whate'er you wish or love:

So may the rosy fingered hours

Lead on the various year,

And every joy, which now is yours,
Extend a larger sphere;

And suns to come, as round they wheel,
Your golden moments bless,
With all a tender heart can feel,

Or lively fancy guess.

A TALE,

1779.

As if the noblest of the feathered kind
Were but for battle and for death designed;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanced (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed;
But now the savage temper was reclaimed.
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;

For all plead well who plead the cause of grace:
His iron-heart with Scripture he assailed,
Wooed him to hear a sermon, and prevailed.
His faithful bow the mighty preacher drew.
Swift, as the lightning-glance, the arrow flew.
He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his sins, and wondered he should feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.

Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies!
He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day which washed with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear.
The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine
Learned, by his altered speech-the change divine
Laughed when they should have wept, and swore
the day

Was nigh, when he would swear as fast as they.
"No, (said the penitent,) such words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou see'st (thine eye the future sees)
That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these;
Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapses into steel;

Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,
Thy presence, thy embrace!"-He spoke and died.

ON HIS RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.

THAT Ocean you have late surveyed,
Those rocks I too have seen,
But I, afflicted and dismayed,
You tranquil and serene.

You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretched before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,
No longer such to you.

To me, the waves that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.

Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;
I, tempest-tossed, and wrecked at last,
Come home to port no more.

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY

AUSTEN.

DEAR ANNA-between friend and friend,
Prose answers every common end;
Serves, in a plain and homely way,
T'express th' occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news;
What walks we take, what books we choose;
And all the floating thoughts we find
Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb,
Derived from nature's noblest part,
The centre of a glowing heart:

And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more sublime vagaries slighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme
To catch the triflers of the time,
And tell them truths divine and clear,
Which, couched in prose, they will not hear;
Who labour hard t' allure and draw
The loiterers I never saw,
Should feel that itching, and that tingling,
With all my purpose intermingling,
To your intrinsic merit true,
When called t' address myself to you.

Mysterious are his ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds, that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more:
It is th' allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connexions:
Directs us in our distant road,
And marks the bounds of our abode.
Thus we were settled when you found us,
Peasants and children all around us,
Not dreaming of so dear a friend,
Deep in the abyss of Silver-End.*
Thus Martha, e'en against her will,
Perched on the top of yonder hill;
And you, though you must needs prefer
The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre,+
Are come from distant Loire, to choose
A cottage on the banks of Ouse.
This page of Providence quite new,
And now just opening to our view,

• An obscure part of Olney, adjoining to the residence of

Cowper, which faced the market-place.

Lady Austen's residence in France.

Employs our present thoughts and pains

To guess, and spell, what it contains;
But day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark enigma clear;
And furnish us, perhaps, at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof, that we, and our affairs,
Are part of a Jehovah's cares:
For God unfolds, by slow degrees,
The purport of his deep decrees;
Sheds every hour a clearer light
In aid of our defective sight;
And spreads, at length, before the soul,
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known
The beauties of a rose full blown,
Could you, though luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, descry,
Or guess, with a prophetic power,
The future splendour of the flower?
Just so, th' Omnipotent, who turns
The system of a world's concerns,
From mere minutia can educe
Events of most important use;
And bid a dawning sky display
The blaze of a meridian day.
The works of man tend, one and all,
As needs they must, from great so small;
And vanity absorbs at length
The monuments of human strength.
But who can tell how vast the plan
Which this day's incident began?
Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion,
For our dim-sighted observation;
It passed unnoticed, as the bird
That cleaves the yielding air unheard,
And yet may prove, when understood,
A harbinger of endless good.

Not that I deem, or mean to call Friendship a blessing cheap or small. But merely to remark, that ours, Like some of nature's sweetest flowers, Rose from a seed of tiny size, That seemed to promise no such prize; A transient visit intervening, And made almost without a meaning, (Hardly the effect of inclination, Much less of pleasing expectation,) Produced a friendship, then begun, That has cemented us in one; And placed it in our power to prove, By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken, "A threefold cord is not soon broken."

SONG.*

Air-The Lass of Patie's Mill.

WHEN all within is peace,

How Nature seems to smile! Delights that never cease,

The live-long day beguile. From morn to dewy eve, With open hand she showers Fresh blessings to deceive,

And sooth the silent hours.

It is content of heart

Gives nature power to please; The mind that feels no smart, Enlivens all it sees: Can make a wintry sky Seem bright as smiling May, And evening's closing eye As peep of early day.

The vast majestic globe,

So beauteously arrayed In Nature's various robe With wondrous skill displayed, Is to a mourner's heart

A dreary wild at best;

It flutters to depart,

And longs to be at rest.

And, summoned to partake its fellow's wo, Starts from its office, like a broken bow.

Votaries of business, and of pleasure prove Faithless alike in friendship and in love. Retired from all the circles of the gay, And all the crowds, that bustle life away, To scenes, where competition, envy, strife, Beget no thunder-clouds to trouble life, Let me, the charge of some good angel, find One, who has known, and has escaped mankind; Polite, yet virtuous, who has brought away The manners, not the morals, of the day: With him, perhaps with her, (for men have known No firmer friendships than the fair have shown,) Let me enjoy, in some unthought-of spot, All former friends forgiven, and forgot, Down to the close of life's fast fading scene, Union of hearts, without a flaw between. 'Tis grace, 'tis bounty, and it calls for praise, If God give health, that sunshine of our days! And if he add, a blessing shared by few, Content of heart, more praises still are dueBut if he grant a friend, that boon possessed, Indeed is treasure, and crowns all the rest; And giving one, whose heart is in the skies, Born from above, and made divinely wise, He gives, what bankrupt nature never can, Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man, Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew, A soul, an image of himself, and therefore true.

VERSES

SELECTED FROM AN OCCASIONAL POEM, ENTITLED
VALEDICTION.

On Friendship! Cordial of the human breast
So little felt, so fervently professed!
Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting years;
The promise of delicious fruit appears:
We hug the hopes of constancy and truth,
Such is the folly of our dreaming youth;
But soon, alas! detect the rash mistake
That sanguine inexperience loves to make;
And view with tears th' expected harvest lost,
Decayed by time, or withered by a frost,
Whoever undertakes a friend's great part
Should be renewed in nature, pure in heart,
Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove
A thousand ways the force of genuine love.
He may be called to give up health and gain,
T'exchange content for trouble, ease for pain,
To echo sigh for sigh, and groan for groan,
And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his own.
The heart of man, for such a task too frail,
When most relied on, is most sure to fail;

•Written at the request of Lady Austen.

EPITAPH ON JOHNSON.

HERE Johnson lies-a sage by all allowed,
Whom to have bred, may well make England proud;
Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught,
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
Whose verse may claim-grave, masculine, and
strong,

Superior praise to the mere poet's song;
Who many a noble gift from Heaven possesseil,
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest.
O man, immortal by a double prize,
By fame on earth-by glory in the skies!

TO MISS C, ON HER BIRTH-DAY

How many between east and west,
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!
Not so when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more.