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He chides the tardiness of every post,
Pants to be told of battles won or lost,
Blames his own indolence, observes, though late,
"T is criminal to leave a sinking state,
Flies to the levee, and, received with grace,
Kneels, kisses hands, and shines again in place.

SUBURBAN RESIDENCES SATIRIZED.

Suburban villas, highway-side retreats,
That dread th' encroachment of our growing streets,
Tight boxes neatly sashed, and in a blaze
With all a July sun's collected rays,
Delight the citizen, who, gasping there,

Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air.
O sweet retirement, who would balk the thought,
That could afford retirement, or could not?
'Tis such an easy walk, so smooth and straight,
The second milestone fronts the garden gate;
A step if fair, and if a shower approach,
You find safe shelter in the next stage-coach.
There, prisoned in a parlor snug and small,
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall,

The man of business and his friends, compressed,
Forget their labors, and yet find no rest;
But still 't is rural- trees are to be seen
From every window, and the fields are green;
Ducks paddle in the pond before the door,
And what could a remoter scene show more?

THE EDUCATED ALONE REQUIRE, OR CAN COMMAND, ELEGANT
AND APPROPRIATE RETREATS.

A sense of elegance we rarely find

The portion of a mean or vulgar mind;
And ignorance of better things makes man,
Who cannot much, rejoice in what he can ;
And he that deems his leisure well bestowed,
In contemplation of a turnpike road,
Is occupied as well, employs his hours
As wisely, and as much improves his powers,
As he that slumbers in pavilions graced
With all the charms of an accomplished taste.
Yet hence, alas! insolvencies; and hence
Th' unpitied victim of ill-judged expense,
From all his wearisome engagements freed,
Shakes hands with business, and retires indeed.

FASHIONABLE MIGRATION TO THE SEA-SHORE.

Your prudent grandmammas, ye modern belles, Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge-wells, When health required it would consent to roam, Else more attached to pleasures found at home. But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife, Ingenious to diversify dull life,

In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys,
Fly to the coast for daily, nightly joys,
And all, impatient of dry land, agree
With one consent to rush into the sea.-

THE OCEAN.ITS SMILES AND ITS TERRORS.

Ocean exhibits, fathomless and broad,
Much of the power and majesty of God.

He swathes about the swelling of the deep,
That shines and rests as infants smile and sleep;
Vast as it is, it answers as it flows

The breathings of the lightest air that blows;
Curling and whitening over all the waste,
The rising waves obey th' increasing blast,
Abrupt and horrid, as the tempest roars,
Thunder and flash upon the stedfast shores,
Till He, that rides the whirlwind, checks the rein,
Then all the world of waters sleeps again.
Nereids or Dryads, as the fashion leads,
Now in the floods, now panting in the meads,
Votaries of Pleasure still, where'er she dwells,
Near barren rocks, in palaces, or cells,
O grant a poet leave to recommend

(A poet fond of nature, and your friend)
Her slighted works to your admiring view;
Her works must needs excel, who fashioned you.

CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE RECOMMENDED TO THE FRIVO

LOUS.

Would ye, when rambling in your morning ride, With some unmeaning coxcomb at your side, Condemn the prattler for his idle pains,

To waste unheard the music of his strains,
And, deaf to all th' impertinence of tongue,
That, while it courts, affronts and does you wrong,
Mark well the finished plan without a fault,
The seas globose and huge, th' o'er-arching vault,
Earth's millions daily fed, a world employed

In gathering plenty yet to be enjoyed,
Till gratitude grew vocal in the praise
Of God, beneficent in all his ways;

Graced with such wisdom, how would beauty shine!
Ye want but that to seem indeed divine.

THE SPENDTHRIFT'S DISGUST IN THE COUNTRY HE IS OBLIGED TO SEEK EXCEPT IN BOOKS.

Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid, Force many a shining youth into the shade, Not to redeem his time, but his estate, And play the fool, but at a cheaper rate. There, hid in loathed obscurity, removed From pleasures left, but never more beloved, He just endures, and with a sickly spleen Sighs o'er the beauties of the charming scene. Nature indeed looks prettily in rhyme ; Streams tinkle sweetly in poetic chime : The warblings of the blackbird, clear and strong, Are musical enough in Thomson's song; And Cobham's groves, and Windsor's green retreats, When Pope describes them, have a thousand sweets; He likes the country, but in truth must own, Most likes it, when he studies it in town.

GOOD-NATURED WILD JACK IMPOVERISHED.

Poor Jack -no matter who- for when I blame I pity, and must therefore sink the name, Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, And always, ere he mounted, kissed his horse. Th' estate, his sires had owned in ancient years, Was quickly distanced, matched against a peer's. Jack vanished, was regretted and forgot; 'Tis wild good-nature's never-failing lot. At length, when all had long supposed him dead,

By cold submersion, razor, rope, or lead,

My lord, alighting at his usual place,

The Crown, took notice of an ostler's face.
Jack knew his friend, but hoped in that disguise
He might escape the most observing eyes,
And whistling, as if unconcerned and gay,
Curried his nag, and looked another way.
Convinced at last, upon a nearer view,

"T was he, the same, the very Jack he knew;
O'erwhelmed at once with wonder, grief, and joy,
He pressed him much to quit his base employ ;
His countenance, his purse, his heart, his hand,
Influence and power, were all at his command:
Peers are not always generous as well-bred,
But Granby was, meant truly what he said. [strange,
Jack bowed, and was obliged, confessed 't was
That so retired he should not wish a change,
But knew no medium between guzzling beer
And his old stint-three thousand pounds a year.

MOTIVES FOR RETIREMENT.

Thus some retire to nourish hopeless woe;
Some seeking happiness not found below;
Some to comply with humor, and a mind
To social scenes by nature disinclined;
Some swayed by fashion, some by deep disgust;
Some self-impoverished, and because they must;
But few, that court retirement, are aware
Of half the toils they must encounter there.
Lucrative offices are seldom lost

For want of powers proportioned to the post:
Give even a dunce the employment he desires,
And he soon finds the talents it requires;
A business with an income at its heels
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
But in his arduous enterprise to close
His active years with indolent repose,
He finds the labors of that state exceed
His utmost faculties, severe indeed!

LEISURE DIFFICULT TO MANAGE. THOUGHT AND REVERY.

"T is easy to resign a toilsome place,
But not to manage leisure with a grace;
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
The veteran steed, excused his task at length,
In kind compassion of his failing strength,
And turned into the park or mead to graze,
Exempt from future service all his days,
There feels a pleasure perfect in its kind,
Ranges at liberty, and snuffs the wind:
But when his lord would quit the busy road,
To taste a joy like that he had bestowed,
He proves, less happy than his favored brute,
A life of ease a difficult pursuit.

Thought, to the man that never thinks, may seem
As natural as when asleep to dream;
But reveries (for human minds will act)
Specious in show, impossible in fact,

Those flimsy webs, that break as soon as wrought,
Attain not to the dignity of thought:
Nor yet the swarms, that occupy the brain,
Where dreams of dress, intrigue, and pleasure, reign;

Nor such as useless conversation breeds, Or lust engenders, and indulgence feeds.

THOUGHTS OF THE FUTURE.

Whence, and what are we? to what end ordained?
What means the drama by the world sustained?
Business or vain amusement, care or mirth,
Divide the frail inhabitants of earth.

Is duty a mere sport, or an employ?
Life an intrusted talent, or a toy?

Is there, as reason, conscience, Scripture, say,
Cause to provide for a great future day,
When, earth's assigned duration at an end,
Man shall be summoned, and the dead attend?
The trumpet will it sound; the curtain rise,
And show the august tribunal of the skies;
Where no prevarication shall avail,
Where eloquence and artifice shall fail,
The pride of arrogant distinctions fall,
And conscience and our conduct judge us all?

THE LABORS OF THE LEARNED WEIGHED.

Pardon me, ye that give the midnight oil
To learned cares, or philosophic toil,
Though I revere your honorable names,
Your useful labors and important aims,
And hold the world indebted to your aid,
Enriched with the discoveries ye have made;
Yet let me stand excused, if I esteem
A mind employed on so sublime a theme,
Pushing her bold inquiry to the date
And outline of the present transient state,
And, after poising her adventurous wings,
Settling at last upon eternal things,
Far more intelligent, and better taught
The strenuous use of profitable thought,
Than ye, when happiest, and enlightened most,
And highest in renown, can justly boast.

WHAT LITERATURE LEISURE NEEDS.

A mind unnerved, or indisposed to bear The weight of subjects worthiest of her care, Whatever hopes a change of scene inspires, Must change her nature, or in vain retires. An idler is a watch, that wants both hands; As useless if it goes, as when it stands. Books therefore, not the scandal of the shelves, In which lewd sensualists print out themselves; Nor those in which the stage gives vice a blow, With what success let modern manners show; Nor his, who, for the bane of thousands born, Built God a church, and laughed his Word to scorn, Skilful alike to seem devout and just, And stab religion with a sly side-thrust; Nor those of learned philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space, Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark; But such as learning without false pretence, The friend of truth, the associate of sound sense, And such as, in the zeal of good design, Strong judgment laboring in the Scripture mine,

All such as manly and great souls produce,
Worthy to live, and of eternal use :
Behold in these what leisure hours demand,
Amusement and true knowledge hand in hand.

LUXURY AND LITERATURE. CHOICE OF BOOKS.

Luxury gives the mind a childish cast, And while she polishes, perverts the taste; Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry, Tickle and entertain us, or we die. The loud demand, from year to year the same, Beggars invention, and makes fancy lame; Till farce itself, most mournfully jejune, Calls for the kind assistance of a tune; And novels (witness every month's review) Belie their name, and offer nothing new. The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. FRIENDSHIP IN RETIREMENT; SOLITUDE A GRAVE WITHOUT IT.

Friends (for I cannot stint, as some have done, Too rigid in my view, that name to one; Though one, I grant it, in the generous breast Will stand advanced a step above the rest : Flowers by that name promiscuously we call, But one, the rose, the regent of them all) — Friends, not adopted with a school-boy's haste, But chosen with a nice-discerning taste, Well-born, well-disciplined, who, placed apart From vulgar minds, have honor much at heart, And, though the world may think the ingredients The love of virtue, and the fear of God! Such friends prevent what else would soon succeed, A temper rustic as the life we lead,

And keep the polish of the manners clean,

As theirs who bustle in the busiest scene.

For solitude, however some may rave, Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave, A sepulchre, in which the living lie, Where all good qualities grow sick and die.

[odd,

I praise the Frenchman,' his remark was shrewd
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.
Yet neither these delights, nor aught beside,
That appetite can ask, or wealth provide,
Can save us always from a tedious day,
Or shine the dulness of still life away;
Divine communion, carefully enjoyed,
Or sought with energy, must fill the void.

DIVINE COMMUNION A BALM. DAVID'S FAITH AND STAY.
O sacred art, to which alone life owes
Its happiest seasons, and a peaceful close,
Scorned in a world, indebted to that scorn
For evils daily felt and hardly borne,

1 Bruyère.

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These, and a thousand plagues, that haunt the
Fond of the phantom of an earthly rest,
Divine communion chases, as the day

Drives to their dens the obedient beasts of prey.

See Judah's promised king, bereft of all,
Driven out an exile from the face of Saul,
To distant caves the lonely wanderer flies,
To seek that peace a tyrant's frown denies.
Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice;
Hear him, o'erwhelmed with sorrow, yet rejoice ;
No womanish or wailing grief has part,
No, not a moment, in his royal heart;
'Tis manly music, such as martyrs make,
Suffering with gladness for a Saviour's sake;
His soul exults, hope animates his lays,
The sense of mercy kindles into praise,
And wilds, familiar with a lion's roar,
Ring with ecstatic sounds unheard before :
"T is love like his that can alone defeat
The foes of man, or make a desert sweet.

RELIGION THE CONSTANT HANDMAID OF JOY AND THE HARMLESS PLEASURES OF RURAL LIFE.

Religion does not censure or exclude Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued ;

To sturdy culture, and with artful toil

To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil;

To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands

The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands;

To cherish virtue in an humble state,

And share the joys your bounty may create ;
To mark the matchless workings of the power
That shuts within its seed the future flower,
Bids these in elegance of form excel,

In color these, and those delight the smell,
Sends nature forth the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes;
To teach the canvas innocent deceit,
Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet —
These, these are arts pursued without a crime,
That leave no stain upon the wing of time.

THE POET'S AIM.

Me poetry (or rather notes that aim Feebly and vainly at poetic fame) Employs, shut out from more important views, Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse; Content if thus sequestered I may raise A monitor's, though not a poet's praise, And while I teach an art too little known, To close life wisely, may not waste my own.

Pastorals for November.

BURNS'S" COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT."

My loved, my honored, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays :
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise :
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequestered scene,
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways
Which A in a cottage would have been ;
Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I

ween.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;

The short'ning winter day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,

This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

The expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through,
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee,
His wee bit ingle blinkin bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil.

Belyve the elder bairns come drappin in,

At service out amang the farmers roun'; Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown, Or deposit her sair-won penny fee,

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

Wi' joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forward points the view;

The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; The father mixes a' wi admonition due.

Their master's an' their mistress's command
The yonkers a' are warned to obey,
An' mind their labors wi' an eydent hand,
An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play;
An' O! be sure to fear the Lord alway!

An' mind your duty, duly, morn and night,
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray;
Implore His counsel and assisting might,
They never sought in vain who sought the Lord
aright.

But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door-
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor

To do some errands and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek,
With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worth-
less rake.

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben :
A strappan youth; he takes the mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit 's no ill ta'en:

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye: The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy : But blate an' laithfu', scarce can weel behave : The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave, Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found!
O heartfelt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've pacéd much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare :
If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the even-

ing gale.

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart-
A wretch a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child, Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns the simple board: The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food: The soup their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck fell, And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it guid.

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

How thus a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,

The big Ha' Bible, ance his father's pride;
His bonnet reverently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearin thin an' bare. Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And, let us worship God! he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise,

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name, Or noble Elgin beets the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays; Compared with these Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise : Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire, Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Then kneeling down, to heaven's eternal King,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays; Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing,'

That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays;

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear,

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Then homeward all take off their several way,
The youngling cottagers retire to rest,
The parent pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven their warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,

And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide, But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. GLOSSARY.

Sugh, sigh; pleugh, plough; craws, crows; moil, labor; wee, little; toddlin, tottering; stacher, stagger; flichterin, fluttering; ingle, fire; blinkin, glimmering; carking, corroding; belyve, by and by; bairns, children; drapping, dropping; roun, round; ca, drive; tentie, careful; rin, run; cannie, dextrous; e'e, eye; braw, handsome; spiers, inquires; uncos, strange things; gars, makes; eydent, diligent; jauk, joke; gang, go; wha kens, who knows; hafflins, half, partly; ben, into the room; strappan. strapping; ta'en, taken; cracks, talks; kye, cows; blate, bashful; laithfu', sheepish; lave, rest; parritch, porridge; hawkie, cow; cood, cud; 'yont the hallant, beyond the partition wall; hained, saved; kebbuck, cheese; fell, evenly cut; towmond, twelvemonth; lint in the bell, flax in blossom; ha', hall; lyart, gray; haffets, temples; wales, selects; beets, adds fuel to; Dundee and Elgin, well-known psalm tunes. See also glossaries, pp. 186, 336.

FLETCHER'S "SHEPHERD'S EVE.”
SHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops, how they kiss
Every little flower that is
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of crystal beads;
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from underground;
At whose rising mists unsound,
Damps and vapors fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of those pastures where they come,
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore from such danger lock
Every one his loved flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away ;
Or the crafty, thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourself from these,
Be not too secure in ease;
Let one eye his watches keep,
While the other eye doth sleep;
So you shall good shepherds prove,
And forever hold the love

Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers,
And soft silence, fall in numbers
On your eyelids! so farewell!
Thus I end my evening knell !

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