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By man's erroneous standard. He discerns
No such inordinate difference and vast
Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom
Such disproportion'd fates. Compared with him,
No man on earth is holy called! they best
Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet
Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield
To him of his own works the praise, his due.

FROM THE TRAGEDY OF JOHN WOODVIL.

FOREST SPORTS.

Margaret. In the name of the boy God, who plays at hood-man-blind with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches: what is it you love?

Simon. Simply, all things that live, From the crook'd worm to man's imperial form, And God-resembling likeness. The poor fly, That makes short holyday in the sunbeam, And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird With little wings, yet greatly venturous

In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element,
That knows no touch of eloquence. What else?
Yon tall and elegant stag,

Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns
In the water, where he drinks.

Margaret. I myself love all these things, yet so as with a difference:-for example, some animals better than others, some men rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the swift and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule. Your humour goes to confound all qualities. What sports do you use in the forest?

Simon. Not many; some few, as thus:-
To see the sun to bed, and to arise,

Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes,
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,
With all his fires and travelling glories round him.
Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,
Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast,
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep
Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep.
Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,
Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,
To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,

Go eddying round; and small birds, how they fare,
When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,
Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn;
And how the woods berries, and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has nought beside
To answer their small wants.

To view the graceful deer come tripping by,
Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why,
Like bashful younkers in society.

To mark the structure of a plant or tree,
And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.

THE MOURNER VISITED.

John. How beautiful, (handling his mourning.) And comely do these mourning garments shew!

Sure grief hath set his sacred impress here,
To claim the world's respect! they note so feelingly
By outward types the serious man within.—
Alas! what part or portion can I claim
In all the decencies of virtuous sorrow,
Which other mourners use? as namely,
This black attire, abstraction from society,
Good thoughts, and frequent sighs, and seldom
smiles,

A cleaving sadness native to the brow,

All sweet condolements of like-grieved friends, (That steal away the sense of loss almost)

Men's pity, and good offices

Which enemies themselves do for us then,
Putting their hostile disposition off,

As we put off our high thoughts and proud looks. (Pauses, and observes the pictures.)

These pictures must be taken down:
The portraitures of our most antient family
For nigh three hundred years! how have I listen'd,
To hear Sir Walter, with an old man's pride,
Holding me in his arms, a prating boy,
And pointing to the pictures where they hung,
Repeat by course their worthy histories,

(As Hugh de Widville, Walter, first of the name, And Anne the handsome, Stephen, and famous

John:

Telling me, I must be his famous John.) But that was in old times.

Now, no more

Must I grow proud upon our house's pride.
I rather, I, by most unheard of crimes,
Have backward tainted all their noble blood,
Rased out the memory of an ancient family,
And quite revers'd the honors of our house.
Who now shall sit and tell us anecdotes?
The secret history of his own times,
And fashions of the world when he was young:
How England slept out three and twenty years,
While Carr and Villiers rul'd the baby king:
The costly fancies of the pedant's reign,
Balls, feastings, huntings, shows in allegory,
And beauties of the court of James the First.
Margaret enters.

John. Comes Margaret here to witness my disgrace?

O, lady, I have suffer'd loss,

And diminution of my honor's brightness.
You bring some images of old times, Margaret,
That should be now forgotten.

Margaret. Old times should never be forgotten,
John.

I came to talk about them with my friend.
John. I did refuse you, Margaret, in my pride.
Margaret. If John rejected Margaret in his pride,
(As who does not, being splenetic, refuse
Sometimes old play-fellows,) the spleen being gone,
The offence no longer lives.

O Woodvil, those were happy days,

When we two first began to love. When first,
Under pretence of visiting my father,
(Being then a stripling nigh upon my age)

You came a wooing to his daughter, John.
Do you remember,

With what a coy reserve and seldom speech,
(Young maidens must be chary of their speech)
I kept the honors of my maiden pride?
I was your favourite then.

John. O Margaret, Margaret!
These your submissions to my low estate,
And cleaving to the fates of sunken Woodvil,
Write bitter things 'gainst my unworthiness.

Thou perfect pattern of thy slander'd sex,
Whom miseries of mine could never alienate,
Nor change of fortune shake; whom injuries,
And slights (the worst of injuries) which moved
Thy nature to return scorn with like scorn,
Then when you left in virtuous pride this house,
Could not so separate, but now in this

My day of shame, when all the world forsake,
You only visit me, love, and forgive me.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

THE PILLOW.

The head that oft this Pillow press'd,
That aching head is gone to rest;
Its little pleasures now no more,
And all its mighty sorrows o'er,
For ever, in the worms' dark bed.
For ever sleeps that humble head.

My Friend was young, the world was new; The world was false, my Friend was true; Lowly his lot, his birth obscure,

His fortune hard, my Friend was poor;

To wisdom he had no pretence,

A child of suffering, not of sense;

For nature never did impart
A weaker or a warmer heart.

His fervent soul, a soul of flame,
Consum'd its frail terrestrial frame;
That fire from Heaven so fiercely burn'd,
That whence it came it soon return'd:
And yet, O Pillow! yet to me,
My gentle Friend survives in thee;
In thee, the partner of his bed,
In thee, the widow of the dead!

On Helicon's inspiring brink,
Ere yet my Friend had learn'd to think,
Once as he pass'd the careless day
Among the whispering reeds at play,
The Muse of Sorrow wandered by;
Her pensive beauty fix'd his eye;
With sweet astonishment he smiled;
The gipsy saw-she stole the child;
And soft on her ambrosial breast
Sang the delighted babe to rest;
Convey'd him to her inmost grove,
And loved him with a mother's love.
Awaking from his rosy nap,
And gayly sporting on her lap,
His wanton fingers o'er her lyre
Twinkled like electric fire:
Quick and quicker as they flew,
Sweet and sweeter tones they drew;
Now a bolder hand he flings,

And dives among the deepest strings;
Then forth the music brake like thunder;
Back he started, wild with wonder!
The Muse of Sorrow wept for joy,
And clasp'd and kiss'd her chosen boy.
Ah! then no more his smiling hours
Were spent in childhood's Eden bowers;
The fall from infant innocence,
The fall to knowledge drives us thence:
O knowledge! worthless at the price,
Bought with the loss of Paradise!

As happy ignorance declined,
And reason rose upon his mind,
Romantic hopes and fond desires
(Sparks of the soul's immortal fires!)
Kindled within his breast the rage
To breathe through every future age,
To clasp the flitting shade of fame,
To build an everlasting name,
O'erleap the narrow vulgar span,
And live beyond the life of man!

Then Nature's charms his heart possess'd,

And Nature's glory fill'd his breast:

The sweet Spring morning's infant rays,
Meridian Summer's youthful blaze,
Maturer Autumn's evening mild,
And hoary Winter's midnight wild,
Awoke his eye, inspired his tongue;
For every scene he loved, he sung.
Rude were his songs, and simple truth,
Till boyhood blossom'd into youth;
Then nobler themes his fancy fired,
To bolder flights his soul aspired;
And as the new moon's opening eye
Broadens and brightens through the sky,
From the dim streak of western light
To the full orb that rules the night;
Thus, gathering lustre in its race,
And shining through unbounded space,
From earth to heaven his genius soar'd,
Time and eternity explor'd,

And hail'd, where'er its footsteps trod,
In Nature's temple, Nature's God:
Or pierced the human breast to scan
The hidden majesty of man;
Man's hidden weakness too descried,
His glory, grandeur, meanness, pride;
Pursued, along their erring course,
The streams of passion to their source;
Or in the mind's creation sought

New stars of fancy, worlds of thought!
-Yet still through all his strains would flow
A tone of uncomplaining woe,

Kind as the tear in pity's eye,

Soft as the slumbering infant's sigh,

So sweetly, exquisitely wild,

It spake the Muse of Sorrow's child.

O Piliow! then, when light withdrew,
To thee the fond enthusiast flew;
On thee, in pensive mood reclined,
He poured his contemplative mind,
Till o'er his eyes with mild controul
Sleep like a soft enchantment stole,
Charm'd into life his airy schemes,

And realized his waking dreams.
Soon from those waking dreams he woke,
The fairy spell of fancy broke;
In vain he breathed a soul of fire,
Through every chord that strung his lyre.
No friendly echo cheer'd his tongue,
Amidst the wilderness he sung;
Louder and bolder bards were crown'd,
Whose dissonance his music drown'd:
The public ear, the public voice,
Despised his song, denied his choice,
Denied a name,-a life in death,
Denied-a bubble and a breath.
Stript of his fondest, dearest claim,
And disinherited of fame,
To thee, O Pillow! thee alone,
He made his silent anguish known;
His haughty spirit scorn'd the blow
That laid his high ambition low;
But ah! his looks assumed in vain
A cold ineffable disdain,

While deep he cherished in his breast
The scorpion that consumed his rest.
Yet other secret griefs had he,
O Pillow! only told to thee:
Say, did not hopeless love intrude
On his poor bosom's solitude?
Perhaps on thy soft lap reclined,
In dreams the cruel fair was kind,
That more intensely he might know
The bitterness of waking woe.

Whate'er those pangs from me conceal'd,
To thee in midnight groans reveal'd;
They stung remembrance to despair;
"A wounded spirit who can bear!"
Meanwhile disease, with slow decay,
Moulder'd his feeble frame away!
And as his evening sun declined,
The shadows deepen'd o'er his mind.
What doubts and terrors then possess'd
The dark dominion of his breast!
How did delirious fancy dwell
On madness, suicide, and hell!
There was on earth no power to save:
-But, as he shudder'd o'er the grave,
He saw from realms of light descend
The friend of him who has no friend,
Religion!-her almighty breath
Rebuked the winds and waves of death;
She bade the storm of frenzy cease,
And smiled a calm, and whisper'd peace:
Amidst that calm of sweet repose,
To Heaven his gentle spirit rose.

THE COMMON LOT.

Once in the flight of ages past
There lived a man:-and WHO was HE?
-Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.

Unknown the region of his birth,

The land in which he died unknown:

His name has perished from the earth, This truth survives alone:

That joy and grief, and hope and fear
Alternate triumph'd in his breast;
His bliss and woe,-a smile, a tear!
-Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoy'd, but his delights are fled;
Had friends, his friends are now no more;
And foes, his foes are dead.

He loved, but whom he loved, the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O she was fair!-but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encounter'd all that troubles thee;
He was-whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.

The rolling seasons, day and night,
Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life and light,
To him exist in vain.

The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.

The annals of the human race,
Their ruins since the world began,

Of HIM afford no other trace

Than this,-THERE LIVED A MAN!

DEATH OF ADAM AND EVE. "Leave me not, Adam! leave me not below; With thee I tarry, or with thee I go,'She said, and yielding to his faint embrace, Clung round his neck, and wept upon his face. Alarming recollection soon return'd,

His fever'd frame with growing anguish burn'd:
Ah! then, as Nature's tenderest impulse wrought,
With fond solicitude of love she sought

To soothe his limbs upon their grassy bed,
And make the pillow easy to his head;
She wiped his reeking temples with her hair;
She shook the leaves to stir the sleeping air;
Moisten'd his lips with kisses: with her breath
Vainly essay'd to quell the fire of death,
That ran and revelled through his swollen veins
With quicker pulses, and severer pains.

"The sun, in summer majesty on high, Darted his fierce effulgence down the sky; Yet dimm'd and blunted were the dazzling rays,

His orb expanded through a dreary haze,
And, circled with a red portentous zone,
He look'd in sickly horror from his throne;
The vital air was still; the torrid heat
Oppress'd our hearts, that labour'd hard to beat.
When higher noon had shrunk the lessening shade,
Thence to his home our father we convey'd,
And stretch'd him, pillow'd with his latest sheaves,
On a fresh couch of green and fragrant leaves.
Here, though his sufferings through the glen were
known,

We chose to watch his dying bed alone,

Eve, Seth, and I.-In vain he sigh'd for rest,
And oft his meek complainings thus express'd:
-Blow on me, wind! I faint with heat! O bring
Delicious water from the deepest spring;
Your sunless shadows o'er my limbs diffuse,
Ye cedars! wash me cold with midnight dews.
-Cheer me, my friends! with looks of kindness
Whisper a word of comfort in mine ear; [cheer;
Those sorrowing faces fill my soul with gloom;
This silence is the silence of the tomb.
Thither I hasten; help me on my way;
O sing to sooth me, and to strengthen pray!'
We sang to sooth him,-hopeless was the song;
We pray'd to strengthen him, he grew not strong.
In vain from every herb, and fruit, and flower,
Of cordial sweetness, or of healing power,
We press'd the virtue; no terrestrial balm
Nature's dissolving agony could calm.
Thus as the day declined, the fell disease
Eclipsed the light of life by slow degrees:
Yet while his pangs grew sharper, more resign'd,
More self-collected, grew the sufferer's mind;
Patient of heart, though rack'd at every pore,
The righteous penalty of sin he bore;
Not his the fortitude that mocks at pains,
But that which feels them most, and yet sustains.
-Tis just, 'tis merciful,' we heard him say;
Yet wherefore hath he turn'd his face away?

I see him not; I hear him not; I call;
My God! my God! support me, or I fall.'

"The sun went down, amidst an angry glare Of flushing clouds, that crimson'd all the air; The winds brake loose; the forest boughs were torn, And dark aloof the eddying foliage borne; Cattle to shelter scudded in affright; The florid evening vanish'd into night: Then burst the hurricane upon the vale,

In peals of thunder, and thick-vollied hail;
Prone rushing rains with torrents whelm'd the land,
Our cot amidst a river seem'd to stand;
Around its base, the foamy-crested streams
Flash'd through the darkness to the lightning's
gleams;
[ground,

With monstrous throes an earthquake heaved the
The rocks were rent, the mountains trembled round;
Never since nature into being came,
Had such mysterious motion shook her frame;
We thought, ingulpht in floods, or wrapt in fire,
The world itself would perish with our sire.

"Amidst this war of elements, within
More dreadful grew the sacrifice of sin,
Whose victim on his bed of torture lay,
Breathing the slow remains of life away.
Erewhile, victorious faith sublimer rose
Beneath the pressure of collected woes:
But now his spirit waver'd, went and came,
Like the loose vapour of departing flame,
Till at the point, when comfort seem'd to die
For ever in his fix'd unclosing eye,

Bright through the smouldering ashes of the man,
The saint brake forth, and Adam thus began:

-""O ye that shudder at this awful strife,
This wrestling agony of death and life,
Think not that He, on whom my soul is cast,
Will leave me thus forsaken to the last;
Nature's infirmity alone you see;

My chains are breaking, I shall soon be free;
Though firm in God the spirit holds her trust,
The flesh is frail, and trembles into dust.
Horror and anguish seize me;-'tis the hour
Of darkness, and I mourn beneath its power;
The Tempter plies me with his direst art,
I feel the Serpent coiling round my heart;
He stirs the wound he once inflicted there,
Instils the deadening poison of despair,
Belies the truth of God's delaying grace,
And bids me curse my Maker to his face.
-I will not curse Him, though his grace delay;
I will not cease to trust Him, though he slay;
Full on his promised mercy I rely,

For God hath spoken,-God, who cannot lie.
-Thou, of my faith the Author and the End!
Mine early, late, and everlasting friend!
The joy, that once thy presence gave, restore
Ere I am summon'd hence, and seen no more:
Down to the dust returns this earthly frame,
Receive my spirit, Lord! from whom it came;
Rebuke the Tempter, shew thy power to save,
O let thy glory light me to the grave,
That these, who witness my departing breath,
May learn to triumph in the grasp of death.'

"He closed his eyelids with a tranquil smile,
And seem'd to rest in silent prayer awhile:
Around his couch with filial awe we kneel'd,
When suddenly a light from heaven reveal'd
A spirit, that stood within the unopen'd door;—
The sword of God in his right hand he bore;
His countenance was lightning, and his vest
Like snow at sun-rise on the mountain's crest;
Yet so benignly beautiful his form,
His presence still'd the fury of the storm;
At once the winds retire, the waters cease;
His look was love, his salutation, 'Peace!'

"Our mother first beheld him, sore amazed, But terror grew to transport, while she gazed:

'Tis he, the Prince of Seraphim, who drove Our banish'd feet from Eden's happy grove; Adam, my life, my spouse, awake!' she cried; Return to Paradise; behold thy guide!

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