The joys above are understood,
And relish'd only by the good.
Who shall assume this guardian care;
Who shall secure their birth-right there?
Souls are my charge-to me 'tis giv'n
To train them for their native heav'n."
4. "Know then-who bow the early knee,
And give the willing heart to me;
Who wisely, when Temptation waits,
Elude her frauds, and spurn her baits;
Who dare to own my injur'd cause,
Though fools deride my sacred laws;
Or scorn to deviate to the wrong,
Though persecution lifts her thong;
Though all the sons of hell conspire
To raise the stake and light the fire;
Know, that for such superior souls,
There lies a bliss beyond the poles :
Where spirits shine with purer ray,
And brighten to meridian day;
Where love, where boundless friendship rules (No friends that change, no love that cools ;) Where rising floods of knowledge roll, And pour, and pour upon the soul!" 5. "But where's the passage to the skies?The road through death's black valley lies Nay, do not shudder at my tale;
Though dark the shades, yet safe the vale.
This path the best of men have trod;
And who'd decline the road to God?
Oh! 'tis a glorious boon to die!
This favour can't be priz'd too high."
6. While thus she spoke, my looks express'd
The raptures kindling in my breast;
My soul a fix'd attention gave;
When the stern monarch of the grave,
With haughty strides approach'd:-amaz'd
I stood, and trembled as I gaz,d.
The seraph calm'd each anxious fear,
And kindly wip'd the falling tear;
Then hasten'd, with expanded wing,
To meet the pale, terrific king.
7. But now what milder scenes arise!
The tyrant drops his hostile guise;
He seems a youth divinely fair;
In graceful ringlets waves his hair;
His wings their whit'ning plumes display
His burnish'd plumes, reflect the day;
Light flows his shining azure vest,
And all the angel stands confess'd.
I view'd the change with sweet surprise;
And, Oh! I panted for the skies :
Thank'd heav'n, that e'er I drew my breath,
And triumph'd in the thoughts of death.-COTTON.
CHAPTER III.
DIDACTIC PIECES.
SECTION I.
The Vanity of Wealth.
1. NO more thus blooding o'er yon heap,
With av'rice painful vigils keep;
Still unenjoy'd the present store,
Still endless sighs are breath'd for more
Oh'! quit the shadow, catch the prize,
Which not all India's treasure buys!
To purchase heav'n has gold the pow'r?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life, can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No-all that's worth a wish-a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbrib'd, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind ;
Let nobler views engage thy mind.-DR. JOHNSON,
SECTION IL
Nothing formed in vain.
1. LET no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom, as if aught was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little, haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if, upon a full-proportion'd dome,
On swelling columns heav'd the pride of art,
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
2. And lives the man, whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord
As with unfault'ring accent to conclude,
That this availeth naught? Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, less'ning down
From infinite perfection, to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!
From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder to that POWER,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely in our minds,
As on our smiling eyes his servant sun -THOMSON.
SECTION III.
1. Of all the causes, which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride; the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth deny'd,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride!
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
2. If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but', your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
3 Fir'd at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth, we tempt the heights of arts;
While, from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd, behold, with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So, pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps' arise.-POPE.
SECTION IV.
Cruelty to Brutes censured. 1 I WOULD not enter on my list of friends,
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense.
Yet wanting sensibility,) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail,
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
2. The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visitor unwelcome into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so, when held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field.
There they are privileg'd. And he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong;
Disturbs th' economy of nature's realm,
Who, when she form'd, design'd them an abode
3. The sum is this: if man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else the are all-the meanest things that are,
As free to live and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who, in his sovereign wisdom, made them all.
4. Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too. The spring time of our years
Is soon dishonour'd and defil'd, in most,
By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots,
If unrestrain'd, into luxuriant growth,
Than cruelty, most dev'lish of them all.
3. Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,
By which heav'n moves in pard'ning guilty man;
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it, and not find it in his turn.-COWPER.
A Paraphrase on the latter part of the 6th chapter of St.
Matthew.
1. WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt his doctrine did impart,
And thus he rais'd from earth the drooping heart
2. "Think not, when all your scanty stores afford,
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs again.
3. Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body, its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair.
See the light tenants of the barren air:
To them, nor stores nor granaries, belong;
Naught, but the woodland, and the pleasing song;
Yet your kind heav'nly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
4. To him they sing when spring renews the plain;
To him they cry, in winter's pinching reign;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain:
He hears the gay, and the distressful call;
And with unsparing bounty, fills them all."
5. "Observe the rising lily's snowy grace;
Observe the various vegetable race:
They neither toil, nor spin, but careless grow;
Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow !
What regal vestments can with them compare!
What king so shining! or what queen so fair!"
6. "If ceaseless, thus, the fowls of heav'n he feeds;
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads;
Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say?
Is he unwise? or, are ye less than they?"-THOMSON. SECTION VI.
The death of a Good Man a strong incentive to virtue. 1. THE chamber where the good man meets his fate, Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heav'n
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance,
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrestor❜d by this, despair your cure.
2. For, here, resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
Here tir'd dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here real, and apparent, are the same.
You see the man; you see his hold on heav'n,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.
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