The drunkard is a vessel weakly mann'd, That's wreck'd and cast away upon dry land. If in the family thou art the best, Pray oft, and be the mouth unto the rest; Whom God hath made the heads of families, He hath made priests to offer sacrifice. Daily let part of Holy Writ be read, The day that God calls his make not thine own JOHN MILTON. BORN 1608; DIED 1674. It might justly be deemed needless, or impertinent, to preface the ensuing extracts with any other remark than this--that the motive which governed the choice of them, was to take such pieces only as are worthy of the greatest name in the sacred poetry of England, and, at the same time, of less trite occurrence than some others, in our miscellaneous collections. MILTON. THE HYMN. IT was the winter wild, While the heav'n-born child, All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies: Nature in awe to him Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. Only with speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities. But he, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; |