How doth thy bowl intoxicate the mind! Virtuous Activity. Seize, mortals ! seize the transient hour The source of Happiness. Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Placid Emotion, Who can forbear to smile with nature? Can While every gale is peace, and every grove Solitude. sacred solitude; divine retreat! Choice of the prudent! envy of the great! Presume not on To morrow. In human hearts what bolder thoughts can rise, For numbers this is certain; the reverse Is sure to pose. *By Solitude, is meant a temporary seclusion from the world. DUM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS. While we live, let us live. "Live while you live," the epicure would say, "And seize the pleasures of the present day." "Live while you live," the sacred preacher cries; "And give to God each moment as it flies." Lord! in my views, let both united be; I live in pleasure, when I live to thee! Doddridge. SECTION IV. VERSES IN VARIOUS FORMS. The Security of Virtue. LET Coward guilt, with pallid fear, Resignation. And O! by error's force subdu'd, Unask'd, what good thou knowest grants. Compassion. I have found where the wood pigeons breed She will say, 'tis a barbarous deed. For he ne'er can be true she averr'd, Who can rob the poor bird of its young And I lov'd her the more, when I heard Such tandarness fall from her tongue. Epitaph.. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, He gain'd from heaven,('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No further seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their drear abode, There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. Joy and Sorrow connected. Still, where rosy pleasure leads, The hues of bliss more brightly glow, The Golden Mean.. He that holds fast the golden mean, The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, The tallest pines feel most the power Comes heaviest to the ground; The bolts that spare the mountain's side, And spread the ruin round. Moderate Views and Aims recommended. The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife, Attachment to Life. The tree of deepest root is found Virtue's address to Pleasure.* Vice wastes their vigour, and their mind impairs, Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend ; With sorrow to the verge of life they tend. SECTION V. VERSES IN WHICH SOUND CORRESPONDS TO SIGNIFICATION. Smooth and Rough Verse. Soft is the strain when zephyr gantly blows, Slow Motion imitated. When Ajax strives some ruck's vast weight to throw, *Sensual Pleasure. Swift and easy Motion. Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the maid Felling Trees in a Wood. Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes ; Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown Sound of a Bow-string. The string let fly Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry. The Pheasant. See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs Scylla and Charybdis. Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms, And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms, Boisterous and gentle Sounds. Two craggy rocks projecting to the main, Laborious and Impetuous Motion. With many a weary step, and many a groan, Regular and slow Movement. Motion slow and difficult. A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. |