Those awful fyllables, hell, death, and fin,
Though whisper'd, plainly tell what works within;
That confcience there performs her proper part,
And writes a doomsday fentence on his heart!
Forfaking, and forfaken of all friends,
He now perceives where earthly pleasure ends;
Hard task! for one who lately knew no care,
And harder still as learnt beneath despair;
His hours no longer pafs unmark'd away,
A dark importance faddens every day;
He hears the notice of the clock, perplex'd,
And cries, Perhaps eternity strikes next!
Sweet mufic is no longer mufic here,
And laughter founds like madness in his ear:
His grief the world of all her power difarms;
Wine has no tafte, and beauty has no charms:
God's holy word, once trivial in his view,
Now by the voice of his experience true,
Seems, as it is, the fountain whence alone
Must spring that hope he pants to make his own.
Now let the bright reverse be known abroad;
Say man's a worm, and power belongs to God.
As when a felon, whom his country's laws
Have justly doom'd for fome atrocious caufe,
Expects in darkness and heart-chilling fears
The shameful close of all his mispent years;
If chance, on heavy pinions flowly borne,
A tempest usher in the dreaded morn,
Upon his dungeon walls the lightnings play,
The thunder feems to fummon him away,
The warder at the door his key applies,
Shoots back the bolt, and all his courage dies:
If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy loft,
When Hope, long lingering, at last yields the ghost,
The found of pardon pierce his startled ear,
He drops at once his fetters and his fear;
A transport glows in all he looks and speaks,
And the first thankful tears bedew his cheeks.
Joy, far fuperior joy, that much outweighs
The comfort of a few poor added days,
Invades, poffeffes, and o'erwhelms the foul
Of him whom Hope has with a touch made whole.
"Tis heaven, all heaven defcending on the wings
Of the glad legions of the King of kings;
'Tis more 'tis God diffufed through every part,
'Tis God himself triumphant in his heart.
O welcome now the fun's once hated light,
His noonday beams were never half so bright.
Not kindred minds alone are call'd to employ
Their hours, their days, in liftening to his joy;
Unconscious nature, all that he surveys,
Rocks, groves, and ftreams must join him in his praise.
These are thy glorious works, eternal Truth,
The fcoff of wither'd age and beardless youth;
These move the cenfure and illiberal grin
Of fools that hate thee and delight in fin :
But these shall laft when night has quench'd the pole,
And heaven is all departed as a scroll:
And when, as Juftice has long fince decreed,
This earth fhall blaze, and a new world fucceed,
Then these thy glorious works, and they who share
That Hope which can alone exclude despair,
Shall live exempt from weakness and decay,
The brightest wonders of an endless day.
Happy the bard (if that fair name belong
To him that blends no fable with his fong)
Whofe lines uniting, by an honeft art,
The faithful monitor's and poet's part,
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind,
And while they captivate, inform the mind:
Still happier, if he till a thankful foil,
And fruit reward his honourable toil:
But happier far, who comfort thofe that wait
To hear plain truth at Judah's hallow'd gate:
Their language fimple, as their manners meek,
No fhining ornaments have they to feek;
Nor labour they, nor time nor talents waste,
In forting flowers to fuit a fickle taste;
But while they speak the wisdom of the skies,
Which art can only darken and disguise,
The abundant harveft, recompenfe divine,
Repays their work-the gleaning only mine.
Quo nihil majus meliufve terris
Fata donavêre, bonique divi;
Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
Tempora prifcum.
AIREST and foremost of the train that
[state
On man's most dignified and happiest
Whether we name thee Charity or Love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Profper (I prefs thee with a powerful plea)
A task I venture on, impell'd by thee:
O never seen but in thy blest effects,
Nor felt but in the foul that Heaven felects;
Who fecks to praise thee, and to make thee known
To other hearts, must have thee in his own.
Come, prompt me with benevolent defires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And, though difgraced and flighted, to redeem
A poet's name, by making thee the theme.
God, working ever on a social plan,
By various ties attaches man to man:
He made at first, though free and unconfined,
One man the common father of the kind;
That every tribe, though placed as he sees beft,
Where feas or deferts part them from the reft,
Differing in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook-lamented, and with tears as just
As ever mingled with heroic dust,
Steer'd Britain's oak into a world unknown,
And in his country's glory fought his own,
Wherever he found man, to nature true,
The rights of man were facred in his view;
He foothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile
The fimple native of the new found isle;
He spurn'd the wretch that flighted or withstood
The tender argument of kindred blood;
Nor would endure, that any fhould control
His freeborn brethren of the fouthern pole.
But though fome nobler minds a law respect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In bafer fouls unnumber'd evils meet,
To thwart its influence, and its end defeat.
While Cook is loved for favage lives he faved,
See Cortez odious for a world enslaved!
Where waft thou then, sweet Charity? where then,
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?
Waft thou in monkish cells and nunneries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No.-Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear, not love; and Heaven abhors the fee.
Wherever found (and all men need thy care),
age nor infancy could find thee there.
The hand that flew till it could slay no more
Was glued to the fword hilt with Indian gore.
Their prince, as justly seated on his throne
As vain imperial Philip on his own,
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