He wept; he trembled; caft his eyes around,
To find a worse than he; but none he found.
He felt his fins, and wonder'd he fhould feel.
Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal.
Now farewell oaths, and blafphemies, and lies!
He quits the finner's for the martyr's prize.
That holy day was wash'd with many a tear,
Gilded with hope, yet fhaded too by fear.
The next, his fwarthy brethren of the mine
Learn'd, by his alter'd fpeech, the change divine! Laugh'd when they fhould have wept, and fwore the day
Was nigh when he would fwear as fast as they.
No," said the penitent, "fuch words shall share
This breath no more; devoted now to prayer.
O! if thou seest (thine eye the future sees)
That I fhall yet again blafpheme, like these;
Now strike me to the ground on which I kneel,
Ere yet this heart relapfes into steel;
Now take me to that Heaven I once defied,
Thy prefence, thy embrace!"—He spoke, and died!
TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON, ON HIS
RETURN FROM RAMSGATE.
HAT ocean you have late furvey'd,
Thofe rocks I too have feen,
But I afflicted and difmay'd,
You tranquil and serene.
You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretch'd before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,
No longer fuch to you.
To me the waves, that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure loft.
Your fea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore ;
I, tempest-toff'd, and wreck'd at last,
Come home to port no more.
HAT is there in the vale of life
Half fo delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love, and peace com
To stamp the marriage bond divine?
The stream of pure and genuine love
Derives its current from above;
And earth a fecond Eden fhows,
Where'er the healing water flows:
But ah, if from the dykes and drains
Of fenfual Nature's feverish veins,
Luft, like a lawless headftrong flood,
Impregnated with ooze and mud,
Descending faft on every fide,
Once mingles with the facred tide,
Farewell the foul-enlivening scene!
The banks that wore a fmiling green,
With rank defilement overspread,
Bewail their flowery beauties dead.
The stream polluted, dark, and dull,
Diffused into a Stygian pool,
Through life's last melancholy years
Is fed with ever-flowing tears:
Complaints fupply the zephyr's part,
And fighs that heave a breaking heart.
A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LADY
EAR ANNA-between friend and friend
Profe answers every common end
Serves in a plain and homely way,
To express the occurrence of the day;
Our health, the weather, and the news! What walks we take, what books we choose; And all the floating thoughts we find
Upon the surface of the mind.
But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb,
Derived from nature's nobleft part,
The centre of a glowing heart:
And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more fublime vagaries flighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme
To catch the triflers of the time,
And tell them truths divine and clear,
Which, couch'd in profe, they will not hear;
Who labour hard to allure and draw
The loiterers I never faw,
Should feel that itching and that tingling, With all my purpose intermingling, intrinfic merit true,
When call'd to address myself to you.
Mysterious are His ways whofe power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds, that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more :
It is the allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connexions :
Directs us in our distant road,
And marks the bounds of our abode.
Thus we were fettled when
Peasants and children all around us,
Not dreaming of fo dear a friend,
Deep in the abyfs of Silver-End.*
An obfcure part of Olney, adjoining to the refidence of Cowper, which faced the market-place.
Thus Martha, e'en against her will,
Perch'd on the top of yonder hill;
And you, though you must needs prefer
The fairer fcenes of fweet Sancerre,*
Are come from diftant Loire to choofe
A cottage on the banks of Oufe.
This page of Providence quite new,
And now just opening to our view,
Employs our present thoughts and pains:
To guess and spell what it contains:
But day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark enigma clear;
And furnish us, perhaps, at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof, that we, and our affairs,
Are part of a Jehovah's cares :
For God unfolds by flow degrees
The purport of his deep decrees;
Sheds every hour a clearer light
In aid of our defective fight;
And spreads, at length, before the foul,
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which bufy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate in vain.
Say, Anna, had you never known
The beauties of a rofe full blown,
Could you, though luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, defcry,
Or guefs, with a prophetic power,
*Lady Auften's refidence in France.
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