And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks ;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think!
How good the GOD of HARVEST is to you:
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder-that your sons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint ye give.
The lovely young LAVINIA once had friends;
And Fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.
For, in her helpless years deprived of all,
Of every stay, save INNOCENCE and HEAVEN,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd.
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride:
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning-rose,
When the dew wets its leaves; unstained and pure
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair-proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the poinp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,

But is when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Appenine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,

And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet LAVINIA; till, at length compell'd
By strong necessity's supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean PALEMON's field. The pride of swains
PALEMON was, the generous, and the rich;
Who led the rural life in all its joy

And elegance, such as Arcadian song
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times;
When tyrant custom had not shackled man,
But free to follow nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanc'd beside his reaper-train
To walk, when poor LAVINIA drew his eye;
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze:
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
That moment love and chaste desire
very
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown;
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field;
And thus in secret to his soul he sigh'd.
"What pity that so delicate a form,
By beauty kindled, where enliv'ning sense
And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell,
Should be devoted to the rude embrace

Of some indecent clown! She looks, methinks,
Of old ACASTO's line, and to my mind
Recalls that patron of my happy life,

From whom my lib'ral fortune took its rise:
Now to the dust gone down; his houses, lands,
And once fair spreading family, dissolv'd.
'Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat,
Urg'd by remembrance sad, and decent pride,
Far from those scenes which knew their better days,
His aged widow and his daughter live,

Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.
Romantic wish! would this the daughter were !"
When, strict enquiring, from herself he found
She was the same, the daughter of his friend,
Of bountiful ACASTO; who can speak

The mingled passions that surpris'd his heart,
And through his nerves in shiv'ring transport ran!
Then blaz'd his smother'd flame, avow'd, and bold;
And as he view'd her, ardent, o'er and o'er,
Love, gratitude, and pity, wept at once.
Confus'd, and frightened at his sudden tears,
Her rising beauties flush'd a higher bloom,
As thus PALEMON, passionate and just,
Pour'd out the pious rapture of his soul.
"And art thou then ACASTO's dear remains?
She, whom my restless gratitude has sought,
So long in vain? O heavens! the very same,
The softened image of my noble friend,
Alive his ev'ry look, his ev'ry feature,
More elegantly touch'd. Sweeter than spring!
Thou sole surviving blossom from the root
That nourish'd up my fortune! Say, ah! where,
In what sequester'd desert, hast thou drawn
The kindest aspect of delighted HEAVEN!
Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair;
Though poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain,
Beat keen, and heavy on thy tender years?
Oh, let me now, into a richer soil,

Transplant thee safe! where vernal suns and showers,
Diffuse their warmest, largest influence:

And of my garden be the pride, and joy!
Ill it befits thee, oh, it ill befits

ACASTO's daughter, his whose open stores,
Though vast, were little to his ampler heart,
The father of a country, thus to pick
The very refuse of those harvest-fields,
Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy.
Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,
But ill apply'd to such a rugged task;
The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine,
If to the various blessings which thy house
Has on me lavish'd, thou wilt add that bliss,
That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee!"
Here ceas'd the youth; yet still his speaking eye
Express'd the sacred triumph of his soul,

With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love,
Above the vulgar joy divinely rais'd.
Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm
Of goodness irresistible, and all

In sweet disorder lost, she blush'd consent.
The news immediate to her mother brought,
While, pierc'd with anxious thought, she pin'd away
The lonely moments for LAVINIA's fate;
Amaz'd, and scarce believing what she heard,
Joy seiz'd her wither'd veins, and one bright gleam
Of setting life shone on her evening hours:
Not less enraptur'd than the happy pair!
Who flourish'd long in tender bliss, and rear'd
A num'rous offspring, lovely like themselves,
And good, the grace of all the country round.

ON THE VANITY OF RICHES.

Riches make themselves wings and flee away.-Prov. xxiii. 5.

WE are too prone to imagine the condition of others preferable to our own: we change, it may be, our situation, but therein find not the happiness we expected, and yet remain unconvinced of our folly. We pursue, vainly pursue, the fleeting phantoms which enfeebled hope raises in the distempered imagination, although disappointment attends every step, and mocks every endeavour. We either find the objects of our wishes recede in proportion to our advances, or, if possessed, that they prove inadequate to our sanguine expectations.

One of the most deceitful bubbles that ever danced before the eye of human vanity, is wealth. It glitters at a distance, and appears replete with every requisite essential to terrestrial felicity. It attracts the attention of numbers from every other object, and kindles, in the breasts of its candidates, an inextinguishable ardour to acquire it. By weak minds it is considered as the highest sublunary good; and therefore to attain it, is to exclude every want, and to possess every satisfaction.

But, alas! wealth often flies the pursuer, and in the end, leaves him tired, languid, and disappointed with the fruitless chace. To some indeed, she grants her favours with peculiar liberality, and admits them to rifle her golden

treasury. But are these in "a spot to real happiness confined ? No surely; they find, by unprofitable experience, that the possession of riches falls far short of their fond expectations.

Riches are not able to confer that felicity they promise, or to avert those evils which they are supposed capable of preventing. They are unable to limit the licentiousness of desire, to fill the grasp of avarice, to guard the avenues through which afflictions enter, or to afford that happiness which is expected from them. The possession of wealth introduces wants not less numerous, not less importunate, than those we complain of in a state of poverty. They are, indeed, different in kind, but not less destructive of that felicity we vainly seek after in this imperfect state. We are very apt to conclude, that those are exempt from unhappiness, on whom prosperity beams her radiance, and whose dwellings are circumfused with affluence. In the erring estimation of short-sighted mortals, "their lines are cast in pleasant places;" but a little reflection will convince us, that they are "encompassed with many sorrows."

View the men who have free access to the temple of riches, and you will not find them happier than others: they have still numerous wants, which increase with their acquisitions; and still more numerous fears, arising from their very possessions, to which those in humbler stations are utter strangers. Some find their desires strengthened by the increase of their wealth, and the more they inherit, the more unbounded is their grasp. Were it possible for such to accumulate all the treasures of the earth, they would still be unsatisfied; and, like Alexander, weep because there was no other world within their reach to plunder. Others, whose desires are more circumscribed, and who appear contented with their present possessions, are not less unhappy. Men cannot essentially possess more than they enjoy; the rest, like a cipher on the left hand of a figure, is of no value: unprofitable as to any useful purpose, it is only a barren splendour, which, like the glare of a comet, although it shines at a distance, yet affords no warmth to invigorate him who gazes on it: he may contemplate it with barren admiration, but cannot render it subservient to any of the most valuable purposes of life.

Such, therefore, as possess more wealth than is sufficient to furnish the reasonable wants of humanity, are generally employed in a laborious search after pleasures yet untasted, in which they hope to find unmixed happiness. There is,