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But grant me ftill a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whifper-folitude is fweet.
Yet neither these delights, nor aught befide,
That appetite can afk, or wealth provide,
Can fave us always from a tedious day,
Or fhine the dulnefs of ftill life away;
Divine communion, carefully enjoyed,
Or fought with energy, muft fill the void.
Oh facred art, to which alone life owes
1ts happieft feafons, and a peaceful clofs,
Scorned in a world, indebted to that fcorn
For evils daily felt and hardly borne,
Not knowing thee, we reap with bleeding hands
Flowers of rank odour upon thorny lands,
And, while experience cautions us in vain,
Grafp feeming happiness, and find it pain.
Defpondence, felf-deferted in her grief,
Loft by abandoning her own relief,
Murmuring and ungrateful difcontent,
That fcorns afflictions mercifully meant,

Thofe humours tart as wines upon the fret,

Which idleness and wearinefs beget;

These, and a thousand plagues, that haunt the breaft,

Fond of the phantom of an earthly reft,

Divine communion chases, as the day

Dives to their dens the obedient beafts of prey,

See Judah's promised king, bereft of all,
Driven out an exile from the face of Saul,
To diftant caves the lonely wanderer flies,
To feek that peace a tyrant's frown denies.
Hear the fweet accents of his tuneful voice,
Hear him, overwhelmed with forrow, yet rejoice;
No womanish or wailing grief has part,
No, not a moment, in his royal heart;
'Tis manly mufic, fuch as martyrs make,
Suffering with gladnefs for a Saviour's fake;
His foul exults, hope animates his lays,
The fenfe of mercy kindles into praise,
And wilds, familiar with a lion's roar,
Ring with ecftatic founds unheard before:
'Tis love like his, that can alone defeat
The foes of man, or make a defert fweet.
Religion does not cenfure or exclude
Unnumbered pleafures harmfefsly purfued;
To ftudy culture, and with artful toil
To meliorate and tame the stubborn foil;
To give diffimilar yet fruitful lands

The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands;
To cherish virtue in an humble state,

And fhare the joys your bounty may create;
To mark the matchlefs workings of the power,
That fhuts within its feed the future flower,

Bids these in elegance of form excel,

In colour thefe, and thofe delight the smell,
Sends nature forth the daughter of the fkies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes;
To teach the canvafs innocent deceit,

Or lay the landscape on the fnowy sheet-
Thefe, these are arts pursued without a crime,
That leave no ftain upon the wing of time,
Me poetry (or rather notes that aim
Feebly and vainly at poetic fame)

Employs, fhut out from more important views,
Faft by the banks of the flow winding Oufe;
Content if thus fequeftered I may raise

A monitor's, though not a poet's praise,
And while I teach an art too little known,
To clofe life wifely, may not wafte my own.

THE YEARLY DISTRESS,

OR

TITHING TIME AT STOCK, IN ESSEX.

Verfes addreffed to a Country Clergyman complaining of the difagreeabler efs of the day annually appointed for

receiving the Dues at the Parfonage.

COME, ponder well, for 'tis no jeft,

To laugh it would be wrong, The troubles of a worthy priest The burden of my fong.

This prieft he merry is and blithe
Three quarters of a year,

But oh! it cuts him like a fithe,
When tithing time draws near.

He then is full of fright and fears,
As one at point to die,
And long before the day appears.
He heaves up many a figh.

For then the farmers come jog, jog,

Along the miry road,

Each heart as heavy as a log,

To make their payments good.

In footh, the forrow of such days
Is not to be expreffed,

When he that takes and he that pays

Are both alike diftreffel.

Now all, unwelcome, at his gates

The clumfy fwains alight,

With rueful faces and bald pates-
He trembles at the fight.

And well he may, for well he knows
Each bumpkin of the clan,
Instead of paying what he owes,
Will cheat him if he can.

So in they come-each makes his leg, And flings his head before,

And looks as if he came to beg,

And not to quit a fcore.

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