Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.
Ye winds that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial endearing report
Of a land I shall visit no more.
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light. When I think of my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand
Soon hurries me back to despair.
But the seafowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,
And I to my cabin repair.
There's mercy in every place,
And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace,
And reconciles man to his lot.
LORD HIGH CHANCELLORSHIP OF ENGLAND.
ROUND Thurlow's head in early youth,
And in his sportive days,
Fair Science poured the light of truth,
And Genius shed his rays.
See! with united wonder cried
Th' experienced and the sage,
Ambition in a boy supplied
With all the skill of age!
Discernment, eloquence, and
Proclaim him born to sway
The balance in the highest place,
And bear the palm away.
The praise bestowed was just and wise;
He sprang impetuous forth
Secure of conquest, where the prize
Attends superior worth.
So the best courser on the plain
Ere yet he starts is known,
And does but at the goal obtain
What all had deemed his own.
COME, Peace of mind, delightful guest!
Return, and make thy downy nest
Once more in this sad heart:
Nor riches I nor power pursue,
Nor hold forbidden joys in view;
We therefore need not part.
Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
From av'rice and ambition free,
And pleasure's fatal wiles?
For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets, that I was wont to share,
The banquet of thy smiles?
The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heaven that thou alone canst make?
And wilt thou quit the stream,
That murmurs through the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequester'd shed,
To be a guest with them?
For thee I panted, thee I prized,
For thee I gladly sacrificed
Whate'er loved before;
And shall I see thee start away,
And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say―
Farewell! we meet no more!
HUMAN FRAILTY.
WEAK and irresolute is man;
The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.
The bow well bent, and smart the spring, Vice seems already slain;
But Passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.
Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part;
Virtue engages his assent,
But Pleasure wins his heart.
'Tis here the folly of the wise
Through all his art we view ;
And, while his tongue the charge denies, His conscience owns it true.
Bound on a voyage of awful length
And dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail,
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.
THE MODERN PATRIOT.
REBELLION is my theme all day;
I only wish 'twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may ?)
A little nearer home.
Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t'other side th' Atlantic,
I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.
When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
But O! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flowers she bears,
Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about
Such civil broils are my delight,
Though some folks can't endure them, Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure them.
A rope! I wish we patriots had
Such strings for all who need 'em-
What! hang a man for going mad!
Then farewell British freedom,
ON OBSERVING SOME
NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE
RECORDED IN THE BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA.
OH, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
Jn vain, recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethæan gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burn'd to tinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire-
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire !
There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk !
OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF
THE BOOKS.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning.
While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning,
In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,
And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find,
That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,
Which amounts to possession time out of mind.
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