Like him, the foul thus kindled from above,
Spreads wide her arms of universal love,
And still enlarg'd as she receives the grace,.
Includes creation in her close embrace.
Behold a Christian-and without the fires.
The founder of that name alone inspires,
Though all accomplishments, all knowledge meet,
To make the shining prodigy complete,
Whoever boasts that name-behold a cheat...
Were love in these the world's last doting years
As frequent, as the want of it appears,
The churches warm'd, they would no longer hold
Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold;
Relenting forms would lose their pow'r or cease,
And ev'n the dipt and sprinkled, live in peace;
Each heart would quit its prison in the breast,
And flow in free communion with the rest.
The statesman skill'd in projects dark and deep,
Might burn his useless Machiavel, and fleep;
His budget often filled yet always poor,
Might swing at ease behind his study door,
No longer prey upon our annual rents,
Nor scare the nation with its big contents:
Disbanded legions freely might depart,
And slaying man would cease to be an art.
No learned difputants would take the field,
Sure not to conquer, and fure not to yield,
Both fides deceiv'd if rightly understood,
Pelting each other for the public good.
Did Charity prevail, the press would prove
A vehicle of virtue, truth and love,
And I might spare myself the pains to show
What few can learn, and all suppose they know.
Thus have I fought to grace a serious lay
With many a wild indeed, but flow'ry spray,
In hopes to gain what else I must have loft,
Th' attention pleasure has so much engross'd.
But if unhappily deceiv'd I dream,
And prove too weak for so divine a theme,
Let Charity forgive me a mistake
That zeal not vanity has chanc'd to make,
And spare the poet for his subject sake,
Nam neq; me tantum venientis fibilus austri,
Nec percussa juvant fluctû tam litora, nec quæ
Saxofas inter decurrunt flumina valles.
THOUGH nature weigh our talents, and dispense
To ev'ry man his modicum of fenfe,
And Conversation in its better part,
May be esteemed a gift and not an art,
Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil,
On culture, and the fowing of the foil.
Words learn'd by rote, a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country fign.
As alphabets in ivory employ
Hour after hour the yet unletter'd boy,
Sorting and puzzling with a deal of glee
Those seeds of science called his A BC,
So language in the mouths of the adult,
Witness its infignificant result,
Too often proves an implement of play,
A toy to sport with, and pass time away.
Collect at evening what the day brought forth,
Compress the fum into its solid worth,
And if it weigh th' importance of a fly,
The scales are false or Algebra a lie.
Sacred interpreter of human thought,
How few respect or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of ev'ry wrong
Who dare dishonour or defile the tongue,
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice,
Or fell their glory at a market-price,
Who vote for hire, or point it with lampoon, The dear-bought placeman, and the cheap buffoon. There is a prurience in the speech of fome, Wrath stays him, or else God would strike them
His wife forbearance has their end in view,
They fill their measure and receive their due.
The heathen law-givers of antient days,
Names almost worthy of a Christian praise,
Would drive them forth from the refort of men,
And shut up ev'ry satyr in his den.
Oh come not ye near innocence and truth,
Ye worms that eat into the bud of youth!
Infectious as impure, your blighting pow'r
Taints in its rudiments the promised flow'r,
Its odour perish'd and its charming hue,
Thenceforth 'tis hateful for it smells of you.
Not ev'n the vigorous and headlong rage
Of adolefcence or a firmer age,
Affords a plea allowable or just,
For making speech the pamperer of lust;
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