When sin has shed dishonour on thy brow,

And never of a sabler hue than now ;)

Hast thou with heart perverse and conscience seared,

Despising all rebuke, still persevered,

And, having chosen evil, scorned the voice

That cried, Repent! and gloried in thy choice?

Thy fastings, when calamity at last

Suggests the expedient of a yearly fast,

What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a power

In lighter diet at a later hour,

To charm to sleep the threatenings of the skies,

And hide past folly from all-seeing eyes?

The fast that wins deliverance, and suspends
The stroke that a vindictive God intends,

Is to renounce hypocrisy ; to draw
Thy life upon the pattern of the law;
To war with pleasures, idolized before;
To vanquish lust, and wear its yoke no more.
All fasting else, whate'er be the pretence,
Is wooing mercy by renewed offence.

Hast thou within thee sins, that in old time
Brought fire from heaven, the sex-abusing crime,
Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace
Baboons are free from, upon human race?
Think on the fruitful and well-watered spot
That fed the flocks and herds of wealthy Lot,
Where Paradise seemed still vouchsafed on earth,
Burning and scorched into perpetual dearth,
Or, in his words who damned the base desire,
Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire;
Then nature injured, scandalized, defiled,

Unveiled her blushing cheek, looked on, and smiled;
Beheld with joy the lovely scene defaced,

And praised the wrath that laid her beauties waste.

Far be the thought from any verse of mine,

And farther still the formed and fixed design
To thrust the charge of deeds that I detest,
Against an innocent unconscious breast:
The man that dares traduce, because he can
With safety to himself, is not a man.
An individual is a sacred mark,

Not to be pierced in play or in the dark;
But public censure speaks a public foe,
Unless a zeal for virtue guide the blow.

The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere,
From mean self-interest and ambition clear,
Their hope in heaven, servility their scorn,
Prompt to persuade, expostulate, and warn,
Their wisdom pure and given them from above,
Their usefulness ensured by zeal and love,
As meek as the man Moses, and withal
As bold as, in Agrippa's presence, Paul,

Should fly the world's contaminating touch,
Holy and unpolluted :—are thine such?
Except a few with Eli's spirit blest,

Hophni and Phinehas may describe the rest.
Where shall a teacher look in days like these,
For ears and hearts that he can hope to please?
Look to the poor,—the simple and the plain
Will hear perhaps thy salutary strain :
Humility is gentle, apt to learn,

Speak but the word, will listen and return.
Alas, not so! the poorest of the flock
Are proud, and set their faces as a rock;
Denied that earthly opulence they choose,
God's better gift they scoff at and refuse.
The rich, the produce of a nobler stem,
Are more intelligent at least,-try them.
O vain inquiry! they without remorse
Are altogether gone a devious course,

Where beckoning Pleasure leads them, wildly stray;
Have burst the bands, and cast the yoke away.

Now, borne upon the wings of truth sublime,

Review thy dim original and prime.

This island-spot of unreclaimed rude earth,

The cradle that received thee at thy birth,

Was rocked by many a rough Norwegian blast,
And Danish howlings scared thee as they passed;
For thou wast born amid the din of arms,
And sucked a breast that panted with alarms.
While yet thou wast a grovelling puling chit,
Thy bones not fashioned, and thy joints not knit,
The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow,
Though twice a Cæsar could not bend thee now;
His victory was that of orient light,

When the sun's shafts disperse the gloom of night.
Thy language at this distant moment shows
How much the country to the conqueror owes :
Expressive, energetic, and refined,

It sparkles with the gems he left behind.

He brought thy land a blessing when he came,
He found thee savage, and he left thee tame;

Taught thee to clothe thy pinked and painted hide,
And grace thy figure with a soldier's pride;
He sowed the seeds of order where he went,
Improved thee far beyond his own intent,
And while he ruled thee by the sword alone,
Made thee at last a warrior like his own.
Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired;

But thine, as dark as witcheries of the night,

Was formed to harden hearts and shock the sight;

Thy Druids struck the well-strung harps they bore With fingers deeply dyed in human gore;

D

And, while the victim slowly bled to death,
Upon the tolling chords rung out his dying breatn.
Who brought the lamp that with awakening beams
Dispelled thy gloom, and broke away thy dreams,
Tradition, now decrepid and worn out,

Babbler of ancient fables, leaves a doubt:

But still light reached thee; and those gods of thine
Woden and Thor, each tottering in his shrine,
Fell broken and defaced at his own door,

As Dagon in Philistia long before.

But Rome with sorceries and magic wand

Soon raised a cloud that darkened every land;

And thine was smothered in the stench and fog
Of Tiber's marches and the papal bog.

Then priests with bulls and briefs and shaven crowns,
And griping fists and unrelenting frowns,
Legates and delegates with powers from hell,
Though heavenly in pretension, fleeced thee well;
And to this hour, to keep it fresh in mind,
Some twigs of that old scourge are left behind.1
Thy soldiery, the Pope's well-managed pack,

Were trained beneath his lash, and knew the smack,
And, when he laid them on the scent of blood,
Would hunt a Saracen through fire and flood.
Lavish of life to win an empty tomb,

That proved a mint of wealth, a mine to Rome,
They left their bones beneath unfriendly skies,
His worthless absolution all the prize.

Thou wast the veriest slave in days of yore,
That ever dragged a chain, or tugged an oar;
Thy monarchs arbitrary, fierce, and just,
Themselves the slaves of bigotry or lust,
Disdained thy counsels, only in distress
Found thee a goodly sponge for Power to press.
Thy chiefs, the lords of many a petty fee,
Provoked and harassed, in return plagued thee;
Called thee away from peaceable employ,
Domestic happiness and rural joy,

To waste thy life in arms, or lay it down
In causeless feuds and bickerings of their own.
Thy parliaments adored on bended knees
The sovereignty they were convened to please;
Whate'er was asked, too timid to resist,
Complied with, and were graciously dismissed;
And if some Spartan soul a doubt expressed,
And, blushing at the tameness of the rest,
Dared to suppose the subject had a choice,
He was a traitor by the general voice.

O slave! with powers thou didst not dare exert,
Verse cannot stoop so low as thy desert!
It shakes the sides of splenetic Disdain,

1 Which may be found at Doctors' Commons.-C.

Thou self-entitled ruler of the main,

To trace thee to the date when yon fair sea,
That clips thy shores, had no such charms for thee;
When other nations flew from coast to coast,
And thou hadst neither fleet nor flag to boast.
Kneel now, and lay thy forehead in the dust!
Blush if thou canst ; not petrified, thou must;
Act but an honest and a faithful part;

Compare what then thou wast with what thou art;
And God's disposing providence confessed,
Obduracy itself must yield the rest.—

Then thou art bound to serve him, to prove,
Hour after hour, thy gratitude and love.

Has he not hid thee and thy favoured land,
For ages safe beneath his sheltering hand,
Given thee his blessing on the clearest proof,
Bid nations leagued against thee stand aloof,
And charged hostility and hate to roar
Where else they would, but not upon thy shore?
His power secured thee, when presumptuous Spain
Baptized her fleet invincible in vain ;

Her gloomy monarch, doubtful and resigned
To every pang that racks an anxious mind,
Asked of the waves that broke upon his coast,
What tidings? and the surge replied-All lost!
And when the Stuart leaning on the Scot,
Then too much feared, and now too much forgot,
Pierced to the very centre of thy realm,

And hoped to seize his abdicated helm,

'Twas but to prove how quickly with a frown

He that had raised thee could have plucked thee down. Peculiar is the grace by thee possessed,

Thy foes implacable, thy land at rest ;

Thy thunders travel over earth and seas,

And all at home is pleasure, wealth, and ease. 'Tis thus, extending his tempestuous arm,

Thy Maker fills the nations with alarm,

While his own heaven surveys the troubled scene,
And feels no change, unshaken and serene.

Freedom, in other lands scarce known to shine,
Pours out a flood of splendour upon thine;
Thou hast as bright an interest in her rays
As ever Roman had in Rome's best days.
True freedom is, where no restraint is known
That Scripture, justice, and good sense disown,
Where only vice and injury are tied,
And all from shore to shore is free beside.
Such freedom is,-and Windsor's hoary towers
Stood trembling at the boldness of thy powers,
That won a nymph on that immortal plain,
Like her the fabled Phoebus wooed in vain :
He found the laurel only ;-happier you,

Of nations, sworn to spoil thee and devour,
Were all collected in thy single arm,

And thou couldst laugh away the fear of harm,
That strength would fail opposed against the push
And feeble onset of a pigmy rush.

Say not (and if the thought of such defence Should spring within thy bosom drive it thence,) What nation amongst all my foes is free From crimes as base as any charged on me? Their measure filled, they too shall pay the debt, Which God, though long forborn, will not forget. But know that wrath divine, when most severe, Makes justice still the guide of his career, And will not punish in one mingled crowd, Them without light, and thee without a cloud. Muse, hang this harp upon yon aged beech, Still murmuring with the solemn truths I teach, And while at intervals a cold blast sings

Through the dry leaves, and pants upon the strings, My soul shall sigh in secret, and lament

A nation scourged, yet tardy to repent.

I know the warning song is sung in vain,

That few will hear and fewer heed the strain;
But if a sweeter voice, and one designed

A blessing to my country and mankind,

Reclaim the wandering thousands, and bring home

A flock so scattered and so wont to roam,

Then place it once again between my knees;
The sound of truth will then be sure to please:
And truth alone, where'er my life be cast,

In scenes of plenty or the pining waste,

Shall be my chosen theme, my glory to the last.

HOPE.

- doceas iter, et sacra ostia pandas.-VIRG. Æn. 6.
ASK what is human life-the sage replies,
With disappointment lowering in his eyes,
A painful passage o'er a restless flood,
A vain pursuit of fugitive false good,
A scene of fancied bliss and heartfelt care,
Closing at last in darkness and despair.
The poor, inured to drudgery and distress,
Act without aim, think little, and feel less,
And nowhere, but in feigned Arcadian scenes,
Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means.
Riches are passed away from hand to hand,
As fortune, vice, or folly may command;
As in a dance the pair that take the lead
Turn downward, and the lowest pair succeed,
So shifting and so various is the plan,

By which heaven rules the mixt affairs of man: