There sorrow, for his sake, is found
A joy beyond compare;
There no presumptuous thoughts abound,
No pride can enter there.
A Saviour doubles all my joys,
And sweetens all my pains,
His strength in my defence employs,
Consoles me and sustains.
I fear no ill, resent no wrong,
Nor feel a passion move,
When malice whets her slanderous tongue;
Such patience is in love.
SCENES FAVOURABLE TO MEDITATION.
WILDS horrid and dark with o'ershadowing trees, Rocks that ivy and briers infold,
Scenes nature with dread and astonishment sees,
But I with a pleasure untold;
Though awfully silent, and shaggy, and rude,
I am charmed with the peace ye afford,
Your shades are a temple where none will intrude,
The abode of my Lover and Lord.
I am sick of thy splendour, O Fountain of day,
And here I am hid from its beams;
Here safely contemplate a brighter display
Of the noblest and holiest of themes.
Ye forests, that yield me my sweetest repose,
Where stillness and solitude reign,
To you I securely and boldly disclose
The dear anguish of which I complain.
Here, sweetly forgetting and wholly forgot
By the world and its turbulent throng,
The birds and the streams lend me many a note
That aids meditation and song.
Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night,
Love wears me and wastes me away;
And often the sun has spent much of his light
Ere yet I perceive it is day.
While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere,
My sorrows are sadly rehearsed;
To me the dark hours are all equally dear,
And the last is as sweet as the first.
Here I and the beasts of the deserts agree;
Mankind are the wolves that I fear,
They grudge me my natural right to be free,
But nobody questions it here.
Though little is found in this dreary abode
That appetite wishes to find,
My spirit is soothed by the presence of God,
And appetite wholly resigned.
Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude lend,
My life I in praises employ,
And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed,
Proceed they from sorrow or joy.
There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern;
I feel out my way in the dark,
Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn,
Yet hardly distinguish the spark.
I live, yet I seem to myself to be dead;
Such a riddle is not to be found;
I am nourished without knowing how I am fed,
I have nothing, and yet I abound.
O Love! who in darkness art pleased to abide
Though dimly, yet surely I see
That these contrarieties only reside
In the soul that is chosen of thee.
Ah, send me not back to the race of mankind,
Perversely by folly beguiled,
For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find
The spirit and heart of a child?
Here let me, though fixed in a desert, be free;
A little one whom they despise,
Though lost to the world, if in union with Thee.
Shall be holy and happy and wise.
Greece and Rome with equal scorn,
"O the savages!" exclaim,
"Whether they rejoice or mourn,
Well entitled to the name !"
But the cause of this concern
And this pleasure would they trace,
Even they might somewhat learn
From the savages of Thrace.
RECIPROCAL KINDNESS THE PRIMARY LAW OF NATURE.
ANDROCLES from his injured lord in dread
Of instant death, to Libya's desert fled.
Tired with his toilsome flight, and parched with heat,
He spied, at length, a cavern's cool retreat,
But scarce had given to rest his weary frame,
When, hugest of his kind, a lion came :
He roared approaching; but the savage din
To plaintive murmurs changed,-arrived within,
And with expressive looks, his lifted paw
Presenting, aid implored from whom he saw.
The fugitive, through terror at a stand,
Dared not awhile afford his trembling hand,
But bolder grown, at length inherent found
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound.
The cure was wrought; he wiped the sanious blood,
And firm and free from pain the lion stood.
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day,
Regales his inmate with the parted prey;
Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepared,
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shared.
But thus to live-still lost-sequestered still-
Scarce seemed his lord's revenge a heavier ill.
Home! native home! O might he but repair!
He must, he will, though death attends him there.
He goes, and doomed to perish, on the sands
Of the full theatre unpitied stands;
When lo! the self-same lion from his cage
Flies to devour him, famished into rage.
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey,
The man, his healer, pauses on his way,
And softened by remembrance into sweet
And kind composure, crouches at his feet.
Mute with astonishment the assembly gaze:
But why, ye Romans? Whence your mute amaze?
All this is natural: Nature bade him rend
An enemy; she bids him spare a friend.
MORE ANCIENT THAN THE ART OF PRINTING, AND NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY
CATALOGUE.
THERE is a book, which we may call
(Its excellence is such)
Alone a library, though small;
The ladies thumb it much.
Words none, things numerous it contains ;
And, things with words compared,
Who needs be told, that has his brains,
Which merits most regard?
Ofttimes its leaves of scarlet hue
A golden edging boast;
And opened, it displays to view
Twelve pages at the most.
Nor name, nor title, stamped behind,
Adorns its outer part;
But all within 'tis richly lined,
A magazine of art.
The whitest hands that secret hoard
Oft visit; and the fair
Preserve it in their bosoms stored,
As with a miser's care.
Thence implements of every size,
And formed for various use,
(They need but to consult their eyes,)
They readily produce.
The largest and the longest kind
Possess the foremost page,
A sort most needed by the blind,
Or nearly such from age.
The full-charged leaf, which next ensues,
Presents in bright array
The smaller sort, which matrons use,
Not quite so blind as they.
The third, the fourth, the fifth supply
What their occasions ask,
Who with a more discerning eye
Perform a nicer task.
Oh what a fund of genius, pent
In narrow space, is here!
This volume's method and intent
How luminous and clear!
It leaves no reader at a loss
Or posed, whoever reads:
No commentator's tedious gloss,
Nor even index needs.
Search Bodley's many thousands o'er !
No book is treasured there,
Nor yet in Granta's numerous store,
That may with this compare.
No!-rival none in either host
Of this was ever seen,
Or, that contents could justly boast,
So brilliant and so keen.
A NEEDLE small, as small can be,
In bulk and use, surpasses me,
Nor is my purchase dear;
For little, and almost for nought,
As many of my kind are bought
As days are in the year.
Yet though but little use we boast,
And are procured at little cost,
The labour is not light;
Nor few artificers it asks,
All skilful in their several tasks,
To fashion us aright.
One fuses metal o'er the fire,
A second draws it into wire,
The shears another plies,
Who clips in lengths the brazen thread
For him, who, chafing every shred,
Gives all an equal size.
A fifth prepares, exact and round,
The knob, with which it must be crowned;
His follower makes it fast:
And with his mallet and his file
To shape the point, employs awhile
The seventh and the last.
Now therefore! Edipus ! declare
What creature, wonderful and rare,
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