Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

Deliver him, Deist, if you can.

To live on terms of amity with vice, où rich
And sin without disturbance. Often urged,
(As often as libidinous discourse

Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes
Of theological and grave import,)

They gain at last his unreserved assent;
Till, hardened his heart's temper in the forge

Of lust, and on the anvil of despair,

He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, Or nothing much, his constancy in ill;

Vain tampering has but fostered his disease;

"Tis desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death.
Haste now, philosopher, and set him free..
Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear
Of rectitude and fitness, moral truth

How lovely, and the moral sense how sure,
Consulted and obeyed, to guide his steps

Directly to the FIRST AND ONLY FAIR.

Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powers
Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise:

=

Grace alone can do it.

Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,
And with poetic trappings grace thy prose,

Till it out-mantle all the pride of verse.-
Ah, tinkling cymbal, and high sounding brass,
Smitten in vain! such music cannot charm

The eclipse, that intercepts truth's heavenly beam,
And chills and darkens a wide-wandering soul.
The STILL SMALL VOICE is wanted. He must speak,
Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect;

Who calls for things that are not, and they come.
Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'Tis a change

That turns to ridicule the turgid speech

And stately tone of moralists, who boast,
As if like him of fabulous renown,
They had indeed ability to smooth
The shag of savage nature, and were each
An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song:
But transformation of apostate man
From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,
Is work for him that made him. He alone,

The respective Merits of

And he by means in philosophic eyes
Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves
The wonder; humanizing what is brute
In the lost kind, extracting from the lips
Of
asps their venom, overpowering strength
By weakness, and hostility by love.

Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud reompense. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse, Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass To guard them, and to immortalize her trust: But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, To those, who posted at the shrine of truth, Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood Well spent in such a strife may earn indeed, And for a time ensure, to his loved land The sweets of liberty and equal laws;

Patriots and Martyrs stated.

But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,

And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed
In conformation, of the noblest claim.

Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,

To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To soar, and to anticipate the skies.

Yet few remember them. They lived unknown
Till persecution dragged them into fame,

And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew
-No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:

And history, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this. She execrates indeed
The tyranny, that doomed them to the fire,
But gives the glorious sufferers little praise *.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm,
Can wind around him, but he casts it off

* See Hume.

Happy Freedom of the Man

With as much ease as Samson his green wyths.

[ocr errors]

He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature, and though poor perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.

His are the mountains, and the vallies his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say" My Father made them all!"
Are they not his by a peculiar right,

And by an emphasis of interest his,

? Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind.
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love,
That planned, and built, and still upholds, a world
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man?
Yes-ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good

« ForrigeFortsett »