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In books, or work, or healthful play,

Let my first years be paft,

That I may give for ev'ry day
Some good account at last.

Against Evil Company.

WHY fhould I join with those in play
In whom I've no delight;

Who curfe and fwear, but never pray;
Who call ill names, and fight?

I hate to hear a wanton fong,
Their words offend mine ears;
I fhould not dare defile my tongue
With language fuch as theirs.

Away from fools I'll turn mine eyes,
Nor with the fcoffers go:

I would be walking with the wife,
That wifer I may grow.

From one rude boy that us'd to mock,

They learn the wicked jeft: One fickly fheep infects the flock,

And poifons all the reft.

My God, I hate to walk or dwell
With finful children here:

Then let me not be fent to hell,
Where none but finners are.

Obodience

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LET children that would fear the Lord

Hear what their teachers fay;

With rev'rence meet their parents word,
And with delight obey..

Have you not heard what dreadful plagues ::
Are threaten'd by the Lord,,

To him that breaks his father's law, malla tal-A
Or mocks his mother's word ?.

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KNOW THYSELF

By Dr. ARBUTHNOT.

WHA

HAT am I? how produc'd? and for what end?
Whence drew I being? to what period tend?

Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance,
Dropp'd by wild atoms in diforder'd dance?
Or from an endless chain of caufes wrought,
And of unthinking substance, born with thought?
By motion which began without a cause,
Supremely wife, without defign or laws?
Am I but what I feem, mere flesh and blood?
A branching channel, with a mazy flood?
The purple ftream that through my veffels glides,
Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides;
The pipes through which the circling juices ftray,
Are not that thinking I, no more than they :
This frame, compacted with tranfcendant skill
Of moving joints obedient to my will,

Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,
Waxes and waftes; I call it mine, not me.
New matter fill the mould'ring mafs fuftains;
The mansion chang'd, the tenant ftill remains,

Vol. IV. 15.

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And from the fleeting ftrean, repair'd by food,
Diftinet, as if the fwimmer from the flood.
What am I then? fure of a noble birth;
By parents right, I own as mother, Earth;
But claim fuperior lineage by my fire,

Who warm'd th'unthinking clod with heavenly fires
Effence divine, with lifelefs clay allay'd,
By double nature, double inftinet fway'd :
With look erect, I dart my longing eye,
Seen wing'd to part, and gain my native sky ;
I ftrive to mount, but ftrive, alas! in vain.
Tied to this maffy globe with magic chain. "
Now with fwift thought I range from pole to pole,
View worlds around their flaming centres roll:
What fleady pow'rs their endless motions guide
Through the fame tracklefs paths of boundlefs void!
I trace the blazing comet's fiery tail,

And weigh the whirling planets in' a fcale';
Thefe godlike thoughts while eager I purfue,
Some glitt'ring trifle offer'd to my view,
A gnat, an infect of the meaneft kind,
Erafe the new-born image from my mind:
Some beafly want, craving, importunate,
Vile as the grinning maftiff at my gate,
Calls off from heavenly truth this reas'ning me,
And tells me I'm a brute as much as he,
If, on fublimer wings of love and praise,
My foul above the starry vault I raise,

Lur'd

Lur'd by fome vain conceit, or fhameful luft,

I flag, I drop, and flutter in the duft.

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The tow'ring lark thus, from her lofty strain,

Stoops to an emmet, or a barley grain.
By adverfe guls of jarring inftincts toft,
I rove to one, now to the other coaft;
To blifs unknown my lofty foul afpires,
My lot unequal to my vaft defires.
As 'mongst the hinds a child of royal birth
Finds his high pedigree by confcious worth;
So man, among!l his fellow brutes expos'd,
Sees he's a king, but 'tis a king depos'd.
Pity him, beafts! you by no law confin'd,
And barr'd from devious paths by being blind;,
Whilft man, through op'ning views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge flrays;
Too weak to choofe, yet choofing still in hafte,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste;
Bilk'd by paf minutes, while the prefent cloy,
The flatt'ring future ftill must give the joy:
Not happy, but amus'd upon the road,
And (like you) thoughtlefs of his laft abode,.
Whether next fun his being fhall restrain
To endless nothing, happiness, ar pain.
Around me, lo! the thinking thoughtless crew
(Bewilder'd each) their diff'rent paths purfue;
Of them I afk the way; the firft replies,
Thou art a god; and fends me to the fkies:

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