This man is freed from servile hands, ; SONG VI. BY HILDEBRAND JACOB, ESQ. I ENVY not the mighty great, Far happier the shepherd-swain, No curs'd ambition breaks his rest, SONG VII. BY THE REV, SAMUEL WESLEY. WHAT man in his wits, had not rather be poor, Ever busy the means of his life to secure, Environ'd from morning to night in a crowd, Constrain❜d to be abject, though never so proud, Still repining and longing for quiet each hour, With the means of enjoying his wish in his pow'r, For a year must be past, or a day must be come, He must add to his store this, or that pretty sum; But his gains, more bewitching the more they increase, Such a wretch let mine enemy live, if he please; SONG VIII. BY THE REV. THOMAS FITZGERALD. No glory I covet, no riches I want, Ambition is nothing to me; The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant, With passions unruffled, untainted with pride, The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied, The blessings which Providence freely has lent, Whilst sweet meditation, and cheerful content, In the pleasures the great man's possessions display, For every fair object my eyes can survey, How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife, Since all that is truly delightful in life, SONG IX. SOME hoist up Fortune to the skies, I nor her frowns nor favours prize, Nor think the changeling worth my trouble. If at my door she chance to light, I civilly my guest receive : The visit paid, I bid good night; Nor murmur when she takes her leave. Though prosperous gales my canvas crowd, Then, Virtue, to the helm repair, Thou, Innocence, shalt guide the oar; SONG X. BY JAMES SHIRLEY.* THE glories of our birth and state There is no armour against fate ; Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill; They stoop to fate, And must give up their murm'ring breath, * These fine moral stanzas were originally intended for a solemn funeral song in The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses.' It is said to have been a favourite song with King Charles II. Percy, i. 270. The laurel withers on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds, See where the victor-victim bleeds; To the cold tomb : Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.* SONG XI. BY DR. DALTON.† NOR on beds of fading flowers, On awful Virtue's hill sublime, So from the first did Jove ordain, * [Coincident with a passage in Psalm cxii. See new version. 'The sweet remembrance of the just Shall flourish, when he sleeps in dust.'] In the Masque of Comus.'-It seems to be imitated from a passage in the 17th book of Tasso's Jerusalem.' |