REASONING at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,
While meaner things, whom instinct
leads,
Are rarely known to stray.
One silent eve I wandered late,
And heard the voice of love; The turtle thus addressed her mate, And soothed the listening dove:
"Our mutual bond of faith and truth
No time shall disengage,
Those blessings of our early youth
Shall cheer our latest age;
"While innocence without disguise,
And constancy sincere,
Shall fill the circles of those eyes,
And mine can read them there;
"Those ills, that wait on all below,
Shall ne'er be felt by me,
Or gently felt, and only so,
As being shared with thee.
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"When lightnings flash among the trees,
Or kites are hovering near,
I fear lest thee alone they seize,
And know no other fear.
"Tis then I feel myself a wife,
And press thy wedded side,
Resolved a union formed for life
Death never shall divide.
"But oh! if, fickle and unchaste,
(Forgive a transient thought,)
Thou couldst become unkind at last,
And scorn thy present lot,
"No need of lightnings from on high,
Or kites with cruel beak;
Denied the endearments of thine eye,
This widowed heart would break."
Thus sang the sweet sequestered bird,
Soft as the passing wind,
And I recorded what I heard,
A lesson for mankind.
A RAVEN, while with glossy breast
Her new-laid eggs she fondly pressed,
And, on her wicker-work high mounted,
Her chickens prematurely counted,
(A fault philosophers might blame,
If quite exempted from the same,)
Enjoyed at ease the genial day;
'Twas April, as the bumpkins say,
The legislature called it May.
But suddenly a wind, as high
As ever swept a winter sky,
Shook the young leaves about her ears,
And filled her with a thousand fears,
Lest the rude blast should snap the
bough,
And spread her golden hopes below.
But just at eve the blowing weather
And all her fears were hushed together;
"And now," quoth poor unthinking
"""Tis over, and the brood is safe;"
(For ravens, though, as birds of omen,
They teach both conjurers and old
To tell us what is to befall,
Can't prophesy themselves at all).
The morning came, when neighbour
Hodge,
Who long had marked her airy lodge,
And destined all the treasure there
A gift to his expecting fair,
Climbed like a squirrel to his dray,
And bore the worthless prize away.
'Tis Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours:
Safety consists not in escape
From dangers of a frightful shape;
An earthquake may be bid to spare
The man that's strangled by a hair.
Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
THE lapse of time and rivers is the same,
Both speed their journey with a restless stream ;
The silent pace with which they steal away,
No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay;
Alike irrevocable both when past,
And a wide ocean swallows both at last.
Though each resemble each in every part,
A difference strikes at length the musing heart;
Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound
How laughs the land with various plenty crowned!
But time, that should enrich the nobler mind,
Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE ON THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.
I AM monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.
I am out of humanity's reach,
I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech, I start at the sound of my own. The beasts that roam over the plain,
My form with indifference see; They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me.
Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestowed upon man, Oh, had I the wings of a dove, How soon would I taste you again! My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth, Might learn from the wisdom of age, And be cheered by the sallies of youth.
Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word! More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford. But the sound of the church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a sabbath appeared.
ON OBSERVING SOME NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE
RECORDED IN THE "BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA."
OH, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain, recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethæan gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child (as playful children use)
Has burnt to tinder a stale last-year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire---
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!
ON THE BURning of lord MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY.
REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE.
NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning;
While Chief Baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
"In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,
And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find,
That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,
Which amounts to possession time out of mind."
Then holding the spectacles up to the court
"Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle,
As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,
Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
"Again, would your lordship a moment suppose
('Tis a case that has happened, and may be again,)
That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,
Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?
"On the whole it appears, and my argument shows,
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them."
Then shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how,
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes:
But what were his arguments few people know,
For the court did not think they were equally wise.
So his lordship decreed with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear, without one if or but-
That, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on,
By daylight or candlelight-Eyes should be shut!
ON THE BURNING OF LORD MANSFIELD'S LIBRARY,
BY THE MOB, IN THE MONTH OF JUNE 1780.
So then the Vandals of our isle,
Sworn foes to sense and law, Have burnt to dust a nobler pile Than ever Roman saw!
And Murray sighs o'er Pope, and Swift,
And many a treasure more,
The well-judged purchase, and the gift,
That graced his lettered store,
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