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And blest reforms that I have never heard,
And she may now be as discreet and wise,
As once absurd in all discerning eyes.
Sobriety perhaps may now be found,

Where once intoxication pressed the ground;
The subtle and injurious may be just,

And he grown chaste that was the slave of lust;
Arts once esteemed may be with shame dismissed,
Charity may relax the miser's fist,

The gamester may have cast his cards away,
Forgot to curse, and only kneel to pray.
It has indeed been told me (with what weight,
How credibly, 'tis hard for me to state,)
That fables old, that seemed for ever mute,
Revived, are hastening into fresh repute,
And gods and goddesses discarded long,
Like useless lumber or a stroller's song,
Are bringing into vogue their heathen train,
And Jupiter bids fair to rule again;
That certain feasts are instituted now,
Where Venus hears the lover's tender vow;
That all Olympus through the country roves,
To consecrate our few remaining groves,

And echo learns politely to repeat

The praise of names for ages obsolete :

That having proved the weakness, it should seem,
Of revelation's ineffectual beam,

To bring the passions under sober sway,
And give the moral springs their proper play,
They mean to try what may at last be done
By stout substantial gods of wood and stone,
And whether Roman rites may not produce
The virtues of old Rome for English use.
May much success attend the pious plan,
May Mercury once more embellish man,
Grace him again with long forgotten arts,
Reclaim his taste and brighten up his parts,
Make him athletic as in days of old,
Learned at the bar, in the palestra bold,
Divest the rougher sex of female airs,
And teach the softer not to copy theirs.

The change shall please, nor shall it matter aught
Who works the wonder, if it be but wrought.

'Tis time, however, if the case stand thus,

For us plain folks and all who side with us,

To build our altar, confident and bold,

And say as stern Elijah said of old,

The strife now stands upon a fair award,

If Israel's Lord be God, then serve the Lord,—
If he be silent, faith is all a whim,

Then Baal is the God, and worship him!

Digression is so much in modern use, Thought is so rare, and fancy so profuse, Some never seem so wide of their intent, As when returning to the theme they meant ; As mendicants, whose business is to roam, Make every parish but their own their home: Though such continual zigzags in a book, Such drunken reelings have an awkward look, And I had rather creep to what is true Than rove and stagger with no mark in view; Yet to consult a little seemed no crime, The freakish humour of the present time. But now, to gather up what seems dispersed, And touch the subject I designed at first, May prove, though much beside the rules of art, Best for the public, and my wisest part. And first let no man charge me that I mean To clothe in sables every social scene, And give good company a face severe, As if they met around a father's bier; For tell some men, that pleasure all their bent, And laughter all their work, is life misspent, Their wisdom bursts into this sage reply, Then mirth is sin, and we should always cry. To find the medium asks some share of wit, And therefore 'tis a mark fools never hit. But though life's valley be a veil of tears, A brighter scene beyond that veil appears, Whose glory with a light that never fades, Shoots between scattered rocks and opening shades, And while it shows the land the soul desires, The language of the land she seeks, inspires. Thus touched, the tongue receives a sacred cure Of all that was absurd, profane, impure; Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech Pursues the course that truth and nature teach, No longer labours merely to produce The pomp of sound, or tinkle without use: Where'er it winds, the salutary stream, Sprightly and fresh, enriches every theme, While all the happy man possessed before, The gift of nature or the classic store, Is made subservient to the grand design For which Heaven formed the faculty divine. So should an idiot, while at large he strays, Find the sweet lyre on which an artist plays, With rash and awkward force the chords he shakes, And grins with wonder at the jar he makes; But let the wise and well-instructed hand Once take the shell beneath his just command, In gentle sounds it seems as it complained

Of the rude injuries it late sustained,

Till tuned at length to some immortal song,

It sounds Jehovah's name, and pours his praise along.

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HACKNEYED in business, wearied at the oar

Which thousands, once fast chained to, quit no more,
But which, when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wish, or seem to wish they could forego,
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a sequestered spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er

And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span,
And having lived a trifler, die a man.

Thus conscience pleads her cause within the breast,
Though long rebelled against, not yet suppressed,
And calls a creature formed for God alone,
For heaven's high purposes and not his own,
Calls him away from selfish ends and aims,
From what debilitates and what inflames,
From cities humming with a restless crowd,
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud,

Whose highest praise is that they live in vain,
The dupes of pleasure, or the slaves of gain,
Where works of man are clustered close around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where, in spite of sin and woe,
Traces of Eden are still seen below,
Where mountain, river, forest, field, and grove
Remind him of his Maker's power and love.
'Tis well if looked for at so late a day,
In the last scene of such a senseless play,
True wisdom will attend his feeble call,
And grace his action ere the curtain fall.

Souls that have long despised their heavenly birth,
Their wishes all impregnated with earth,

For threescore years employed with ceaseless care
In catching smoke and feeding upon air,
Conversant only with the ways of men,
Rarely redeem the short remaining ten.
Inveterate habits choke the unfruitful heart,
Their fibres penetrate its tenderest part,
And draining its nutritious powers to feed
Their noxious growth, starve every better seed.

Happy if full of days,-but happier far
If ere we yet discern life's evening star,
Sick of the service of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from custom's idiot sway,
To serve the Sovereign we were born to obey.
Then sweet to muse upon his skill displayed
(Infinite skill) in all that he has made!
To trace in Nature's most minute design,
The signature and stamp of power divine,
Contrivance intricate expressed with ease,
Where unassisted sight no beauty sees,
The shapely limb and lubricated joint,
Within the small dimensions of a point,
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun,
His mighty work who speaks and it is done,
The invisible in things scarce seen revealed,
To whom an atom is an ample field.
To wonder at a thousand insect forms,

These hatched, and those resuscitated worms,
New life ordained and brighter scenes to share,
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air,

Whose shape would make them, had they bulk and size,
More hideous foes than fancy can devise;
With helmed heads and dragon scales adorned,
The mighty myriads, now securely scorned,
Would mock the majesty of man's high birth,
Despise his bulwarks, and unpeople earth.
Then with a glance of fancy to survey,
Far as the faculty can stretch away,
Ten thousand rivers poured at his command
From urns that never fail through every land,
These like a deluge with impetuous force,
Those winding modestly a silent course,
The cloud-surmounting alps, the fruitful vales,
Seas on which every nation spreads her sails,
The sun, a world whence other worlds drink light,
The crescent moon, the diadem of night,
Stars countless, each in his appointed place,
Fast anchored in the deep abyss of space,-
At such a sight to catch the poet's flame,
And with a rapture like his own exclaim,

These are thy glorious works, thou Source of good,
How dimly seen, how faintly understood!
Thine, and upheld by thy paternal care,
This universal frame, thus wondrous fair;
Thy power divine and bounty beyond thought,
Adored and praised in all that thou hast wrought,
Absorbed in that immensity I see,

I shrink abased, and yet aspire to thee;
Instruct me, guide me to that heavenly day,
Thy words, more clearly than thy works display,

That while thy truths my grosser thoughts refine,
I may resemble thee, and call thee mine.

O blest proficiency! surpassing all
That men erroneously their glory call,
The recompense that arts or arms can yield,
The bar, the senate, or the tented field.
Compared with this sublimest life below,
Ye kings and rulers, what have courts to show?
Thus studied, used and consecrated thus,
Whatever is, seems formed indeed for us,
Not as the plaything of a froward child,
Fretful unless diverted and beguiled,
Much less to feed and fan the fatal fires
Of pride, ambition, or impure desires;
But as a scale by which the soul ascends
From mighty means to more important ends,
Securely, though by steps but rarely trod,
Mounts from inferior beings up to God,
And sees by no fallacious light or dim,

Earth made for man, and man himself for Him.
Not that I mean to approve, or would enforce
A superstitious and monastic course :
Truth is not local; God alike pervades
And fills the world of traffic and the shades,
And may be feared amid the busiest scenes,
Or scorned where business never intervenes.
But 'tis not easy with a mind like ours,
Conscious of weakness in its noblest powers,
And in a world where (other ills apart)
The roving eye misleads the careless heart,
To limit thought, by nature prone to stray
Wherever freakish fancy points the way;
To bid the pleadings of self-love be still,
Resign our own and seek our Maker's will;
To spread the page of Scripture, and compare
Our conduct with the laws engraven there;
To measure all that passes in the breast,
Faithfully, fairly, by that sacred test,
To dive into the secret deeps within,
To spare no passion and no favourite sin,
And search the themes important above all,
Ourselves and our recovery from our fall.
But leisure, silence, and a mind released

From anxious thoughts how wealth may be increased,
How to secure in some propitious hour,
The point of interest or the post of power;

A soul serene, and equally retired

From objects too much dreaded or desired,
Safe from the clamours of perverse dispute,
At least are friendly to the great pursuit.

Opening the map of God's extensive plan,
We find a little isle, this life of man ;

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