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Or if in masculine debate he shared,
Ensured him mute attention and regard.
Alas, how changed! expressive of his mind,
His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head reclined;
Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin,
Though whispered, plainly tell what works within,
That conscience there performs her proper part,
And writes a doomsday sentence on his heart.
Forsaking, and forsaken of all friends,

He now perceives where earthly pleasure ends;
Hard task for one who lately knew no care,
And harder still as learned beneath despair :
His hours no longer pass unmarked away,
A dark importance saddens every day;
He hears the notice of the clock, perplexed,
And cries, Perhaps eternity strikes next;
Sweet music is no longer music here,
And laughter sounds like madness in his ear;
His grief the world of all her power disarms,
Wine has no taste, and beauty has no charms :
God's holy word, once trivial in his view,
Now by the voice of his experience true,
Seems, as it is, the fountain whence alone
Must spring that hope he pants to make his own.
Now let the bright reverse be known abroad;
Say, man's a worm, and power belongs to God.
As when a felon, whom his country's laws
Have justly doomed for some atrocious cause,
Expects in darkness and heart-chilling fears,
The shameful close of all his misspent years,
If chance, on heavy pinions slowly borne,
A tempest usher in the dreaded morn,
Upon his dungeon walls the lightnings play,
The thunder seems to summon him away,
The warder at the door his key applies,
Shoots back the bolt, and all his courage dies:
If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost,
When hope, long lingering, at last yields the ghost,
The sound of pardon pierce his startled ear,
He drops at once his fetters and his fear,
A transport glows in all he looks and speaks,
And the first thankful tears bedew his cheeks:
Joy, far superior joy, that much outweighs
The comfort of a few poor added days,
Invades, possesses, and o'erwhelms the soul
Of him whom hope has with a touch made whole.
'Tis heaven, all heaven descending on the wings
Of the glad legions of the King of kings;
'Tis more, 'tis God diffused through every part,
'Tis God himself triumphant in his heart.
Oh, welcome now the sun's once hated light,
His noonday beams were never half so bright.

Not kindred minds alone are called to employ
Their hours, their days, in listening to his joy,
Unconscious nature, all that he surveys,

Rocks, groves, and streams must join him in his praise.
These are thy glorious works,1 eternal truth,

The scoff of withered age and beardless youth;
These move the censure and illiberal grin

Of fools that hate thee and delight in sin :

But these shall last when night has quenched the pole,
And heaven is all departed as a scroll:

And when, as justice has long since decreed,
This earth shall blaze, and a new world succeed,
Then these thy glorious works, and they that share
That hope which can alone exclude despair,
Shall live exempt from weakness and decay,
The brightest wonders of an endless day.

Happy the bard, (if that fair name belong
To him that blends no fable with his song,)
Whose lines uniting, by an honest art,
The faithful monitor's and poet's part,
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind,
And, while they captivate, inform the mind;
Still happier, if he till a thankful soil,
And fruit reward his honourable toil :
But happier far who comfort those that wait
To hear plain truth at Judah's hallowed gate ;
Their language simple, as their manners meek,
No shining ornaments have they to seek,
Nor labour they, nor time nor talents waste,
In sorting flowers to suit a fickle taste;
But while they speak the wisdom of the skies,
Which art can only darken and disguise,
The abundant harvest, recompense divine,
Repays their work,-the gleaning only, mine.

CHARITY.

Quâ nihil majus meliusve terris

Fata donavere bonique divi,

Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum

Tempora priscum.-HOR. Lib. iv. Ode ii.

FAIREST and foremost of the train that wait
On man's most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee charity or love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Prosper (I press thee with a powerful plea)
A task I venture on, impelled by thee:
Oh, never seen but in thy blessed effects,
Nor felt but in the soul that heaven selects,
Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known
To other hearts, must have thee in his own.

1 Paradise Lost, v. 153.

Come, prompt me with benevolent desires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And though disgraced and slighted, to redeem
A poet's name, by making thee the theme.
God working ever on a social plan,
By various ties attaches man to man :
He made at first, though free and unconfined,
One man the common father of the kind,
That every tribe, though placed as he sees best,
Where seas or deserts part them from the rest,
Differing in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook-lamented, and with tears as just
As ever mingled with heroic dust,

Steered Britain's oak into a world unknown,
And in his country's glory sought his own,
Wherever he found man, to nature true,
The rights of man were sacred in his view;
He soothed with gifts and greeted with a smile
The simple native of the new found isle ;

He spurned the wretch that slighted or withstood
The tender argument of kindred blood,

Nor would endure that any should control
His freeborn brethren of the southern pole.
But though some nobler minds a law respect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In baser souls unnumbered evils meet,
To thwart its influence and its end defeat.
While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved,
See Cortes odious for a world enslaved !
Where wast thou then, sweet charity, where then,
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?

Wast thou in monkish cells and nunneries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No!-Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear, not love; and heaven abhors the fee.
Wherever found, (and all men need thy care,)
Nor age nor infancy could find thee there.
The hand that slew till it could slay no more,
Was glued to the swordhilt with Indian gore.
Their prince, as justly seated on his throne
As vain imperial Philip on his own,
Tricked out of all his royalty by art,

That stripped him bare, and broke his honest heart,
Died by the sentence of a shaven priest,
For scorning what they taught him to detest.
How dark the veil that intercepts the blaze
Of heaven's mysterious purposes and ways;
God stood not, though he seemed to stand, aloof,
And at this hour the conqueror feels the proof:
The wreath he won drew down an instant curse,
The fretting plague is in the public purse,

The cankered spoil corrodes the pining state,
Starved by that indolence their mines create.

Oh, could their ancient Incas rise again,
How would they take up Israel's taunting strain !
Art thou too fallen, Iberia! Do we see
The robber and the murderer weak as we?
Thou, that hast wasted earth, and dared despise
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,
Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid
Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal rest,
To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed.
Art thou the God the thunder of whose hand
Rolled over all our desolated land,

Shook principalities and kingdoms down,
And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers,
And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours.
'Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,
And vengeance executes what justice wills.
Again-the band of commerce was designed
To associate all the branches of mankind,
And if a boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe.
Wise to promote whatever end he means,
God opens fruitful nature's various scenes,
Each climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers something to the general use;
No land but listens to the common call,
And in return receives supply from all.
This genial intercourse and mutual aid
Cheers what were else an universal shade,
Calls nature from her ivy-mantled den,
And softens human rockwork into men.
Ingenious art, with her expressive face,
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race,-
Not only fills necessity's demand,
But overcharges her capacious hand :
Capricious taste itself can crave no more
Than she supplies from her abounding store:
She strikes out all that luxury can ask,
And gains new vigour at her endless task.
Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire,
The painter's pencil, and the poet's lyre;
From her the canvas borrows light and shade,
And verse, more lasting, hues that never fade.
She guides the finger o'er the dancing keys,
Gives difficulty all the grace of ease,
And pours a torrent of sweet notes around,
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound.
These are the gifts of art, and art thrives most
Where commerce has enriched the busy coast;

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He catches all improvements in his flight,
Spreads foreign wonders in his country's sight,
Imports what others have invented well,
And stirs his own to match them or excel.
'Tis thus reciprocating each with each,
Alternately the nations learn and teach;
While Providence enjoins to every soul
An union with the vast terraqueous whole.
Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled
To furnish and accommodate a world,
To give the pole the produce of the sun,
And knit the unsocial climates into one !-
Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave
Impel the fleet whose errand is to save,
To succour wasted regions, and replace
The smile of opulence in sorrow's face!-
Let nothing adverse, nothing unforeseen,
Impede the bark that ploughs the deep serene,
Charged with a freight transcending in its worth
The gems of India, nature's rarest birth,
That flies, like Gabriel on his Lord's commands,
A herald of God's love to pagan lands!—
But, ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayer,

For merchants rich in cargoes of despair,

Who drive a loathsome traffic, gauge and span

And buy the muscles and the bones of man?

The tender ties of father, husband, friend,

All bonds of nature in that moment end,

And each endures, while yet he draws his breath,
A stroke as fatal as the scythe of death.
The sable warrior, frantic with regret
Of her he loves and never can forget,
Loses in tears the far receding shore,

But not the thought that they must meet no more;
Deprived of her and freedom at a blow,
What has he left that he can yet forego?
Yes, to deep sadness sullenly resigned,
He feels his body's bondage in his mind,
Puts off his generous nature, and, to suit
His manners with his fate, puts on the brute.
Oh most degrading of all ills that wait
On man, a mourner in his best estate!
All other sorrows virtue may endure,
And find submission more than half a cure;
Grief is itself a medicine, and bestowed
To improve the fortitude that bears the load,
To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase,
The path of wisdom, all whose paths are peace.
But slavery!-virtue dreads it as her grave:
Patience itself is meanness in a slave:
Or if the will and sovereignty of God
Bid suffer it awhile, and kiss the rod,

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