Come, let us then the present hour employ; Nor to the faithless future trust our joy; Let us from care the wrinkled forehead smooth, Let us in age revive the sweets of youth, Pour out rich wines, the costly ointments bring, With all the blooming flow'rs that grace the spring; Let the fresh violet and the new-born rose A smiling chaplet for our brows compose. Entwine our templets, ere ye die, ye flow'rs! Short is your date of life, and short is ours. Let's print each hour with pleasure, ere it pass, Leave monuments of joy in every place,

That may our revellings and us survive,

Shew we once were, and teach our sons to live.
Lose not the little portion fate allows,

That is man's lot-this all the heaven he knows.
Thus they, who from the ways of truth decline,
Pervert their reason to confirm their sin;
The mists of sensual lust so cloud their eye,
They can't the mysteries of GOD descry,
Or taste the pleasing hope, and heavenly rest,
The pious transports of the righteous breast;
They know not man for noble views design'd,
Nor feel the worth of their immortal mind;
On transitory things they fix their bliss,
And lose the better life to come for this.

A

PARAPHRASE

OF THE

LATTER PART OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER

OF

ST. MATTHEW.

THOMSON.

WHEN my breast labours with oppressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh, let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt His doctrine did impart,
And thus He rais'd from earth the drooping heart.
Think not, when all your scanty stores afford
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears;
While on the roof, the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs again.
Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air:
To them, nor stores, nor granaries, belong,

Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song;

Yet, your
kind heav'nly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
To him they sing, when spring renews the plain,
To him they cry in winter's pinching reign;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain :
He hears the gay, and the distressful call,
And with unsparing bounty fills them all.
Observe the rising lily's snowy grace,
Observe the various vegetable race;

They neither toil, nor spin, but careless grow,
Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare!
What king so shining! or what queen so fair!

If, ceaseless, thus the fowls of heaven he feeds,
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads;
Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say?
Is he unwise? or, are ye less than they?

ODE ON EOLUS's HARP.

THOMSON.

ETHEREAL race, inhabitants of air,

Who hymn your God amid the secret grove;

Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair,

And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.

Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid! With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart, Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid,

Who dy'd of love, these sweet complainings part.

But hark! that strain was of a graver tone;

On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws; Or he, the sacred bard*; who sat alone,

In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.

Such was the song which Zion's children sung, When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint;

And to such sadly solemn notes are strung
Angelic harps, to soothe a dying saint.

Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,

Thro' heav'n's high dome their awful anthem

raise;

Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire To swell the lofty hymn, from praise to praise.

Let me, ye wandring spirits of the wind,

Who, as wild fancy prompts you touch the string, Smit with your theme, be in your chorus join'd, For till you cease, my muse forgets to sing.

* Jeremiah.

HASSAN;

OR,

THE CAMEL-DRIVER.

AN ORIENTAL ECLOGUE.

COLLINS.

Scene, The Desert.-Time, Mid-Day.

IN silent horror o'er the boundless waste
The driver Hassan with his camels past.
One cruse of water on his back he bore,
And his light scrip contain'd a scanty store;
A fan of painted feathers in his hand,
To guard his shaded face from scorching sand.
The sultry sun had gain'd the middle sky,
And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh;
The beasts, with pain, their dusty way pursue,
Shrill roar'd the winds, and dreary was the view!
With desp❜rate sorrow wild, th' affrighted man
Thrice sigh'd, thrice struck his breast, and thus
began:

"Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, "When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!"

Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind, The thirst or pinching hunger that I find :