For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think, They one day shali pot drivel; and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least, their own; their future selves applauds; How excellent that life they ne'er will lead! Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails; That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign; The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone. 'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more. 3. All promise is poor dilatory man;
And that thro' ev'ry stage. When young, indeed, In full content, we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chides his infamous delay; Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought, Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same. 4. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal, All men think all men mortal, but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread; But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found. As from the wing no scar the sky retains; The parted wave no furrow from the keel; So dies in human hearts the thought of death. Ev'n with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we dropt it in their grave. YOUNG. SECTION X.
That philosophy, which stops at secondary causes, reproved. 1. HAPPY the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that checker life! Resolving all events, with their effects And manifold results, into the will And arbitration wise of the Supreme. Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns; (since from the least The greatest oft originate ;) could chance place in his deminion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan; Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen Contingence might alarm him, and disturb The smooth and equal course of his affairs. 2. This truth, philosophy, though eagle-ey'd In nature's tendencies, oft o'erlooks; And having found his instrument, forgets Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist life; involves the heav'n In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds, And gives them all their fury; bids a plague Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrify the breath of blooming health; 3. He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivel'd lips, And taints the golden ear; he springs his mines, And desolates a nation at a blast:
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells Of homogeneal and discordant springs And principles; of causes, how they work By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and re-action.
The source of the disease that nature fecls; And bids the world take heart and banish fear. Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God Still wrought by means since first he made the world? And did he not of old employ his means,
To drown it? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means, Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve: ask of him, Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.
Indignant sentiments on national prejudices and hatred; and on slavery.
1. On, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd, My soul is sick with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; It does not feel for man. The nat'ral bond Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
2. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own; and having pow'r -T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd, Make enemies of nations, who had else, Like kindred drops, been mingled into one. 3. Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd, As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart, Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 4. Then what is man! And what man seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry ine, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd. 5. No dear as freedom and in my heart's Just estimation priz'd above all price;
I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home-then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.
6. Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through ev'ry vein Of all your empire: that where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
CHAPTER IV.
Descriptive Pieces.
SECTION 1.
The morning in summer.
1. THE meek ey'd morn appears, mother of dews, At first faint gleaming in the dappled east ; Till far o'er ether spreads the wid'ning glow; And from before the lustre of her face
White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step Brown night retires: young day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
2. The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top, Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn. Blue, thro' the dusk, the smoaking currents shine; And from the bladed field the fearful hare Limps awkward: while along the forest-glade The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
5. Rous'd by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells; And from the crowded fold, in order, drives. His flock to taste the verdure of the morn. Falsely luxurious, will not man awake; And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy/ The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour To meditation due and sacred song?
For is there ought in sleep can charm the wise? 4. To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life; Total extinction of th' enlightened soul! Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wilder'd, and tossing thro' distemper'd dreams? Who would, in such a gloomy state, remain Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse And every blooming pleasure waits without, To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
Rural sounds, as well as rural sights, delightful. 1. Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds Exhilerate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds, That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music, not unlike The dash of ocean on his winding shore, And lull the spirit while they fill the mind, Unnumber'd branches waving in the blast, And all their leaves fast flutt'ring all at once. 2. Nor less composure waits upon the roar Of distant floods; or on the softer voice Of neighb'ring fountain; er of rills that slip Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length In matted grass, that, with a livelier green, Betrays the secret of their silent course. Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds; But animated nature sweeter still,
To sooth and satisfy the human ear.
3. Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The live-long night. Nor these alone, whose notes Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain;
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime, In still repeated circles, screaming loud, The jay, the pye, and ev'n the boding owl That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. Sounds inharmonious in themselves, and harsh, Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, And only there, please highly for their sake.
1. THE rose had been wash'd, lately wash'd in a shower, Which Mary to Anna convey'd;
The plentiful moisture encumber'd the flower,
And weigh'd down its beautiful head.
2. The cup was all fill'd, and the leaves were all wet, And seem'd to a fanciful view,
To weep for the buds it had left with regret, On the flourishing bush where it grew.
3.1 hastily seiz'd it, unfit as it was
For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd; And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas! I snap'd it-it fell to the ground.
4. And such, I exclaim'd, is the pitiless part, Some act by the delicate mind,
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