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SICKNESS.

LOOK where he comes-in this embow'r'd alcove Stand close conceal'd, and see a statue move: Lips busy, and eyes fixt, foot falling slow, Arms hanging idly down, hands clasp'd below, Interpret to the marking eye distress, Such as its symptoms can alone express. That tongue is silent now; that silent tongue Could argue once, could jest or join the song, Could give advice, could censure or commend, Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend, Renounc'd alike its office and its sport, Its brisker and its graver strains fall short; Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway, And, like a summer-brook, are past away. This is a sight for pity to peruse, Till she resemble faintly what she views, Till sympathy contract a kindred pain, Pierc'd with the woes that she laments in vain.

1

This, of all maladies that man infest,
Claims most compassion, and receives the least:
Job felt it when he groan'd beneath the rod
And the barb'd arrows of a frowning God;
And such emollients as his friends could spare,
Friends such as his for modern Jobs prepare.
Blest, rather curst, with hearts that never feel,
Kept snug in caskets of close-hammer'd steel,
With mouths made only to grin wide and eat,
And minds that deem derided pain a treat,
With limbs of British oak, and nerves of wire,
And wit that puppet-prompters might inspire,
Their sov'reign nostrum is a clumsy joke,

On

pangs enforc'd with God's severest stroke. But, with a soul that ever felt the sting Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing: Not to molest, or irritate, or raise A laugh at his expence, is slender praise; He that has not usurp'd the name of man Does all, and deems too little all, he can, T'assuage the throbbings of the fester'd part, And staunch the bleedings of a broken heart, "Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose, Forg'ry of fancy, and a dream of woes;

Man is an harp whose chords elude the sight,
Each yielding harmony dispos'd aright;
The screws revers'd (a task which if he please
God in a moment executes with ease,)
Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose,
Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use.
Then neither heathy wilds, nor scenes as fair
As ever recompens'd the peasant's care,
Nor soft declivities with tufted hills,

Nor view of waters turning busy mills,
Parks in which art preceptress nature weds,
Nor gardens interspers'd with flow'ry beds,
Nor gales that catch the scent of blooming groves,
And waft it to the mourner as he roves,

Can call up life into his faded eye,

That passes all he sees unheeded by:

No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels,

No cure for such, till God who makes them, heals.
And thou, sad suff'rer under nameless ill,
That yields not to the touch of human skill,
Improve the kind occasion, understand

A father's frown, and kiss his chast'ning hand:
To thee the day-spring, and the blaze of noon,
The purple ev'ning and resplendent moon,

The stars that sprinkled o'er the vault of night, Seem drops descending in a show'r of light, Shine not, or undesir'd and hated shine,

Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine. Yet seek him, in his favour life is found,

All bliss beside a shadow or a sound:

Then heav'n, eclips'd so long, and this dull earth,
Shall seem to start into a second birth;
Nature, assuming a more lovely face,
Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace,
Shall be despis'd and overlook'd no more,
Shall fill thee with delights unfelt before,
Impart to things inanimate a voice,

And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice;
The sound shall run along the winding vales,
And thou enjoy an Eden ere it fails.

ODE

TO PEAСЕ.

1.

COME, peace of mind, delightful guest,

Return and make thy downy nest

Once more in this sad heart! Nor riches I, nor pow'r, pursue, Nor hold forbidden joys in view;

We therefore need not part.

2.

Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,

From av'rice and ambition free,

And pleasure's fatal wiles?

For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,

The banquet of thy smiles?

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