In vain warm suns their influence shed, He rears unchanged his barren head, What though, in scaly armour dressed, The shafts of woe, in such a breast 'Tis woven in the world's great plan, 'Tis nature bids, and, whilst the laws Our self-approving bosom draws Thus grief itself has comforts dear For when it streams from that pure source, No bribes the heart can win Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves, Let no low thought suggest the prayer! Sweet Sensibility! Where'er the heavenly nymph is seen, With lustre-beaming eye, A train, attendant on their queen, (Her rosy chorus) fly. The jocund Loves in Hymen's band, With torches ever bright, And generous Friendship hand in hand With Pity's watery sight. The gentler Virtues too are joined, The soft relations which, combined, The Arts come smiling in the close, The marble breathes, the canvas glows, Still may my melting bosom cleave So Pity shall take Virtue's part, And fashioning my softened heart, This artless vow may Heaven receive, So may the rosy-fingered hours And suns to come, as round they wheel, Or lively fancy guess THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH MORTALS! around your destined heads In vain we trifle with our fate; At best we but prolong the date And lengthen out our pain, Fondly we think all danger fled, Thus the wrecked mariner may strive But there, to famine doomed a prey, Since then in vain we strive to guard Our frailty from the foe, TRANSLATION OF PSALM CXXXVII To Babylon's proud waters brought, Then did the base insulting foe Some joyous notes demand, Such as in Sion used to flow From Judah's happy band: Alas! what joyous notes have we, Our country spoiled, no longer free, And in a foreign land? O Solyma! if e'er thy praise Remember, Lord! that hostile sound, Thou too, great Babylon, shalt fall LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF DELIRIUM HATRED and vengeance, my eternal portion, Wait with impatient readiness to seize my Soul in a moment. Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was, Deems the profanest. Man disavows, and Deity disowns me, Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers; Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors, I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence Worse than Abiram's. Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong; I, fed with judgment, in a fleshly tomb, am Buried above ground. A SONG OF MERCY AND JUDGMENT LORD, I love the habitation Where the Saviour's honour dwells. Grace Divine, how sweet the sound! Me thro' waves of deep affliction Hard to bear and passing thought. Sweet the sound of grace Divine, Sweet the grace which makes me Thine. From the cheerful beams of morning Grace Divine, how sweet the sound! Sweet the grace that I have found. Food I loathed, nor ever tasted Spoke the terrors I sustained. Sweet the sound of grace Divine, Sweet the grace which makes me Thine. Bound and watched, lest, life abhorring, Grace Divine, how sweet the sound! Fear of Thee with gloomy sadness Sweet the sound of grace Divine, Sweet the grace which makes me Thine. |