But ills of every shape and every name Transformed to blessings miss their cruel aim, And every moment's calm, that soothes the breast, Is given in earnest of eternal rest. Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast Far from the flock, and in a distant waste! No shepherd's tents within thy view appear, But the chief shepherd is for ever near; Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain ; Thy tears all issue from a source divine, And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine--'Twas thus in Gideon's fleece the dews were found, And drought on all the drooping herds around. TO THE REV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN. UNWIN, I should but ill repay The kindness of a friend, As ever friendship penned, Thy name omitted in a page, That would reclaim a vicious age. An union formed, as mine with thee, And faithful in its sort, And may as rich in comfort prove, The bud inserted in the rind, Not rich, I render what I may, Lest this should prove the last. The poet's lyre, to fix his fame, A TALE, FOUNDED ON A FACT, WHICH HAPPENED IN JANUARY, 1779. WHERE Humber pours his rich commercial stream, Black as the mine, in which he wrought for bread. A sabbath-day (such sabbaths thousands keep!) To buy a cock---whose blood might win him more; Were but for battle and for death designed; For sport to minds on cruelty intent; It chanced, (such chances Providence obey) Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed; For all plead well who plead the cause of grace: He wept; he trembled; cast his eyes around, To find a worse than he; but none he found. He felt his sins, and wondered he should feel. Grace made the wound, and grace alone could heal. Now farewell oaths, and blasphemies, and lies! He quits the sinner's for the martyr's prize. That holy day was washed with many a tear, Gilded with hope, yet shaded too by fear. The next, his swarthy brethren of the mine Learned, by his altered speech--the change divine! Laughed when they should have wept, and swore the day Was nigh, when he would swear as fast as they. "No (said the penitent): such words shall share "This breath no more; devoted now to prayer. "O! if thou seest, (thine eye the future sees) "That I shall yet again blaspheme, like these ;--"Now strike me to the ground, on which I kneel, "Ere yet this heart relapses into steel; "Now take me to that Heaven, I once defied, "Thy presence, thy embrace!"---He spoke and died! ANSWER TO STANZAS ADDRESSED TO LADY HESKETH, BY MISS CATHARINE FANSHAWE, IN RETURNING A POEM OF MR. COWPER'S, LENT TO HER, ON CONDITION SHE SHOULD NEITHER SHOW IT, NOR TAKE A COPY. 1793. TO be remembered thus is fame, And in the first degree; And did the few like her the same, So Homer, in the memory stored Was once preserved---a richer hoard, 1 ON THE ICE ISLANDS, SEEN FLOATING IN THE GERMAN OCEAN. 1799. WHAT portents, from what distant region, ride, Of sea-calves, sought the mountains and the groves; Come they from India, where the burning Earth, Should sooner far have mark'd and seiz'd the prize. The borrowed splendours of a cloudless day? With borrowed beams they shine. The gales that breathe He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast It left the shelving beach---and, with a sound Down went the ponderous mass. So bards of old, Herb, fruit, and flow'r. She, crowned with laurel, wore, WRITTEN AT BATH, ON FINDING THE HEEL OF A SHOE. 1748. FORTUNE! I thank thee: gentle goddess! thanks! Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny She would have thanked the rather, hadst thou cast A treasure in her way; for neither meed Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes, T |