ON READING THE "" PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE."

AND dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous heaven designed
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined;

Dwells there a wish in such a breast

Its nature to forego,

To smother in ignoble rest

At once both bliss and woe?

Far be the thought, and far the strain
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe'er the verse complain,
Though Phoebus string the lyre.

Come then, fair maid (in nature wise),
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell;

In justice to the various powers
Of pleasing, which you share,
Join me, amid your silent hours,
To form the better prayer.

With lenient balm may Oberon hence
To fairy-land be driven,

With every herb that blunts the sense
Mankind received from heaven.

Oh! if my Sovereign Author please,
Far be it from my fate

To live unblest in torpid ease,

And slumber on in state;

Each tender tie of life defied,

Whence social pleasures spring;

Unmoved with all the world beside,
A solitary thing.

Some Alpine mountain wrapt in snow
Thus braves the whirling blast,

Eternal winter doomed to know,
No genial spring to taste;

In vain warm suns their influence shed,
The zephyrs sport in vain,

He rears unchanged his barren head,
Whilst beauty decks the plain.

What though, in scaly armour dressed,
Indifference may repel

The shafts of woe, in such a breast
No joy can ever dwell.

'Tis woven in the world's great plan,
And fixed by Heaven's decree,
That all the true delights of man
Should spring from Sympathy.

'Tis nature bids, and, whilst the laws
Of nature we retain,

Our self-approving bosom draws

A pleasure from its pain.

Thus grief itself has comforts dear

The sordid never know;

And ecstasy attends the tear,

When virtue bids it flow.

For when it streams from that pure source,

No bribes the heart can win

To check, or alter from its course,
The luxury within.

Peace to the phlegm of sullen elves,
Who, if from labour eased,
Extend no care beyond themselves,
Unpleasing and unpleased.

Let no low thought suggest the prayer!
Oh! grant, kind Heaven, to me,
Long as I draw ethereal air,

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,
In youth immortal warm,

The soft relations which, combined,
Give life her every charm.

The Arts come smiling in the close,
And lend celestial fire;

The marble breathes, the canvas glows,
The Muses sweep the lyre.

Still may my melting bosom cleave
To sufferings not my own;
And still the sigh responsive heave,
Where'er is heard a groan.

So Pity shall take Virtue's part,
Her natural ally,

And fashioning my softened heart,
Prepare it for the sky.

This artless vow may Heaven receive,
And fond maid, approve;

you,

So may your guiding angel give
Whate'er you wish or love.

So may the rosy-fingered hours
Lead on the various year,
And every joy which now is yours
Extend a larger sphere.

And suns to come, as round they wheel,
Your golden moments bless,
With all a tender heart can feel,

Or lively fancy guess.

THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH

MORTALS! around your destined heads
Thick fly the shafts of Death,
And lo! the savage spoiler spreads
A thousand toils beneath.

In vain we trifle with our fate;
Try every art in vain ;

At best we but prolong the date
And lengthen out our pain.

Fondly we think all danger fled,
For Death is ever nigh;
Outstrips our unavailing speed,
Or meets us as we fly.

Thus the wrecked mariner may strive
Some desert shore to gain,
Secure of life, if he survive

The fury of the main.

But there, to famine doomed a prey,
Finds, the mistaken wretch!
He but escaped the troubled sea
To perish on the beach.

Since then in vain we strive to guard
Our frailty from the foe,
Lord, let me live not unprepared

To meet the fatal blow!

TRANSLATION OF PSALM CXXXVII

To Babylon's proud waters brought,
In bondage where we lay,
With tears on Sion's Hill we thought,
And sighed our hours away;
Neglected on the willows hung
Our useless harps, while every tongue
Bewailed the fatal day.

Remember, Lord! that hostile sound,
When Edom's children cried,
"Razed be her turrets to the ground,
And humbled be her pride!"
Remember, Lord! and let the foe
The terror of thy vengeance know,
The vengeance they defied!

Thou too, great Babylon, shalt fall
A victim to our God;

Thy monstrous crimes already call
For heaven's chastising rod.
Happy who shall thy little ones
Relentless dash against the stones,
And spread their limbs abroad.

LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF DELIRIUM

HATRED and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution,

Wait with impatient readiness to seize my

Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!
Twice-betrayed Jesus me, the last delinquent,

Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me,
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against 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.