ON READING THE "" PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE." AND dwells there in a female heart, 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 Come then, fair maid (in nature wise), In justice to the various powers With lenient balm may Oberon hence With every herb that blunts the sense Oh! if my Sovereign Author please, 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, Some Alpine mountain wrapt in snow Eternal winter doomed to know, 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 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, 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, you, So may your guiding angel give 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 Fondly we think all danger fled, Thus the wrecked mariner may strive The fury of the main. But there, to famine doomed a prey, Since then in vain we strive to guard To meet the fatal blow! TRANSLATION OF PSALM CXXXVII To Babylon's proud waters brought, Remember, Lord! that hostile sound, Thou too, great Babylon, shalt fall Thy monstrous crimes already call 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 Buried above ground. |