But if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warn'd thou seem'st,
Go-for thy stay, not free, absents the more--
Go in thy native innocence--rely
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all--
For God towards thee hath done his part--do thine.
4. Be wise to day: 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life."
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Year after year it steals, till all are fled-
And, to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
2 Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live :"
Forever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think,
They, one day, shall not drivel; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise-
At least, their own; their future selves applauds »
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodg'd in their own hands is folly's vails
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign--
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool--
And scarce in human wisdom to do mere.
3. All promise is poor dilatory man:
And that thro' ev'ry stage. When young indeed, In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,
for ourselves and only wish,
A dut ios sons, our fathers were more wise...
At thy man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan,
A fifty chides his infamous delay-
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve-
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves and re-resolves, then dies the same.
4. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal,
All men think all men mortal but themselves-
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
Ev'n with the ter der tear which Nature sheds
O'er those who love, we drop it in their grave.
Young.
That Philosophy, which stops at secondary causes reprovet
1. HAPPY, the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns; (since from the least
The greatest oft originate ;) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan!
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
2. This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And having found his instrument, forgets
Or disregards, or more presumptuous still,
Deuies the power that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish me?
That live an athiest life; involves the he
In tempests quit his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrify the breath of blooming healthy
3. He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from beneath his shrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden ear; he springs his mines,
And desolates a nation at a blast:
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and reaction.
The source of the disease that nature feels;
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause
Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God
Still wrought by means since first he made the world
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation less,.
Than a capacious reservoir of means,
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will;
Go, dress thine eyes, with eye-salve ; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.
Indignant sentiments on National prejudices and Hatred and on Slavery.
1. Ou, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade.
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd.
My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart:
It does not feel for man. The nat'ral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd, as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own, and having pow'r
Tenforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. mtersected by a narrow frith
For each other. Mountains interpos'd, e enemies of nations, who had else
kindred drops, been mingled into one.
~ man devotes his brother, and destroys;
orse than all, and most to be deplor'd
As 'man nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chun him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat,
Web stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
4. Then what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man ?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
5. No: dear as freedom-is, and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd above all price:
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than lasten them on him. We have no slaves at home- then why abroad ☀ And thes themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd. 6. Slaves cannot breathe in England: It their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and hespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through ev'ry vein Of all your empire; that where Britain pow'r tell, mankind may feel her mercy too.
1. THE meek-ey'd morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint gleaming in the dappld east ;
Till far o'er ether spreads the wid'ning glow;
And before the lustre of her face
White break the clouds away. With quick'n'd step
Brown night retires: young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
2. The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, thro' the dusk, the smoking currents shine
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Linps, awkward: while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning, gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy!
And thick around the wood-land hymns arise.
3. Rous'd by the cock, the soon clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives
His flock to taste the verdure of the morn..
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake;
And, springing from the bed of sloth enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song?
4. For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise? To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of th' enlighten'd soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wilder'd, and tossing thro' distemper'd dreams?
Who would, in such a gloomy state, remain
Longer than nature craves; when every muse
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