Before my infant heart conceiv'd
From whom those comforts flow'd.
When, in the slipp'ry paths of youth,
With heedless steps, I ran,
Thine arm unseen, convey'd me safe,
And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently clear'd my way;

And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be fear'd than they.

When worn with sickness, oft hast thou,
With health renew'd my face,
And when in sin and sorrows sunk,
Reviv'd my soul with grace.

Thy bounteous hand, with worldly bliss,
Has made my cup run o'er;
And in a kind and faithful friend,
Has doubled all my store.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts,
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least, a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through ev'ry period of my life,
Thy goodness I'll pursue:
And, after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.

When nature fails, and day and night
Divide thy works no more,

My ever-grateful heart, O Lord!
Thy mercy shall adore.

Through all eternity, to thee
A joyful song I'll raise,
For, O, eternity's too short
To utter all thy praise.

SECTION VII.

ADDISON.

A MAN PERISHING IN THE SNOW; FROM WHENCE REFLIĆ

TIONS ARE RAISED ON THE MISERIES OF LIFE.

As thus the snows arise; and foul and fierce,
All winter drives along the darken'd air;

In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest hid

Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on,
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When, for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and blest abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And ev'ry tempest howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,

A dire descent, beyond the power of frost!
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and what is land unknown,
What water, of the still unfrozen spring,

In the loose march, or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death.
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingled storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold;
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On ev'ry nerve
The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd cut and bleaching in the northern blast.

Ah, little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, pow'r and affluence surround;
They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel riot, waste;

Ah, little think they, while they dance along
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain!

cup

How many sink in the devouring flood,"
Or more devouring flame! How many bleed,
By shameful variance betwixt man and man?
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs! How many drink the
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery! Sore pierc'd by wint❜ry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty! How many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse! →
How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop
In deep retir'd distress! How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish! Thought fond man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of £te,
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.

SECTION. VIII.

A MORNING HYMN.

THOMSON

THESE are thy glorious works, parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wond'rous fair; thyself how wond'rous then!
Unspeakable, who sit'st above these heav'ns

To us, invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lower works; yet these declare

Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine.

Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye, in heaven,
On earth, join all ye creatures to extol

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime,
Thou sun, of this great world bath eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon has gain'd, and when thou fall'st.
Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st,
With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wandering fires that move
In mystic dance, not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light..
Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth

Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and

And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great MAKER still new praise.
Ye mists and exhalatious that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paints your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great AUTHOR rise!
Whether to deck with clouds th' uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling show'rs,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.,
His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breath soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With ev'ry plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices all ye living souls; ye birds
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings, and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread; or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, moru or even,

To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade
U

Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, UNIVERSAL LORD! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Has gather'd aught of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

CHAPTER VI.

PROMISCUOUS PIECES.

SECTION I.

ODE TO CONTENT.

O THOU, the nymph with placid eye!
O seldom found, yet ever nigh!
Receive my temp'rate vow;
Not all the storms that shake the pole
Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul,
And smooth th' unatter'd brow.

O come, in simplest vest array'd,
With all thy sober cheer display'd,
To bless my longing sight;
Thy mien compos'd, thy even pace,
Thy meek regard, thy matron grace,
And chaste subdu'd delight.

No more by varying passions beat,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit cell;
Where in some pure and equal sky,
Beneath thy soft indulgent eye,
The modest virtues dwell.

Simplicity in attic vest,

And innocence, with candid breast,
And clear undaunted eye;

And Hope, who points to distant years,
Fáir op ning through this vale of tears,
A vista to the sky.

Part 2. Chap.

MILTO