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SONG XXIX.

TO WISDOM.

BY MISS CARTER.

HE folitary bird of night

TH

Through the thick fhades now wings his flight, And quits his time-fhook tower ;

Where, fhelter'd from the blaze of day,

In philofophic gloom he lay,

Beneath his ivy bower

With joy I hear the folemn found,

Which midnight ecchoes waft around.

And fighing gales repeat:
Fav'rite of Pallas! I attend,

And, faithful to thy fummons, bend
At Wisdoms awful feat.

She loves the cool, the filent eve,

Where no false fhows of life deceive,

Beneath the lunar ray:

Here Folly drops each vain difguife,
Nor fport her gayly-colour'd dyes,
As in the glare of day.

O Pallas! queen of ev'ry art,

That glads the sense, or mends the heart,
Bleft fource of purer joys:

In every form of beauty bright,
That captivates the mental fight
With pleasure and furprise.

5

To

To thy unfpotted shrine I bow;
Attend thy modest suppliants vow,
That breathes no wild defires:
But taught by thy unerring rules,
To fhun the fruitless with of fools,
To nobler views afpires.

Not Fortunes gem, Ambitions plume,
Nor Cythereas fading bloom,

Be objects of my pray'r :
Let Av'rice, Vanity, and Pride,
Thofe envied glittering toys divide,
The dull rewards of care.

To me thy better gifts impart,
Each moral beauty of the heart,

By ftudious thoughts refin'd;

For wealth, the fmiles of glad content,
For power, its ampleft, beft extent,
An empire o'er the mind.

When Fortune drops her gay parade,
When Pleasures tranfient rofes fade,
And wither in the tomb;
Unchang'd is thy immortal prize,
Thy ever-verdant laurels rife
In undecaying bloom.

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By thee protected, I defy

The coxcombs fneer, the ftupid lie

Of ignorance and fpite:

Alike contemn the leaden fool,

And all the pointed ridicule
Of undifcerning wit.

From envy, hurry, noife, and ftrife,
The dull impertinence of life,
In thy retreat I reft:

Pursue thee to the peaceful groves,
Where Platos facred spirit roves,
In all thy graces drest.

He bid Ilyffus' tuneful fream
Convey thy philofophic theme
Of Perfect, Fair, and Good;
Attentive Athens caught the found,
And all her listening fons around
In aweful filence stood.

Reclaim'd, her wild licentious youth
Confefs'd the potent voice of Truth,
And felt its juft controul:

The Paffions ceas'd their loud alarms,
And Virtues foft perswasive charms

O'er all their fenfes ftole.

VOL. II.

I

Thy

Thy breath infpires the poets fong,
The patriots free, unbiafs'd tongue,
The heros gen'rous ftrife;

Thine are retirements filent joys,
And all the sweet endearing ties
Of still, domeftic life.

No more to fabled names confin'd,
To Thee! Supreme, all-perfect Mind
My thoughts direct their flight:
Wisdom's Thy gift, and all her force
From Thee deriv'd, Unchanging Source
Of intellectual light.

O fend her fure, her fteady ray,
To regulate my doubtful way,
Through lifes perplexing road:
The mifts of error to controul,
And through its gloom direct my foul
To happiness and good!

Beneath her clear difcerning eye,

The vifionary shadows fly

Of Follys painted show:

She fees, through ev'ry fair disguise,
That all, but Virtues folid joys

Is vanity and woe.

SONG

FR

SONG XXX.

ON FRIENDSHIP.

RIENDSHIP, peculiar gift of Heaven,
The noble minds delight and pride,

To men and angels only given,

To all the lower world denied.

While Love, unknown among the blest,
Parent of rage and hot defires,
The human, and the favage breaft,
Inflames alike with equal fires.

With bright, but oft destructive gleam,
Alike o'er all his lightnings fly;
Thy lambent glories only beam
Around the fav'rites of the sky.

Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys
On fools and villains ne'er defcend;
In vain for thee the monarch fighs,
And hugs a flatt'rer for a friend.

When Virtues kindred Virtues meet,
And fifter-fouls together join,
Thy pleasures, permanent as great,
Are all transporting, all divine.

I 2

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