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RECOMMENDATORY VERSES.

On Reading Mr. WATTS's Poems, sacred to

Piety and Devotion.

RE

EGARD the man who in seraphic lays,

And flowing numbers, fings his Maker's praise : : He needs invoke no fabled Muse's art, The heavenly song comes genuine from his heart, From that pure heart, which God has deign’d t’inspire With holy raptures, and a sacred fire. Thrice happy man! whose fou!, and guiltless breast, Are well prepar'd to lodge th' Almighty guest! 'Tis He that lends thy towering thoughts their wing, i And tunes thy lyre, when thou attempt'st to sing : He to thy foul lets-in celestial day, Ev’n whilst imprison'd in this mortal clay. By death’s grim aspect thou art not alarm’d, He, for thy fake, has death itself difarm'd; Nor Thall the grave o'er thee a victory boast ; Her triumph in thy rising fhall be lost, When thou shaly join th' angelic choirs above, In never-ending songs of praise and love.,

EUSEBIA.

To Mr. WATTS, on his Poems.

To murmuring streams, in tender strains,

,
My pensive Muse no more
Of love's enchanting force complains,

Along the flowery shore.
No more MIRTILLO's fatal face

My quiet breast alarms,
His
eyes,

his air, and youthful grace, Have loit their usual charms.

No gay Alexis in the grove

Shall be my future theme : I burn with an immortal love, And sing a purer

flame. Seraphic heights I seem to gain,

And sacred transports feel,
While, Watts, to thy celestial strain,

Surpriz'd, I listen ftill.
The gliding streams their course forbear,

When I thy lays repeat;
The bending forest lends an ear ;

The birds their notes forget.
With such a graceful harmony

Thy numbers still prolong; And let remoteft lands reply,

And echo to thy song.

Far

Far as the distant regions, where

The beauteous morning springs, And scatters odours through the air,

From her refplendent wings;

Unto the new-found realms, which see

The latter fun arise,
When, with an easy progress, he

Rolls down the nether skies.
July, 1706.

PHILOMELA.

To Mr. WATTS, on reading his Horæ Lyricæ.

a

HA

AIL, heaven-born Muse! that with celestial flame,

And high seraphic numbers, durft attempt To gain thy native skies. No common theme. Merits thy thought, felf-conscious of a foul Superior, though on earth detain'd a-while; Like some propitious angel, that's delign'd A resident in this inferior orb, To guide the wandering fouls to heavenly bliss, Thou seem'st; while thou their everlasting songs Hast sung to mortal ears, and down to earth Transferr'd the work of heaven ; with thought sublime, And high sonorous words, thou sweetly fing'st To thy immortal lyre. Amaz’d, we view The towering height stupendous, while thou foar'st Above the reach of vulgar eyes or thought, Hymning th’ Eternal Father; as of old When first th' Almighty from the dark abyss

Of everlasting night and silence call'd
The Mining worlds with one creating word,
And rais'd from nothing all the heavenly hosts,
And with external glories fill’d the void,
Harmonious Seraphs tun'd their golden harps,
And with their chearful Hallelujahs bless’d
The bounteous author of their happiness;
From orb to orb th' alternate musick rang,
And from the crystal arches of the sky
Reach'd our then glorious world, the native seat
Of the fire happy pair, who joind their songs
To the loud echo's of th' angelic choirs,
And fillid with blissful hymns, terrestrial heaven,
The paradise of God where all delights
Abounded, and the

pure

ambrosial air,
Fann'd by mild zephyrs, breath'd eternal sweets,
Forbidding death and forrow, and bestow'd
Frelli heavenly bloom, and gay immortal youth.

Not fo, alas ! the vile apottate race,
Who in mad joys their brutal hours employd,
Afaulting with their impious blasphemies
The Power supreme that give them life and breath;
Incarnate fiends ! outrageous they defy'd
Th’ Eternal's thunder, and almighty wrath
Fearless provok'd, which all the other devils
Would dread to meet; remembering well the day
When, driven from pure immortal seats above,
A fiery tempest hurld them down the skies,
And hung upon the rear, urging their fall
To the dark, deep, unfathomable gulph,

Where

Where bound on sulphurous lakes to glowing rocks
With adamantine chains, they wail their woes,
And know Jehovah great as well as good;
And fix'd for ever by eternal fate,
With horror find his arm omnipotent.

Prodigious madness! that the sacred Muse,
First taught in heaven to mount immortal heights,
And trace the boundless glories of the sky,
Should now to every idol basely bow,
And curse the deity she once arlor'd,
Erecting trophies to each sordid vice,
And celebrating the infernal praise
Of haughty Lucifer, the desperate foe
Of God and man, and winning every hour
New votaries to hell, while all the fiends
Hear these accursed lays, and, thus outdone,
Raging they try to match the human race,
Redoubling all their hellish blafphemies,
And with loud curses rend the gloomy vault.

Ungrateful mortals! ah! too late you 'll find
What 'tis to hanter heaven, and laugh at hell;
To dress-up vice in false delusive charms,
And with gay colours paint her hideous face,
Leading besotted fouls through flowery paths,
In gaudy dreams and vain fantastic joys,
To dismal scenes of everlasting woe;
When the great Judge shall rear his awful throne,
And raging flames surround the trembling globe,
While the loud thunders roar from pole to pole,
And the last trump awakes the sleeping dead;
And guilty souls to ghaftly bodies driven,

Within

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