RECOMMENDATORY VERSES.

On Reading Mr. WATTS's Poems, facred to Piety and Devotion.

REGARD the man who in feraphic lays,

And flowing numbers, fings his Maker's praise :: He needs invoke no fabled Mufe's art,

The heavenly fong 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! whofe foul, and guiltless breast,
Are well prepar'd to lodge th' Almighty gueft!
'Tis He that lends thy towering thoughts their wing,
And tunes thy lyre, when thou attempt's to sing :
He to thy foul lets-in celeftial day,

Ev'n whilft imprifon'd in this mortal clay.
By death's grim afpect thou art not alarm'd,
He, for thy fake, has death itfelf difarm'd
Nor shall the grave o'er thee a victory boast;
Her triumph in thy rifing shall be loft,
When thou shalt join th' angelic choirs above,
In never-ending fongs of praife and love.,

To Mr. WATTS, on his Poems.

To murmuring ftreams, in tender strains,

то

My penfive Mufe no more

Of love's enchanting force complains,
Along the flowery fhore.

No more MIRTILLO's fatal face
My quiet breaft alarms,
His eyes, his air, and youthful grace,
Have loft their ufual charms.

No gay ALEXIS in the grove
Shall be my future theme:
I burn with an immortal love,
And fing a purer flame.

Seraphic heights I feem to gain,
And facred tranfports feel,

While, WATTS, to thy celeftial ftrain,

Surpriz'd, I liften ftill.

The gliding ftreams their courfe forbear,
When I thy lays repeat;

The bending forest lends an ear;
The birds their notes forget.

With fuch a graceful harmony
Thy numbers ftill prolong;
And let remoteft lands reply,

And echo to thy fong.

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 fee

The latter fun arife,

When, with an easy progrefs, he

Rolls down the nether fkies.

July, 1706.

PHILOMELA.

To Mr. WATTS, on reading his Hora Lyricæ.

H

AIL, heaven-born Mufe! that with celeftial flame,
And high feraphic numbers, durft attempt
To gain thy native fkies. No common theme.
Merits thy thought, felf-confcious of a foul
Superior, though on earth detain'd a-while;
Like fome propitious angel, that's defign'd
A refident in this inferior orb,

To guide the wandering fouls to heavenly blifs,
Thou feem'ft; while thou their everlasting fongs
Haft fung to mortal ears, and down to earth
Transferr'd the work of heaven; with thought fublime,
And high fonorous words, thou fweetly fing'ft
To thy immortal lyre. Amaz'd, we view
The towering height ftupendous, while thou foar'st
Above the reach of vulgar eyes or thought,
Hymning th' Eternal Father; as of old
When firft th' Almighty from the dark abyfs

Of everlasting night and filence call'd
The fhining 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 blefs'd
The bounteous author of their happiness;
From orb to orb th' alternate mufick rang,
And from the crystal arches of the sky
Reach'd our then glorious world, the native feat
Of the first happy pair, who join'd their fongs
To the loud echo's of th' angelic choirs,
And fill'd with blissful hymns, terrestrial heaven,
The paradife of God where all delights
Abounded, and the pure ambrofial air,

Fann'd by mild zephyrs, breath'd eternal fweets,
Forbidding death and forrow, and bestow'd
Fresh heavenly bloom, and gay immortal youth.
Not fo, alas! the vile apoftate race,

Who in mad joys their brutal hours employ'd,
Affaulting with their impious blafphcmies
The Power fupreme that gave 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 feats above,
A fiery tempeft hurl'd them down the skies,
And hung upon the rear, urging their fall
To the dark, deep, unfathomable gulph,

Where

Where bound on fulphurous 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 madnefs! that the facred Mufe,
First taught in heaven to mount immortal heights,
And trace the boundlefs glories of the sky,
Should now to every idol bafely bow,
And curfe the deity fhe once ador'd,
Erecting trophies to each fordid vice,
And celebrating the infernal praise
Of haughty Lucifer, the defperate foe
Of God and man, and winning every hour
New votaries to hell, while all the fiends
Hear thefe accurfed lays, and, thus outdone,
Raging they try to match the human race,
Redoubling all their hellish blafphemies,
And with loud curfes rend the gloomy vault.
Ungrateful mortals! ah! too late you'll find
What 'tis to banter heaven, and laugh at hell;
To drefs-up
vice in falfe delufive charms,
And with gay colours paint her hideous face,
Leading befotted fouls through flowery paths,
In gaudy dreams and vain fantastic joys,
To difmal fcenes of everlafting woe;

When the great Judge fhall rear his awful throne,
And raging flames furround the trembling globe,
While the loud thunders roar from pole to pole,
And the laft trump awakes the fleeping dead;
And guilty fouls to ghaftly bodies driven,