Benevolence.-Providence.

143

BENEVOLENCE.

FROM the low prayer of want and plaint of woe, O never, never turn away thine ear !

Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,

Ah! what were man, fhould Heaven refuse to hear!

To others do (the law is not fevere)

What to thyself thou wishest to be done. Forgive thy foes; and love thy parents dear, And friends, and native land: nor thofe alone; All human weal.and woe' learn thou to make

thine own.

BEATTIE.

PROVIDENCE.

THE holy power that clothes the senseless earth With woods, with fruits, with flowers, and ver

dant grafs,

Whofe bounteous hand feeds the whole brute

creation,

Knows all our wants, and has enough to give us.

ROWE.

144

Gratitude. True Virtue.

GRATITUDE.

WHAT is grandeur? what is power?
Heavier toil, fuperior pain.

What the bright reward we gain?
The grateful memory of the good.
Sweet is the breath of vernal show'r,
The bee's collected treasure sweet,

Sweet mufic's melting fall,—but sweeter yet

The still small voice of gratitude.

GRAY.

TRUE VIRTUE.

GREAT minds, like heav'n, are pleas'd with doing good,

Tho' the ungrateful subjects of their favours

Are barren in return.

Virtue does ftill

With fcorn the mercenary world regard, Where abject fouls do good, and hope reward. Above the worthless trophies men can raise, She feeks nor honours, wealth, nor airy praise, But with herself, herself the goddess pays.

4

ROWE.

LET univerfal candour still,

Clear as yon heav'n-reflecting rill,
Preserve my open mind;

Nor this nor that man's crooked ways
One fordid doubt within me raise
To injure human-kind.

145

AKENSIDE.

FORTITUDE.

THE gen'rous mind is by its fuff'rings known,
Which no affliction tramples down,

But when opprefs'd will upward move,
Spurn its own clog of cares, and foar above.
Though ills affault thy breast on ev'ry side,
Yet bravely stem th' impetuous tide;
No tributary tears to fortune pay,
Nor add to any lofs a nobler day;
But with kind hopes fupport thy mind,
And think thy better lot behind :

Amidft afflictions. let thy foul be great,
And fhow thou dar'ft deferve a better fate.

YALDEN.

"WITH blue cold nofe and wrinkled brow,

Traveller, whence comeft thou?

From Lapland woods and hills of frost

By the rapid rein-deer croft;

Where tap'ring grows the gloomy fir,

And the ftunted juniper;

Where the wild hare and the crow

Whiten in furrounding fnow;

Where the fhiv'ring huntsmen tear

His fur coat from the grim white bears
Where the wolf and arctic fox

Prowl among the lonely rocks;

And tardy funs to deferts drear
Give days and nights of half a year.
From icy oceans, where the whale
Toiles in foam his lafhing tail;
Where the fnorting fea-horse shows
His ivory teeth in grinning rows;
Where tumbling in their feal-skin boat
Fearless the hungry fishers float,
And from teeming feas fupply
The food their niggard plains deny.

ORIGINAL.

Saow.-Midnight.

147

SNOW.

A SHOWER of foft and fleecy rain
Falls, to new-clothe the earth again:
Behold the mountain-tops around,
As if with fur of ermine crown'd:
And lo! how, by degrees,

The univerfal mantle hides the trees,
In hoary flakes, which downward fly,
As if it were the autumn of the sky,
Whofe fall of leaf would theirs fupply.
Trembling the groves sustain the weight, and bow
Like aged limbs, which feebly go,
Beneath a venerable head of fnow.

CONGREVE.

MIDNIGHT.

Now all is hufh'd, as nature were retir'd,
And the perpetual motion standing still;
So much the from her work appears to cease,
And every jarring element 's at peace :
All the wild herds are in their coverts couch'd ;
The fishes to their banks or ooze repair'd,