A CONTEMPLATION ON NIGHT.

WHETHER amid the gloom of night I stray,
Or my glad eyes enjoy revolving day,
Still nature's various face informs my sense
Of an all-wise, all-powerful Providence.

When the gay Sun first breaks the shades of night,
And strikes the distant eastern hills with light,
Colour returns, the plains their livery wear,
And a bright verdure clothes the smiling year;
The blooming flowers with opening beauties glow,
And grazing flocks their milky fleeces show;
The barren cliffs with chalky fronts arise,
And a pure azure arches o'er the skies.
But when the gloomy reign of Night returns,
Stript of her fading pride, all Nature mourns:
The trees no more their wonted verdure boast,
But weep in dewy tears their beauty lost:
No distant landscapes draw our curious eyes,
Wrapt in Night's robe the whole creation lies:
Yet still, ev'n now, while darkness clothes the land,
We view the traces of th' Almighty hand;
Millions of stars in Heaven's wide vault appear,
And with new glories hang the boundless sphere:
The silver Moon her western couch forsakes,
And o'er the skies her nightly circle makes;
Her solid globe beats back the sunny rays,
And to the world her borrow'd light repays.

Whether those stars that twinkling lustre send Are suns, and rolling worlds those suns attend, Man may conjecture, and new schemes declare, Yet all his systems but conjectures are;

But this we know, that Heaven's eternal King,
Who bade this universe from nothing spring,

Can at his word bid numerous worlds appear,
And rising worlds th' all-powerful word shall hear,
When to the western main the Sun descends,
To other lands a rising day he lends :
The spreading dawn another shepherd spies,
The wakeful flocks from their warm folds arise
Refresh'd, the peasant seeks his early toil,
And bids the plough correet the fallow soil.
While we in Sleep's embraces waste the night,
The climes oppos'd enjoy meridian light;
And when these lands the busy Sun forsakes,
With us again the rosy Morning wakes:
In lazy sleep the night rolls swift away,
And neither clime laments his absent ray.
When the pure soul is from the body flown,
No more shall Night's alternate reign be known;
The Sun no more shall rolling light bestow,
But from th' Almighty streams of glory flow.
Oh! may some nobler thought my soul employ,
Than empty, transient, sublunary joy :
The stars shall drop, the Sun shall lose his flame,
But thou, O God! for ever shine the same.
Gay.

A THOUGHT ON ETERNITY.

ERE the foundations of the world were laid,
Ere kindling light the Almighty word obey'd,
Thou wert; and when the subterraneous flame
Shall burst its prison, and devour this frame,
From angry Heaven when the keen lightning flies,
When fervent heat dissolves the melting skies,
Thou still shalt be; still as thou wert before,
And know no change, when time shall be no more.

O endless thought! divine Eternity!

Th' immortal soul shares but a part of thee;
For thou wert present when our life began,
When the warm dust shot up in breathing man.
Ah! what is life? with ills encompass'd round;
Amidst our hopes Fate strikes the sudden wound:
To-day the statesman of new honour dreams,
To-morrow death destroys his airy schemes.
Is mouldy treasure in thy chest confin'd?
Think all that treasure thou must leave behind;
Thy heir with smiles shall view thy blazon'd hearse,
And all thy hoards with lavish hand disperse.
Should certain Fate th' impending blow delay,
Thy mirth will sicken, and thy bloom decay;
Then feeble age will all thy nerves disarm,
No more thy blood its narrow channels warm.
Who then would wish to stretch this narrow span,
To suffer life beyond the date of man?

The virtuous soul pursues a nobler aim,
And life regards but as a fleeting dream:
She longs to wake, and wishes to get free,
To launch from earth into eternity:

For while the boundless theme extends our thought, Ten thousand thousand rolling years are nought. Gay.

DEATH.

FRIEND to the wretch, whom every friend forsakes,
I woo thee, Death! In fancy's fairy paths
Let the gay songster rove, and gently trill
The strain of empty joy.-Life and its joys
I leave to those that prize them.-At this hour,
This solemn hour, when silence rules the world,

And wearied nature makes a general pause!
Wrapt in night's sable robe, through cloisters drear,
And charnels pale, tenanted by a throng
Of meagre phantoms shooting cross my path
With silent glance, I seek the shadowy vale
Of Death!-Deep in a murky cave's recess,
Lav'd by Oblivion's listless stream, and fenc'd
By shelving rocks, and intermingled horrors
Of yew' and cypress' shade, from all intrusion
Of busy noontide beam, the monarch sits
In unsubstantial majesty enthron'd.
At his right hand, nearest himself in place,
And frightfulness of form, his parent, Sin,
With fatal industry and cruel care,
Busies herself in pointing all his stings,
And tipping every shaft with venom drawn
From her infernal store; around him rang'd
In terrible array, and strange diversity
Of uncouth shapes, stand his dread ministers.
Foremost Old Age, his natural ally

And firmest friend: next him, diseases thick,
A motley train; Fever with cheek of fire;
Consumption wan; Palsy, half warm with life,
And half a clay-clod lump; joint-torturing Gout,
And ever-gnawing Rheum; Convulsion wild;
Swoln Dropsy; panting Asthma; Apoplex
Full-gorg'd. There too the Pestilence that walks
In darkness, and the Sickness that destroys
At broad noon-day. These, and a thousand more,
Horrid to tell, attentive wait; and, when

By Heaven's command, Death waves his ebon wand,
Sudden rush forth to execute his purpose,

And scatter desolation o'er the earth.

Ill-fated man, for whom such various forms

Of misery wait, and mark their future

prey! Ah! why, All-righteous Father, didst thou make This creature, man? Why wake th' unconscious

dust

To life and wretchedness? O better far
Still had he slept in uncreated night,
If this the lot of being!-Was it for this
Thy breath divine kindled within his breast
The vital flame? For this was thy fair image
Stamp'd on his soul in godlike lineaments?
For this dominion given him absolute

O'er all thy creatures, only that he might reign
Supreme in wo? From the bless'd source of good
Could Pain and Death proceed? Could such foul ill
Fall from fair Mercy's hands? Far be the thought,
The impious thought! God never made a creature
But what was good. He made a living man:
The man of death was made by man himself.
Forth from his Maker's hands he
sprung
to life,
Fresh with immortal bloom; no pain he knew,
No fear of death, no check to his desires,

Save one command. That one command, (which stood

"Twixt him and ruin, the test of his obedience,) Urg'd on by wanton curiosity

He broke. There in one moment was undone The fairest of God's works. The same rash hand That pluck'd in evil hour the fatal fruit,

Unbarr'd the gates of Hell, and let loose Sin

And Death, and all the family of Pain,

To prey upon mankind. Young Nature saw
The monstrous crew, and shook through all her

frame.

Then fled her new-born lustre, then began