Yet as the dark and muddy tide,
When far from its polluted source,
Becomes more pure, and purified,

Flows in a clear and happy course;
In thee, dear infant! so may end

Our shame, in thee our sorrows cease! And thy pure course will then extend,

In floods of joy, o'er vales of peace. O! by the God who loves to spare,

Deny me not the boon I crave : Let this loved child your mercy share, And let me find a peaceful grave; Make her yet spotless soul your care,

And let my sins their portion have; Her for a better fate prepare,

And punish whom 't were sin to save!

MAGISTRATE.

Recall the word, renounce the thought,

Command thy heart and bend thy knee; There is to all a pardon brought,

A ransom rich, assured, and free; "T is full when found, 't is found if sought; O! seek it, till 't is sealed to thee.

VAGRANT.

But how my pardon shall I know?

MAGISTRATE.

By feeling dread that 't is not sent,
By tears for sin that freely flow,
By grief, that all thy tears are spent ;
By thoughts on that great debt we owe,
With all the mercy God has lent ;

By suffering what thou canst not show, Yet showing how thine heart is rent,

Till thou canst feel thy bosom glow, And say, 'My Saviour, I repent!'

WHEN first, in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue The tuneful anthem filled the morning air, To sacred hymnings and elysian song His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke. Devotion breathed aloud from every chord :— The voice of praise was heard in every tone, And prayer, and thanks to Him, the Eternal One, To Him, that with bright inspiration touched The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song, And warmed the soul with new vitality. A stirring energy through nature breathed: The voice of adoration from her broke, Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard Long in the sullen waterfall, what time Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth

Its bloom or blighting, when the Summer smiled,
Or Winter o'er the year's sepulchre mourned.
The Deity was there! - a nameless spirit
Moved in the hearts of men to do Him homage;
And when the morning smiled, or evening pale
Hung weeping o'er the melancholy urn,
They came beneath the broad o'erarching trees,
And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft,
Where the pale vine clung round their simple altars,
And gray moss mantling hung. Above was heard
The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees
Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty,
And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,
The bright and widely wandering rivulet
Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots,
That choked its reedy fountain and dark rocks
Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there
The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice
Where reeds grew rank upon the rushy brink,

And to the wandering wind the green sedge bent,
Sang a sweet song of fixed tranquillity.
Men felt the heavenly influence- and it stole
Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace;
And even the air they breathed - the light they
Became religion; — for the ethereal spirit, [saw-
That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,
And mellows everything to beauty, moved
With cheering energy within their breasts,
And made all holy there for all was love.
The morning stars, that sweetly sang together—
The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky-
Dayspring-
-and eventide - and all the fair
And beautiful forms of Nature, had a voice
Of eloquent worship. Ocean with its tides
Swelling and deep, where low the infant storm
Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat
The pulses of the sea, sent forth a voice
Of awful adoration to the spirit,

That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.
And when the bow of evening arched the cast,
Or, in the moonlight pale, the gentle wave
Kissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach,
And the wild song of winds came o'er the waters,
The mingled melody of wind and wave
Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear;
For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.

And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earth
No pure reflections caught from heavenly love?
Have our mute lips no hymn
our souls no song?
Let him, that in the summer-day of youth
Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,-

And him, that in the nightfall of his years
Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace
His weary eyes on life's short wayfaring,
Praise Him that rules the destiny of man.

THOMSON'S "WINTER."

The subject proposed

ARGUMENT.

Address to the Earl of Wilmington. First approach of Winter. According to the natural course of the season, various storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the snows; a man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves descending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter evening described; as spent by philosophers; by the country people; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the polar circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a future state.

WINTER; ITS HORRORS.- SNOW.

[theme,

SEE, Winter comes, to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train, Vapors, and clouds, and storms. Be these my These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought, And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot, Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nursed by careless Solitude I lived, And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleased have I wandered through your rough doTrod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure; Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;

[main;

Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brewed
In the grim evening sky. Thus passed the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Looked out the joyous Spring, looked out, and smiled.

COMPLIMENTS TO THE EARL OF WILMINGTON.

To thee, the patron of her first essay, The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song. Since has she rounded the revolving year : Skimmed the gay Spring; on eagle pinions borne, Attempted through the Summer blaze to rise; Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale; And now among the Wintry clouds again, Rolled in the doubling storm, she tries to soar ; To swell her note with all the rushing winds; To suit her sounding cadence to the floods; As is her theme, her numbers wildly great: Thrice happy could she fill thy judging ear With bold description, and with manly thought. Nor art thou skilled in awful schemes alone, And how to make a mighty people thrive; But equal goodness, sound integrity, A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul Amid a sliding age, and burning strong, Not vainly blazing, for thy country's weal,

A steady spirit regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what Envy dares not flattery call.

SUNLIGHT IN DECEMBER. THE DISMAL DAY DECLINING INTO
NIGHT.

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields, And fierce Aquarius stains th' inverted year; Hung o'er the furthest verge of heaven, the sun Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot His struggling rays, in horizontal lines, Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm, Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky; And, soon descending, to the long dark night, Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns. Nor is the night unwished; while vital heat, Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake. Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast, Deep-tinged and damp, and congregated clouds, And all the vapory turbulence of heaven, Involve the face of things.

THE MELANCHOLY OF WINTER. DISCONSOLATE LOOK OF
CATTLE. SOUNDS PORTENDING A WINTER STORM.
Thus Winter falls,

A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Through Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrowed land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun discolored flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear.

A WINTER RAIN-STORM; THE PLAIN DELUGED; EFFECTS ON
CATTLE; POULTRY; THE COTTAGER HOUSED.
Then comes the father of the tempest forth,
Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure
Drive through the mingling skies with vapor foul;
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods,
That grumbling wave below. Th' unsightly plain
Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet, unexhausted, still
Combine, and, deepening into night, shut up
The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven,
Each to his home, retire; save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from th' untasted fields return,
And ask, with moaning low, their wonted stalls,
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither the household feathery people crowd,

The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage hind
Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there
Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks,
And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows
Without, and rattles on his humble roof.

THE RIVER SWOLLEN BY THE WINTER RAINS. — THE FRESHET.

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled, And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread, At last the roused-up river pours along : Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far; Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrained Between two meeting hills, it bursts away, Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream; There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep, It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

APOSTROPHE TO THE GRANDEURS OF NATURE; WINDS.

Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majestic, are thy works!
With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul,
That sees astonished, and astonished sings!
Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow
With boisterous sweep, raise my voice to you.
Where are your stores, ye powerful beings! say,
Where your aerial magazines reserved,

To swell the brooding terrors of the storm?
In what far-distant region of the sky,
Hushed in deep silence, sleep ye when 't is calm?

THE WINTER TEMPEST. SIGNS OF ITS APPROACH; SUN;
CLOUDS; STARS; WIND; HEIFER; TAPER.

When from the pallid sky the sun descends, With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stained; red fiery streaks Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Which master to obey; while rising slow, Blank in the leaden-colored east, the moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Seen through the turbid fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shivered ray; Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom, And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. Snatched in short eddies, plays the withered leaf; And on the flood the dancing feather floats. With broadened nostrils to the sky upturned, The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale. E'en as the matron, at her nightly task, With pensive labor draws the flaxen thread, The wasted taper and the crackling flame Foretell the blast.

SIGNS OF A COMING TEMPEST AMONG THE BIRDS. ROOKS ; OWL CORMORANT; HERN; SEA-FOWL. SIGNS FROM THE SEA-SHORE.

But chief the plumy race, The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.

Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train
Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight,
And seek the closing shelter of the grove.
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land.
Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal pressed, with broken tide
And blind commotion heaves; while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,
And forest-rustling mountain, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.

THE WINTER TEMPEST ON THE OCEAN. THE BALTIC.-
SHIPWRECK.

Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, And hurls the whole precipitated air Down in a torrent. On the passive main Descends th' ethereal force, and with strong gust Turns from its bottom the discolored deep. Through the black night that sits immense around, Lashed into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn : Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds In dreadful tumult swelled, surge above surge, Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, And anchored navies from their stations drive, Wild as the winds, across the howling waste Of mighty waters: now th' inflated wave Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot Into the secret chambers of the deep, The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head. Emerging thence again, before the breath Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course, And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock, Or shoal insidious, break not their career, And in loose fragments fling them floating round.

THE WINTER TEMPEST ON LAND. ITS EFFECT ON TREES, ETC. THE SUCCEEDING CALM.

Nor less on land the loosened tempest reigns.
The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade.
Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast,
The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils,
And, often falling, climbs against the blast.
Low waves the rooted forest, vexed, and sheds
What of its tarnished honors yet remain ;
Dashed down, and scattered, by the tearing wind's
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.

Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatched, or lordly roof,
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.
Then too, they say, through all the burdened air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant
sighs,

That, uttered by the Demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.
Huge Uproar lords it wide. The clouds commixed
With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky.
All Nature reels. Till Nature's King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm;
Then straight air, sea, and earth, are hushed at once.

WINTER-MIDNIGHT.CONTEMPLATION.

As yet 't is midnight deep. The weary clouds, Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom. Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, Let me associate with the serious Night, And Contemplation, her sedate compeer; Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day, And lay the meddling senses all aside.

VANITY OF HUMAN PURSUITS.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life! Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train! Where are you now? and what is your amount? Vexation, disappointment, and remorse. Sad, sickening thought! and yet deluded man, A scene of crude disjointed visions passed, And broken slumbers, rises still resolved, With new-flushed hopes, to run the giddy round.

PRAYER FOR VIRTUE.

Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit! and feed my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!

THE SNOW-STORM. THE FIELDS; THE OX; BIRDS.

The keener tempests rise and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed; Heavy they roll their fleecy world along, And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower

descends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them.

THE ROBIN RED-BREAST IN A SNOW-STORM; THE HARE;

SHEEP.

One alone,

The red-breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is :
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. -The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

CARE OF FLOCKS IN WINTER.

Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind, Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens With food at will; lodge them below the storm, And watch them strict; for from the bellowing east, In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, Hid in the hollow of two neighboring hills, The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward urged, The valley to a shining mountain swells, Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky.

THE WAYFARER LOST IN THE SNOW.HIS WRETCHED FATE; HOME WIFE; CHILDREN; FRIENDS.

As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,
All Winter drives along the darkened air;
In his own loose-revolving fields the swain
Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of
home

Rush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and blest abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.

Then throng the busy shapes into his mind
Of covered pits unfathomably deep,

A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;

Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,

Smoothed up with snow; and what is land unknown, What water of the still unfrozen spring,

In the loose marsh or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks,
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death;
Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm ;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold;
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse,
Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast.

INDIFFERENCE OF PLEASURE-SEEKERS TO HUMAN MISERY.-
VARIOUS FORMS OF WRETCHEDNESS NOTED.

Ah! little think the gay licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain.

How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed,
By shameful variance betwixt man and man.
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms;
Shut from the common air and common use
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse ;
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the tragic Muse;
E'en in the vale where Wisdom loves to dwell,
With Friendship, Peace, and Contemplation joined,
How many, racked with honest passions, droop
In deep retired distress. How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish.

GOOD EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY.

Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,