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For O! eternity's too short

To utter all thy praise.

SECTION VII.

ADDISON

A MAN PERISHING IN THE SNOW FROM WHENCE REFLECTIONS

ARE RAISED OF THE MISERIES OF LIFE.

1. As thus the snows arise; and foul and fierce
All winter drives along the darken'd air;
In his own loose revolving field, the swain
Disaster'd 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 vigour forth
In many a vain attempt.-

2.

How sinks his soul !
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
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 ev'ry tempest howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
3. Then throngs the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,

A dire aescent, beyond the pow'r of frost!
Of faithless bogs of precipices huge,

Smooth'd 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. 4. These check his fearless 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. 5. 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 mingled storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold;
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On ev'ry nerve
The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast.
6. Ah, little think the gay licentious proud,

Whom pleasure, pow'r,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!
7. 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
many shake

Of cheerless poverty! How

With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,

Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse! 8 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! Thought fond man Of these and all the thousand namless ills, That one incessant struggle render life, One scene of toil, of suffering and of fate, Vice in his high career would stand appall'd, And heedless rambling impulse learn to think; The conscious heart of charity would warm, And her wide wish benevolence dilate; The social tear would rise, the social sigh; And into clear perfection, gradual bliss, Refining still the social passions work.

THOMSON.

SECTION VIII-A MORNING HYMN. 1. THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wond'rous fair; thyself how wond'rous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heav'ns,
To us, invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lower works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine.
2. Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing: ye, in heaven,
On earth, join all ye creatures to extol

Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end. 3. Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thou fall'st.
4. Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st
With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wand'ring fires that move
In mystic dance, not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light.
Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth

Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix

And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great MAKER still new praise.
5. Ye mists and exhalations that now rise
From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great AUTHOR rise!
Whether to deck with clouds th' uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling show'rs,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.

6. His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines
With ev'ry plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls; ye birds
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,

Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.

7. Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,

To hill, or valley, fountain, or fresh shade
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, UNIVERSAL LORD! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Has gather'd aught of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it as now light dispels the dark.

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CHAPTER VI.

PROMISCUOUS PIECES.

::::::

SECTION I.- -ODE TO CONTENT.
THOU, the nymph with placid eye!
O seldom found, yet ever nigh!
Receive my temp'rate vow;

Not all the storms that shake the pole
Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul,
And smooth, unalter'd brow.

2. O come, in simplest vest array'd,
With all thy sober cheer display'd,
To bless my longing sight;

Thy mein compos'd, thy even pace,
Thy meek regard, thy matron grace,
And chaste subdu'd delight.

3. No more by varying passions heat,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit-ċell;
Where in some pure and equal sky,
Beneath thy soft indulgent eye,

The modest virtues dwell.

4. Simplicity in attic vest,

And Innocence, with candid breast,
And clear undaunted eye;

And Hope, who points to distant vears,
Fair op'ning through this vale of tears

A vista to the sky.

MILTON.

5. There Health, through whose calm bosom glide The temp❜rate joys in even tide,

That rarely ebb or flow;

And Patience there thy sister meek,
Presents her mild, unvarying cheek,
To meet the offer'd blow.

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6. Her influence taught the Phrygian sage
A tyrant master's wanton rage,

With settled smiles, to meet :
Inur'd to toil and bitter bread,
He bow'd his meek submitted head,
And kiss'd thy sainted feet.

7. But thou, O nymph, retir'd and coy!
In what brown hamlet dost thou joy
To tell thy tender tale ?

The lowliest children of the ground,
Moss-rose and violet blossom round,
And lilly of the vale.

8. O say what soft propitious hour
I best may choose to hail thy power,
And court thy gentle sway!
When autumn, friendly to the muse,
Shall thy own modest tints diffuse,
And shed thy milder day?

9. When Eve, her dewy star beneath,
Thy balmy spirit loves to breathe,
And ev'ry storm is laid?

If such an hour was e'er thy choice,
Oft let me hear thy soothing voice,
Low whisp'ring through the shade.
SECTION II.

BARBAULD.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE PHILOSOPHER.

1. REMOTE from cities liv'd a swain,
Unvexed with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver'd o'er with age,
And long experience made him sage;
In summer's heat and winter's cold,
He fed his flock and penn'd the fold ·
His hours in cheerful labour flew,
Nor envy, nor ambition knew,
His wisdom and his honest fame
Through all the country raised his name.
2. A deep philosopher (whose rules

Of moral life were drawn from schools)
The shepherd's homely cottage sought,
And thus explor'd his reach of thought.
"Whence is thy learning? hath thy toil
O'er books consum'd the midnight oil?
Hast thou old Greece and Rome survey'd,
And the vast sense of Plato weigh'd?
Hath Socrates thy soul refin'd,

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