Thus to life, what favouring dream
Bids you to happier hours awake,
And tells that, dancing in the beam,
The light gnat hovers o'er the stream,
The Mayfly on the lake.
Or if, by instinct taught to know,
Approaching dearth of insect food,
To isles and willowy aits you go,
And, crowding on the pliant bough,
Sink in the dimpling flood,
How learn ye, while the cold waves boom
Your deep and oozy couch above,
The time when flowers of promise bloom,
And call you from your transient tomb,
To light and life and love?
Alas! how little can be known
Her sacred veil where Nature draws!
Let baffled Science humbly own,
Her mysteries understood alone
By Him who gives her laws.
RELIGION.
A Simile.
I'm often drawn to make a stop,
And gaze upon a picture shop.
There have I seen (as who that tarries
Has not the same) a head that varies;
And, as in different views exposed,
A different figure is disclosed.
This way a fool's head is express'd,
Whose very countenance is a jest;
Such as were formerly at court,
Kept to make wiser people sport.
Turn it another way, you'll have
A face ridiculously grave,
Something betwixt the fool and knave.
Again but alter the position,
You're frighted with the apparition:
A hideous threatening Gorgon head
Appears, enough to fright the dead;
But place it in its proper light,
A lovely face accosts the sight;
Our eyes are charm'd with every feature, We own the whole a beauteous creature. For when
Thus true religion fares.
By silly or designing men
In false or foolish lights 'tis placed,
'Tis made a bugbear or a jest.
Here, by a set of men, 'tis thought
A scheme, by politicians wrought,
To strengthen and enforce the law,
And keep the vulgar more in awe:
And these, to show sublimer parts,
Cast all religion from their hearts;
Brand all its votaries as the tools
Of priests and politician's fools.
Some view it in another light,
Less wicked, but as foolish quite :
And these are such as blindly place it
In superstitions that disgrace it;
And think the essence of it lies
In ceremonious fooleries;
In points of faith and speculation,
Which tend to nothing but vexation.
With these it is a heinous crime
To cough or spit in sermon time:
"Tis worse to whistle on a Sunday
Than cheat their neighbours on a Monday:
To dine without first saying grace is
Enough in heaven to lose their places;
But goodness, honesty, and virtue
Are what they've not the least regard to.
Others there are, and not a few,
Who place it in the bugbear view;
Think it consists in strange severities;
In fastings, weepings, and austerities.
False noticns their weak minds possess
Of faith and grace and holiness:
And as the Lord's of purer eyes
Than to behold iniquities,
They think, unless they're pure and spotless,
All their endeavours will be bootless;
And dreadful furies in æternum,
In unconsuming fires will burn them.
But O, how happy are the few
Who place it in its proper view!
To these it shines divinely bright,
No clouds obscure its native light;
Truth stamps conviction in the mind,
All doubts and fears are left behind,
And peace and joy at once an entrance find.
O LORD, my best desires fulfil,
And help me to resign
Life, health, and comfort to thy will,
And make thy pleasure mine.
Why should I shrink at thy command,
Whose love forbids my fears?
Or tremble at the gracious hand
That wipes away my tears?
No, let me rather freely yield
What most I prize to Thee;
Who never hast a good withheld,
Or wilt withhold from me.
Thy favour all my journey through
Thou art engaged to grant;
What else I want, or think I do,
'Tis better still to want.
Wisdom and mercy guide my way,
Shall I resist them both?
A poor blind creature of a day,
And crushed before the moth!
But ah! my inward spirit cries,
Still bind me to thy sway;
Else the next cloud that veils my skies
Drives all these thoughts away.
THE FUTURE EXISTENCE OF BRUTES.
THE CHARACTER OF THE DOG FROM BUFFON.
'THE beasts that perish.'-Those few words are shown
On the dread pages of Inspired Record,
By man, proud man, as he were doom'd alone
To meet for guiltless pain supreme reward.
Yet knows he well, that on the Leaves Divine
Oft from the seeming sense we must refrain;
And, lest warm hope consistency resign,
The letter wave, the spirit to obtain.
For brutal life, while reasoning we explore
The text misconstrued much, it but declares
That man's free thoughts and deeds import him
Since this his state of trial is not theirs,
To earthly life he perishes;-but here
The vast momentous difference is implied,
He perishes accountable, aware
That choice was given, and reason for its guide.
I mark the tones of Arrogance exclaim,
Since they are form'd incapable of sin,
Of innocence instinctive where's the claim?
It well may be as it had never been.'
True, if permitted ills did ne'er oppress,
If certain as their innocence, their peace,
With the short date of being brutes possess,
Heaven might ordain their consciousness should
|