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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY,

"O YE wild groves, oh, where is now your bloom!”
(The Muse interprets thus his tender thought)
Your flowers, your verdure, and your balmy gloom,
Of late so grateful in the hour of drought?

Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought
To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake?
Ah! why has fickle chance this ruin wrought?
For now the storm howls mournful through the brake,
And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeless flake.

Where now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool,
And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty crown'd?
Ah! see, the unsightly slime, and sluggish pool,
Have all the solitary vale embrowned;

Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound,
The raven croaks forlorn on naked spray:

And hark! the river, bursting every mound,
Down the vale thunders, and with wasteful sway,
Up-roots the grove, and rolls the shatter'd rocks away.

Yet such the destiny of all on earth:
So flourishes and fades majestic man.
Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth,
And fostering gales a while the nursling fan:
Oh, smile, ye heavens, serene; ye mildews wan,
Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime,
Nor lessen of his life the little span.

Borne on the swift, though silent wings of Time,
Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.

And be it so. Let those deplore their doom
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn;
But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn.

HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE.

Shall spring to these sad scenes no more return?
Is yonder wave the sun's eternal bed?
Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn,
And spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead.

"Shall I be left forgotten in the dust,
When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive?
Shall Nature's voice, to man alone unjust,
Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live?
Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive
With disappointment, penury, and pain?"
No: Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive,.
And man's majestic beauty bloom again,

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Bright through the eternal year of Love's triumphant reign

HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE.

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save,
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
Or when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads, to bewilder, and dazzles to blind;
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

O pity, great Father of light, then I cried,

Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Thee;

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free.

And darkness and doubt are now flying away,
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn,
So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love, and Mercy in triumph descending,

And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending And Beauty Immortal awakes from the tomb.

THE GOOD ALONE ARE GREAT.
WHEN winds the mountain oak assail,
And lay its glories waste,
Content may slumber in the vale,
Unconscious of the blast.

Through scenes of tumult while we roam,
The heart, alas! is ne'er at home;
It hopes in time to roam no more:
The mariner, not vainly brave,
Combats the storm, and rides the wave,
To rest at last on shore.

Ye proud, ye selfish, ye severe,
How vain your mask of state!
The good alone have joys sincere,
The good alone are great:

Great, when amid the vale of peace,
They bid the plaint of sorrow cease,
And hear the voice of artless praise;
As when along the trophied plain
Sublime they lead the victor train,
While shouting nations gaze.

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O WAR, what art thou?

After the brightest conquest, what remains

Of all thy glories? For the vanquish'd-chains-
For the proud victor-what? Alas! to reign
O'er desolated Nations-a drear waste,

HUMBLE AND UNNOTICED VIRTUE.

By one man's crime, by one man's lust of pow'r,
Unpeopled! Naked plains and ravag'd fields,
Succeed to smiling harvests and the fruits
Of peaceful olive-luscious fig and vine!
Here-rifled temples are the cavern'd dens
Of savage beasts, or haunt of birds obscene;
There-populous cities blacken in the sun,
And in the gen'ral wreck proud palaces
Lie undistinguish'd, save by the dun smoke
Of recent conflagration! When the song
Of dear-bought joy, with many a triumph swell'd,
Salutes the victor's ear, and soothes his pride,
How is the grateful harmony profan'd

With the sad dissonance of virgin's cries,

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Who mourn their brothers slain! Of matrons hoar,
Who clasp their wither'd hands, and fondly ask
With iteration shrill-their slaughter'd sons!
How is the laurel's verdure stained with blood
And soiled with widows' tears!

HUMBLE AND UNNOTICED VIRTUE.

O MY SON !

The ostentatious virtues which still press
For notice and for praise; the brilliant deeds
Which live but in the eye of observation-
These have their meed at once; but there's a joy
To the fond votaries of fame unknown,-
To hear the still small voice of conscience speak
Its whispering plaudit to the silent soul.
Heaven notes the sigh afflicted goodness heaves,
Hears the low plaint by human ear unheard,
And, from the cheek of patient sorrow, wipes
The tear, by mortal eye unseen, or scorned.

MICHAEL BRUCE.

BORN, 1746; Died, 1767.

VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS IN THE COUNTRY.

How blest the man who, in these peaceful plains,
Ploughs his paternal field; far from the noise,
The care, and bustle of a busy world!

All in the sacred, sweet, sequestered vale
Of solitude, the secret primrose-path

Of rural life, he dwells; and with him dwell
Peace and content, twins of the sylvan shade,
And all the graces of the golden age.
Such is Agricola, the wise, the good;

By nature formed for the calm retreat,

The silent path of life. Learned, but not fraught
With self importance, as the starched fool,
Who challenges respect by solemn face,
By studied accent, and high-sounding phrase.
Enamoured of the shade, but not morose,
Politeness, raised in courts by frigid rules,
With him spontaneous grows. Not books alone,
But man his study, and the better part;
To tread the ways of virtue, and to act

The various scenes of life with God's applause.
Deep in the bottom of the flowery vale,
With blooming sallows and the leafy twine
Of verdant alders fenced, his dwelling stands
Complete in rural elegance. The door,
By which the poor or pilgrim never passed,
Still open, speaks the master's bounteous heart.
There, O how sweet! amid the fragrant shrubs,
At evening cool to sit; while, on their boughs,
The nested songsters twitter o'er their young;
And the hoarse low of folded cattle breaks
The silence, wafted o'er the sleeping lake,
Whose waters glow beneath the purple tinge

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