To be resign'd when ills betide, And pleas'd with favours giv'n, Whose fragrance smells to heav'n. We'll ask no long protracted treat, But, when our feast is o'er, The relics of our store. Thus hand in hand through life we'll go, With conscious steps we'll tread; And mingle with the dead. While conscience, like a faithful friend, And cheer our dying breath ; Dr. Cotton. HYMN ON SOLITUDE. Hail, mildly-pleasing Solitude ! Oh ! how I love with thee to walk And listen to thy whisper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts. A thousand shapes you wear with ease, And still in ev'ry shape you please. Now wrapt in some mysterious dream, A lone philosopher you seein; Now quick from hill to vale you fly, And now you sweep the vaulted sky. A shepherd next, you haunt the plain, And warble forth your oaten strain. A lover now, with all the grace Of that sweet passion in your Then, calm’d to friendship, you assume The gentle-looking Hartford's bloom, As, with her Musidora, she (Her Musidora fond of thee) Amid the long-withdrawing vale Awakes the rival nightingale. face : Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Just as the dew-bent rose is born ; And while meridian fervours beat, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat : But chief, when ev’ning scenes decay, And the faint landscape swims away, Thine is the doubtful soft decline, And that best hour of musing thine. Descending angels bless thy train, Oh! let me pierce thy secret cell, Thomson. THE HUSBANDMAN'S MEDITATION IN THE FIELD. With toilsome steps when I pursue O’er breaking clods the ploughshare's way, Lord ! teach my mental eye to view My native dissoluble clay. And when with seed I strew the earth, To Thee all praises let me give, , Whose hand prepar'd me for the birth, Whose breath inform'd, and bade me live. Pleas'd, I behold the stately stem Support its bearded honour's load; Thus, Lord ! sustain'd by thee I came To manhood, through youth's dang'rous road. Purging from noxious herbs the grain, Oh! may I learn to purge my mind From sin, rank weed of deepest stain, Nor leave one baleful root behind. When blasts destroy the op’ning ear, Life, thus replete with various woe, Warns me to shun, with studious care, Pride, my most deadly latent foe. When harvest comes, the yellow crop Prone to the reaper's sickle yields ; And I beneath death's scythe must drop, And soon or late forsake these fields. When future crops, in silent hoards, Sleep for awhile, to service dead; Addison. THE POOR PILGRIM. Stop, passenger, whoe'er thou art, Compassion in thy breast may glow; And if thou canst not alms impart, From pity some relief may flow. If wayward fortune thou hast prov'd, List to my tale, and feel for me; And if thou e'er hast fondly lov'd, Let love my vindication be. An outcast from an affluent home, Where Peace her downy wings display'd, Mournful and pennyless I roam My all within this basket laid. |