Imatges de pàgina
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Farewell! Old Coila's hills and dales, Her healthy moors and winding vales; The scenes where wretched fancy roves, Pursuing past, unhappy loves!

Farewell, my friends! Farewell, my foes My peace with these, my love with thoseThe bursting tears my heart declare ; Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr

COWPER

THE INFIDEL AND THE CHRISTIAN.

THE path to bliss abounds with many a snare;
Learning is one, and wit, however rare.
The Frenchman, first in literary fame,

(Mention him if you please. Voltaire ?-The same.) With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied,

Lived long, wrote much, laughed heartily, and died.
The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew
Bon-mots to gall the Christian and the Jew;
An infidel in health, but what when sick?
O-then a text would touch him at the quick :
View him at Paris in his last career,
Surrounding throngs the demi-god revere ;
Exalted on his pedestal of pride,

And fumed with frankincense on every side,
He begs their flattery with his latest breath,
And smothered in't at last, is praised to death.
Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store;

Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light;
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding, and no wit,
Receives no praise; but, though her lot be such,
(Toilsome and indigent) she renders much ;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ;
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies.

O happy peasant! O unhappy bard!
His the mere tinsel, her's the rich reward;
He praised perhaps for ages yet to come,
She never heard of half a mile from home:
He lost in errors his vain heart prefers,
She safe in the simplicity of hers.

PORTRAIT OF WHITFIELD.

Leuconomus (beneath well-sounding Greek
I slur a name a poet may not speak)
Stood pilloried on Infamy's high stage,
And bore the pelting scorn of half an age;
The very butt of Slander, and the blot
For every dart that Malice ever shot.

The man that mentioned him at once dismissed
All mercy from his lips, and sneered and hissed ;
His crimes were such as Sodom never knew,
And Perjury stood up to swear all true ;

His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence,
His speech rebellion against common sense,
A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule;
And when by that of reason, a mere fool;
The world's best comfort was, his doom was pas ed;
Die when he might, he must be damned at last.
Now, Truth, perform thine office; waft asid
The curtain drawn by Prejudice and Pride,
Reveal (the man is dead) to wondering eyes
This more than monster, in his proper guise.
He loved the world that hated him: the tear
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere ;
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;

And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.

Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed,
Were copied close in him, and well transcribed.
He followed Paul; his zeal a kindred flame,
His apostolic charity the same.

Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease:
Like him he laboured, and like him content
To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went.
Blush, Calumny! and write upon his tomb,
If honest Eulogy can spare thee room,
Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies,
Which aimed at him, has pierced the offended ski
And say, Blot out my sin, confessed, deplored,
Against thine image in thy saint, O Lord!

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain That hellish foes confederate for his harm Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.

His are the mountains, and the valley his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say- My father made them all!'
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eyes they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That planned, and built, and still upholds, a world
So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?
Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good
In senseless riot; but ye will not find
In feast, or in the chace, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeached
Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,

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