These shall the fury Passions tear, And Shame that sculks behind; Ambition this shall tempt to rise, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try Lo, in the Vale of Years beneath The painful family of Death, More hideous than their Queen : This racks the joints, this fires the veins, To each his sufferings: all are men, The tender for another's pain, Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies? Thought would destroy their paradise! T. Gray CLIX HYMN TO ADVERSITY Daughter of Jove, relentless power, With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. When first thy Sire to send on earth What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer Friend, the flattering Foe; By vain Prosperity received To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. Wisdom in sable garb array'd Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye, that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the general friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. O, gently on thy suppliant's head Dread Goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Not circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen) With thundering voice, and threatening mien, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear, To soften, not to wound my heart. What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. T. Gray CLX THE SOLITUDE OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK I am monarch of all I survey; I am out of humanity's reach, Society, Friendship, and Love 166 My sorrows I then might assuage Ye winds that have made me your sport, How fleet is a glance of the mind! And the swift-winged arrows of light. But the seatowl is gone to her nest, And reconciles man to his lot. W. Cowper CLXI TO MARY UNWIN Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things, That ere through age or woe I shed my wings CLXII TO THE SAME The twentieth year is well nigh past Thy spirits have a fainter flow, Thy needles, once a shining store, For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil Thy sight now seconds not thy will But well thou play'dst the housewife's part, Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary! M |