PART XI.

MORAL AND DIDACTIC POETRY.

MORAL AND
AND DIDACTIC POETRY.

LIFE.

LIFE.

Less than a span:

THE World's a bubble, and the Life of Man LIFE! I know not what thou art,
In his conception wretched, from the womb, And when, or how, or where we met
But know that thou and I must part;
I own to me's a secret yet.

So to the tomb;

Curst from his cradle, and brought up to

years

With cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest,
What life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools
To dandle fools:

The rural parts are turn'd into a den
Of savage men:

And where's a city from foul vice so free,
But may be term'd the worst of all the
three?

I MOURN no more my vanish'd years:
Beneath a tender rain,

An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

The west winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.

I break my pilgrim staff,—I lay
Aside the toiling oar ;

"He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down."Job xiv. 2.

How short a span

Was long enough of old

To measure out the life of man;. In those well-temper'd days! his time was then

Survey'd, cast up, and found but threescore years and ten.

And what is that?

They come, and slide, and pass,
Before

my pen can tell thee what.