'Tis time, however, if the cafe ftands thus,
For us plain folks, and all who fide with us,
To build our altar, confident and bold,
And fay as ftern Elijah faid of old,

The ftrife now ftands upon a fair award,
If Ifrael's Lord be God, then serve the Lord:
If he be filent, faith is all a whim,

Then Baal is the God, and worship him.
Digreffion is fo much in modern use,
Thought is so rare, and fancy so profuse,
Some never feem fo wide of their intent,
As when returning to the theme they meant;
As mendicants, whose business is to roam,
Make every parish but their own their home.
Though fuch continual zigzags in a book,
Such drunken reelings have an awkward look,
And I had rather creep to what is true,
Than rove and stagger with no mark in view;
Yet to confult a little, feemed no crime,
The freakish humour of the present time:
But now to gather up what fecms difperfed,
And touch the fubject I defigned at firft,
May prove, though much befide the rules of art,
Beft for the public, and my wifeft part.

And firft, let no man charge me that I mean
To close in fable every focial scene,

And give good company a face severe,
As if they met around a father's bier;

For tell fome men, that pleasure all their bent,
And laughter all their work, is life mifpent,
Their wisdom burfts into this fage reply,

Then mirth is fin, and we should always cry.
To find the medium asks fome share of wit,
And therefore 'tis a mark fools never hit.
But though life's valley be a vale of tears,
A brighter fcene beyond that vale appears,
Whofe glory with a light, that never fades,
Shoots between scattered rocks and opening shades,
And, while it shows the land the foul defires,
The language of the land the feeks infpires.
Thus touched the tongue receives a facred cure
Of all that was abfurd, profane, impure;
Held within modest bounds the tide of speech
Pursues the course, that truth and nature teach;
No longer labours merely to produce
The pomp of found, or tinkle without use:
Wherever it winds, the falutary stream,
Sprightly and fresh, enriches every theme,
While all the happy man poffeffed before,
The gift of nature, or the claffic ftore,
Is made fubfervient to the grand defign,
For which heaven formed the faculty divine.

So fhould an ideot, while at large he ftrays,
Find the fweet lyre, on which an artist plays,
With rash and awkward force the chords he shakes,
And grins with wonder at the jar he makes;
But let the wife and well-inftructed hand
Once take the fhell beneath his juft command,
In gentle founds it seems as it complained
Of the rude injuries it late fuftained,

Till tuned at length to fome immortal fong,
It founds Jehovah's name, and pours his praife along.

RETIREMENT.

studiis florens ignobilis oti.

VIRG. Geor. Lib. 4.

HACKNEYED in bufinefs, wearied at that oar,
Which thoufands, once faft chained to, quit no more,
But which, when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All with, or feem to with, they could forego;
The ftatefman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of fome rural shade,
Where, all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a fequeftered spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er,

And add a fmile to what was fweet before,
He may poffefs the joys he thinks he fees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of cafe,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span,
And, having lived a trifler, die a man.

Thus confcience pleads her cause within the breast,
Though long rebelled againft, not yet fuppreffed,
And calls a creature formed for God alone,
For heaven's high purposes, and not his own;
Calls him away from selfish ends and aims,
From what debilitates and what inflames,
From cities humming with a reftless crowd,
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud,
Whofe highest praife is that they live in vain,
The dupes of pleasure, or the flaves of gain,
Where works of man are clustered clofe around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where, in fpite of fin and woe,
Traces of Eden are still feen below,

Where mountain, river, foreft, field, and grove,
Remind him of his Maker's power and love.
'Tis well if, looked for at fo late a day,
In the laft scene of fuch a fenfelefs play,
True wisdom will attend his feeble call,
And grace his action ere the curtain fall.

Souls, that have long defpifed their heavenly birth,
Their wishes all impregnated with carth,
For threefcore years employed with ceaseless care
In catching fmoke and feeding upon air,
Converfant only with the ways of men,
Rarely redeem the short remaining ten.