Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech
Purfues the course that truth and nature teach;
No longer labours merely to produce
The of found, or tinkle without use:
Where'er it winds, the falutary stream,
Sprightly and fresh, enriches ev'ry theme,
While all the happy man poffefs'd before,
The gift of nature or the claffic store,
Is made fubfervient to the grand defign,
For which heav'n form'd the faculty divine.
So fhould an ideot, while at large he strays,
Find the fweet lyre on which an artist plays,
With rash and aukward 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 shell beneath his just command,
In gentle founds it feems as it complain'd
Of the rude injuries it late fuftain'd;
'Till tun'd at length, to fome immortal fong,
It founds Jehovah's name, and pours his praife along.
ftudiis florens ignobilis oti.
VIRG. GEOR, LIB. 4.
HACKNEY'D in business, wearied at that oar
Which thousands, once faft chain'd to, quit no
But which when life at ebb runs weak and low,
All wish, or feem to wish, they could forego;
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of fome rural shade,
Where, all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a fequefter'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was fweet before,
He may poffefs the joys he thinks he fees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of eafe,
Improve the remnant of his wafted fpan,
And, having liv'd a triffer, die a man.
Thus confcience pleads her caufe within the breaft,
Though long rebell'd against, not yet fupprefs'd,
And calls a creature form'd for God alone,
For heav'ns high purposes and not his own,
Calls him away from felfifh ends and aims,
From what debilitates and what inflames,
From cities, humming with a reftlefs crowd,
Sordid as active, ignorant as loud,
Whose highest praife is that they live in vain,
The dupes of pleasure, or the flaves of gain;
Where works of man are cluster'd close around,
And works of God are hardly to be found,
To regions where in fpite of fin and woe,
Traces of Eden are still seen below,
Where mountain, river, foreft, field and grove,
Remind him of his Maker's power and love.
'Tis well if look'd for at fo late a day,
In the last scene of fuch a fenfeless play,
True wifdom will attend his feeble call,
And grace his action ere the curtain fall.
Souls that have long defpis'd their heav'nly birth,
Their wishes all impregnated with earth,
For threefcore years employ'd with ceaseless care,
In catching smoke and feeding upon air,
Converfant only with the ways of men,
Rarely redeem the short remaining ten.
Invet'rate habits choak th' unfruitful heart,
Their fibres penetrate its tend'reft part,
And draining its nutritious pow'rs to feed
Their noxious growth, ftarve ev'ry better feed.
Happy if full of days-but happier far
If ere we yet difcern life's ev'ning star,
Sick of the fervice of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from cuftom's ideot fway,
To serve the Sov'reign we were born t' obey.
Then sweet to muse upon his skill difplay'd,
(Infinite skill). in all that he has made!
To trace in nature's most minute defign,
The fignature and stamp of pow'r divine,
Contrivance intricate, exprefs'd with ease,
Where unaffifted fight no beauty fees,
The shapely limb and lubricated joint,
Within the small dimenfions of a point,
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun,
His mighty work who speaks and it is done,
Th' invifible in things fcarce feen reveal'd,
To whom an atom is an ample field.
To wonder at a thousand infect forms,
These hatch'd, and those resuscitated worms,
New life ordain'd and brighter fcenes to share,
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air,
Whose shape would make them, had they bulk and fize, More hideous foes than fancy can devife,
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