mind,

Of covered pits, unfathomably deep,

From every low pursuit! and feed my soul

Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge, Smoothed up with snow; and, what is

land, unknown,

What water, of the still unfrozen spring, In the loose marsh or solitary lake, Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.

These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks

Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shoots

Through the wrung bosom of the dying

man,

His wife, his children, and his friends un

seen.

In vain for him the officious wife prepares The fire fair blazing, and the vestment

warm;

In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,

With tears of artless innocence. Alas! Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,

Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every

nerve

The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense; And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corpse,

Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern blast.

[A SHORT PRAYER.]

Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme !

O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself!

virtue pure;

Sacred, substantial, never-failing bliss!

A HYMN.

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these

Are but the varied God. The rolling

year

Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring

Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.

Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm ;

Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;

And every sense and every heart is joy. Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,

With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy

sun

Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:

And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,

And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves in hollow-whisper

ing gales.

Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives.

In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and

storms

Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,

Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing

Burst from the groves; and when the restless day,

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise.

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles;

At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,

In the void waste as in the city full; And where He vital breathes, there must be joy.

When even at ast the solemn hour shall come,

And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,

I cheerful will obey; there with new powers,

Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go

cities vast,

Assembled men to the deep organ join The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear,

Frame into finished life. How many states,

And clustering towns, and monuments of fame,

For that they lived entire, and even for that The tender mother urged her son to die. Of softer genius, but not less intent

bounds!

From the rough tract of bending moun

tains, beat

By Ardria's here, there by Agaan waves; To where the deep-adorning Cyclade isles In shining prospect rise, and on the shore Of farthest Crete resounds the Lybian main.

O'er all two rival cities reared the brow, And balanced all. Spread on Eurotas' bank,

Amid a circle of soft-rising hills,

The patient Sparta one: the sober, hard,
And man-subduing city; which no shape
Of pain could conquer, nor of pleasure
charm.

Lycurgus there built, on the solid base
Of equal life, so well a tempered state;
Where mixed each government, in such

just poise;

Each power so checking, and supporting, each;

That firm for ages, and unmoved, it stood, The fort of Greece! without one giddy hour,

One shock of faction, or of party-rage. For, drained the springs of wealth, corruption there

Lay withered at the root. Thrice happy land!

Had not neglected art, with weedy vice
Confounded, sunk. But if Athenian arts
Loved not the soil; yet there the calm abode
Of wisdom, virtue, philosophic ease,
Of manly sense and wit, in frugal phrase
Confined, and pressed into Laconic force.
There too, by rooting thence still treach-
erous self,

The public and the private grew the same.
The children of the nursing public all,
And at its table fed, for that they toiled,

Where, with bright marbles big and future pomp,

Hymettus spread, amid the scented sky,
His thymy treasures to the labouring bee,
And to botanic hand the stores of health;
Wrapt in a soul-attenuating clime,
Between Ilissus and Cephissus glowed
This hive of science, shedding sweets
divine,

Of active arts, and animated arms.
There, passionate for me, an easy-moved,
A quick, refined, a delicate, humane,
Enlightened people reigned. Oft on the
brink

Of ruin, hurried by the charm of speech,
Inforcing hasty counsel immature,
Tottered the rash democracy; unpoised,
And by the rage devoured, that ever tears
A populace unequal; part too rich,
And part or fierce with want or abject

grown.

Solon, at last, their mild restorer rose : Aliayed the tempest; to the calm of laws Reduced the settling whole; and with the weight

Which the two senates to the public lent, As with an anchor fixed the driving state.

Nor was my forming care to these confined.

For emulation through the whole I poured, Noble contention who should most excel In government well-poised, adjusted best To public weal: in countries cultured high; In ornamented towns, where order reigns, Free social life, and polished manners fair: In exercise, and arms; arms only drawn For common Greece, to quell the Persian pride:

In moral science, and in graceful arts. Hence as for glory peacefully they strove, The prize grew greater, and the prize of all.

seen.

Felt every ardour burn: their great reward The verdant wreath, which sounding Pisa

gave.

Hence flourished Greece: and hence a race of men,

As gods by conscious future times adored, In whom each virtue wore a smiling air, Each science shed o'er life a friendly light, Each art was nature. Spartan valour hence,

tains threw

The soldiers fond embrace: o'erflowed their eyes

With tender floods, and loosed the general voice

To cries resounding loud-The sea! The sea !

In Attic bounds hence heroes, sages, wits,

Shone thick as stars, the milky way of Greece !

city, full

storms;

Greece in their view, and glory yet untouched,

beam.

its way

Triumphant, by the sage-exalted chief Fired and sustained. Oh light and force

of mind,

Almost almighty in severe extremes!

Wisdom his wealth, and glory his reward. Deep through the human heart, with

playful art,