From filial rage and ftrife,
To fcreen his clofing life,
He quits his throne, a father's forrow feels, And in the lap of Want his patient head conceals,
More yet remain 'd-but lo! the penfive Queen
Appears confefs'd before my dazzled fight;
Grace in her steps, and foftness in her mien,
The face of forrow mingled with delight.
Not fuch her nobler frame,
When kindling into flame,
And bold in Virtue's caufe, her zeal afpires To waken guilty pangs, or breathe heroick fires.
Aw'd into filence, my rapt foul attends
The Power, with eyes complacent, faw my fear; And, as with grace ineffable fhe bends,
Thefe accents vibrate on my lift'ning ear.
Know, tho' thy feeling heart
Glow with thefe wonders to thy fancy fhewn, Still may the Delian God thy powerlefs toils difown.
A thousand tender fcenes of foft diftrefs
May fwell thy breaft with fympathetick woes;
A thousand fuch dread forms on fancy prefs,
As from my dreary realms of darkness rofe,
Whence Shakespeare's chilling fears,
And Otway's melting tears--
That awful gloom, this melancholy plain,
The types of every theme that fuits the TRAGICK STRAIN.
Bat doft thou worship Nature night and morn,
And all due honour to her precepts pay?
Canft thou the lure of Affectation scorn,
Pleas'd in the fimpler paths of Truth to ftray?
Haft thou the Graces fair
• Invok'd with ardent prayer?
They must attire, as Nature muft impart,
• The fentiment fublime, the language of the heart.
Warm with infpiring influence on thy breaft;
Tafte, judgment, fancy, if thou canft difplay,
And the deep fource of Paffion ftand confefs'd;
Then may the liftening train,
• Affected, feel thy strain;
Feel Grief or Terror, Rage or Pity move:
* Change with thy varying fcenes, and every fcene approve!'
Humbled before her fight, and bending low,
I kifs'd the borders of her crimson veft;
Eager to speak, I felt my bofom glow,
But fear upon my lips her feal imprefs'd.
While awe-ftruck thus I ftood,
The bowers, the lawn, the wood,
The Form Celeftial, fading on my view,
Diffolv'd in liquid air, and all the vifion flew.
Friend of thine, the fhepherd plays
Blithfome near the yellow broom; While his flock, that careless strays, Seeks the wild thyme's sweet perfume.
May, with thee I mean to rove
O'er thefe lawns and vallies fair; Tune thy gentle lyre to love,
Cherish hope, and foften care.
Round me fhall the village fwains,
Shall the rofy nymphs appear;
While I fing, in rural strains,
May, to fhepherds ever dear.
I had never skill to raise
Peans from the vocal strings;
To the god-like hero's praife,
To the pageant pomp of kings;
Stranger to the hoftile plains,
Where the brazen trumpets found;
Life's purple stream the verdure ftains,
And heaps promifcuous prefs the ground:
Where the murderous cannon's breath
Fate denounces from afar,
And the loud report of death
Stuns the cruel ear of war.
Stranger to the park and play,
Birth-night balls, and courtly trains;
Thee I woo, my gentle May,
Tune for thee my native ftrains.
Blooming groves, and wand'ring rills,
Sooth thy vacant poet's dreams;
Vocal woods, and wilds, and hills,
All her unexalted themes.
BY GILBERT WEST, ESQ.
Under various facred names ador'd!
Divinity fupreme! all-potent Lord!
Author of nature! whose unbounded sway
And legislative power all things obey!
Majestick Jove! all hail! To thee belong
The fuppliant prayer, and tributary fong:
To thee from all thy mortal offspring due;
From thee we came, from thee our being drew
Whatever lives and moves, great Sire! is thine;
Embodied portions of the foul divine.
Therefore to thee will I attune my string,
And of thy wond'rous pow'r for ever fing.
The wheeling orbs, the wand'ring fires above,
That round this earthly sphere inceffant move,
Through all this boundless world admit thy fway,
And roll fpontaneous where thou point'ft the way.
Such is the awe imprefs'd on nature round,
When thro' the void thy dreadful thunders found,
Those flaming agents of thy matchless pow'r,
Aftonish'd worlds, hear, tremble, and adore.
Thus paramount to all, by all obey'd,
Ruling that reafon which, thro' all convey'd,
Informs this gen'ral mass, thou reign'st ador'd,
Supreme, unbounded, univerfal Lord.
* Cleanthes, the author of this hymn, was a difciple of Zeno.
For nor in earth, nor earth-encircling floods,
Nor yon etherial pole, the feat of gods,
Is aught perform'd without thy aid divine;
Strength, wisdom, virtue, mighty Jove, are thing!
Vice is the act of mán, by paffion tofs'd,
And in the shoreless fea of folly loft;
But thou what vice diforders, can't compofe,
And profit by the malice of thy foes:
So blending good with evil, fair with foul,
As thence to model one harmonious whole;
One univerfal law of truth and right;
But wretched mortals fhun the heav'nly light;
And, tho' to blifs directing ftill their choice,
Hear not, or heed not, Reafon's facred voice;
That common guide, ordain'd to point the road,
That leads obedient man to folid good.
Thence, quitting Virtue's lovely paths, they rove;
As various objects, various paffions move.
Some thro' oppofing crowds and threat'ning war,
Seek Power's bright throne, and Fame's triumphal car;
Some, bent on wealth, pursue with endless pain,
Oppreffive, fordid, and difhöneft gain :
While others, to foft indolence refign'd,
Drown in corporeal fweets th' immortal mind.
But, O great Father, thunder-ruling God!
Who in thick darkness mak'st thy dread abode !
Thou, from whose bounty all good gifts descend,
Do thou from ignorance mankind defend!
The clouds of vice and folly, O controul!
And fhed the beams of wifdom on the foul!
Thofe radiant beams, by whofe all-piercing flame
Thy juftice rules this univerfal frame.
That, honour'd with a portion of thy light,
We may effay thy goodness to requite,
With honorary fongs and grateful lays,
And hymn thy glorious works with ceaseless praise,
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