SACRED

To

VIRTUE, HONOUR, AND FRIENDSHIP.

TO JOHN LOCKE, ESQ.

Retired from Business.

ANGELS are made of heavenly things,
And light and love our souls compose,
Their bliss within their bosom springs,
Within their bosom flows.

But narrow minds still make pretence
To search the coasts of flesh and sense,
And fetch diviner pleasures thence.
Men are akin to etherial forms,
But they belie their nobler birth,
Debase their honour down to earth,

And claim a share with worms.

He that has treasures of his own
May leave the cottage or the throne,
May quit the globe, and dwell alone
Within his spacious mind.

Locke hath a soul wide as the sea,
Calm as the night, bright as the day;

There may his vast ideas play,

Nor feel a thought confined.

TO JOHN SHUTE, ESQ.,

AFTERWARDS LORD BARRINGTON,

On Mr. Locke's dangerous Sickness, some time after he had retired to study the Scriptures.

AND must the man of wondrous mind
(Now his rich thoughts are just refin'd)
Forsake our longing eyes?

Reason at length submits to wear
The wings of Faith; and lo, they rear
Her chariot high, and nobly bear
Her prophet to the skies.

Go, friend, and wait the prophet's flight,
Watch if his mantle chance to light,
And seize it for thy own:
Shute is the darling of his years,

Young Shute his better likeness bears;
All but his wrinkles and his hairs
Are copied in his son.

Thus when our follies or our faults
Call for the pity of thy thoughts,
Thy pen shall make us wise:
The sallies of whose youthful wit
Could pierce the British fogs with light,
Place our true interest in our sight,

And open half our eyes.

*The Interest of England, written by Mr. Shute.

TO MR. WILLIAM NOKES.

FRIENDSHIP.

FRIENDSHIP, thou charmer of the mind, Thou sweet deluding ill,

The brightest minute mortals find,

And sharpest hour we feel.

Fate has divided all our shares
Of pleasure and of pain;

In love the comforts and the cares
Are mix'd and join'd again.

But whilst in floods our sorrow rolls,
And drops of joy are few,

This dear delight of mingling souls
Serves but to swell our woe.

Oh! why should bliss depart in haste,
And friendship stay to moan?
Why the fond passion cling so fast,
When every joy is gone?

Yet never let our hearts divide,
Nor death dissolve the chain:
For love and joy were once allied,
And must be join'd again.

TO NATHANIEL GOULD, ESQ.

"Tis not by splendour, or by state, Exalted mien, or lofty gait,

My muse takes measure of a king:

If wealth, or height, or bulk will do,
She calls each mountain of Peru
A more majestic thing.

Frown on me, friend, if e'er 1 boast
O'er fellow-minds enslav'd in clay,
Or swell when I shall have engrost
A larger heap of shining dust,

And bear a bigger load of earth than they.
Let the vain world salute me loud,
My thoughts look inward, and forget
The sounding names of high and great,
The flatteries of the crowd.

When Gould commands his ships to run
And search the traffic of the sea,
His fleet o'ertakes the falling day,
And bears the western mines away,
Or richer spices from the rising sun:

While the glad tenants of the shore,
Shout and pronounce him senator,

Yet still the man's the same: For well the happy merchant knows The soul with treasure never grows, Nor swells with airy fame.

But trust me, Gould, 'tis lawful pride
To rise above the mean controul

Of flesh and sense, to which we're tied;

This is ambition that becomes a soul.

We steer our course up through the skies; Farewell this barren land:

We ken the heavenly shore with longing eyes, There the dear wealth of spirit lies,

And beckoning angels stand.

Member of parliament for a port in Sussex.

TO DR. THOMAS GIBSON.

THE LIFE OF SOULS.

SWIFT as the sun revolves the day,
We hasten to the dead,

Slaves to the wind we puff away,
And to the ground we tread.
'Tis air that lends us life, when first
The vital bellows heave:

Our flesh we borrow of the dust;

And when a mother's care has nursed

The babe to manly size, we must
With usury pay the grave.

Rich juleps drawn from precious ore

Still tend the dying flame:

And plants and roots, of barbarous name, Torn from the Indian shore.

Thus we support our tott'ring flesh,

Our cheeks resume the rose afresh, When bark and steel play well their game To save our sinking breath,

And Gibson, with his awful power,
Rescues the poor precarious hour

From the demands of death.

But art and nature, powers and charms, And drugs, and recipes, and forms, Yield us, at last, to greedy worms

A despicable prey;

I'd have a life to call my own,

That shall depend on heaven alone;

Nor air, nor earth, nor sea

Mix their base essences with mine,
Nor claim dominiou so divine

To give me leave to be.