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النشر الإلكتروني

A pamper'd menial drove me from the door
To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

Oh! take me to your hospitable dome;

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold;
Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,
For I am poor and miserably old.

Should I reveal the sources of my grief,
If soft humanity e'er touch'd your breast,
Your hands would not withhold the kind relief,
And tears of pity would not be represt.

Heav'n sends misfortunes; why should we repine?
Tis Heav'n has brought me to the state you see;
And your condition may be soon like mine,
The child of sorrow and of misery.

A little farm was my paternal lot,

Then, like the lark I sprightly hail'd the morn
But, ah! oppression forc'd me from my cot,
My cattle dy'd, and blighted was my corn:
My daughter, once, the comfort of my age,
Lur'd by a villain from her native home,
Is cast abandon'd on the world's wide stage,
And doom'd in scanty poverty to roam.
My tender wife, sweet soother of my care,
Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell, ling'ring fell, a victim to despair,
And left the world to wretchedness and me.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span, Oh! give relief, and Heav'n will bless your store.

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Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade!
"Tis she! but why that bleeding bosom gor'd?
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it in heav'n a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover's or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye pow'rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods:
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breast of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage:
Dim lights of life, that burn a fength of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And, close confin'd to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow

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And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor Left one virtue to redeem her race.

י,

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood! See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, These cheeks, now fading at the blast of death; Cold is that breast which warm'd the world be

fore,

And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children

fall:

On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way)
Lo, these were they, whose souls the furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others" good, or melt at others' woe.

What can atone (oh, ever injur'd shade!')
Thy fate unpity'd and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier:
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd;
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd,
What tho' no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the public show;
What the no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face;
What tho' no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb;
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground now sacred by thy relics made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth and fame.
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays;
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart.
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Muse forgot, and thou belov'd no more!
POPE.

CHA P. V.

Morning Hymn.

THESE
HESE are thy glorious works, Parent of Good!
Almighty! Thine, this universal frame

Thus wond'rous fair! thyself how wond'rous then!
Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavn's,
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowliest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine.
Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in heav'n,
On earth join all ye creatures to extol
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crown' the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises,
that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun! of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thou

fall'st.

Moon, that now meets the orient sun, now fly'st With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies And ye five other wand'ring fires, that move

In mystic dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light.
Air, and ye elements, the elder birth

Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix,
And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise
From hill or streaming lake, dusky or grey,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author rise,
Whether to deck with clouds th' uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling still advance his praise.

His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices all, ye living souls; ye birds,
That singing up to heav'n gate ascend,

Bear on your wings, and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,
To hill or valley fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gather'd ought of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as new light dispels the dark.

С НА Р. V I.

Satan's soliloquy.

MILTON.

thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call,

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