When thus she spoke :-" Go, rule thy will,
Bid thy wild passions all be still;
Know God,—and bring thy heart to know
The joys which from religion flow:
Then every grace shall prove its guest,
And I'll be there to crown the rest!"
Oh! by yonder mossy seat, my hours of sweet retreat, Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy,
Raised, as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer,
Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleased and blessed with God alone ;
Then while the gardens take my sight,
With all the colours of delight,
While silver waters glide along,
To please my ear, and court my song,
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string,
And thee, great Source of nature, sing.
The sun that walks his airy way,
To light the world, and give the day:
The moon, that shines with borrowed light;
The stars, that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumbered waves;
The wood that spreads its shady leaves;
The field, whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain ;—
All of these, and all I see,
Should be sung, and sung by me:
They speak their Maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.
Go, search among your idle dreams,
Your busy or your vain extremes,
And find a life of equal bliss,
Or own the next begun in this.
Fonathan Swift.
Born 1667. Died 1745.
FROM A DESCRIPTION OF A CITY
SHOWER.
CAREFUL observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower;
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Meanwhile the South, rising with dappled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liqour than it could contain,
And, like a drunkard, gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope;
Such is that sprinkling, which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop—but not so clean :
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife,
But, aided by the wind, fought still for life,
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,
'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade?
Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain !
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's a-broach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up seamstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides.
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant tories and desponding whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts ran clattering over the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through),
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.
William Falconer.
Born 1730. Died 1769.
THE sun's bright orb, declining all serene,
Now glanced obliquely o'er the woodland scene.
Creation smiles around; on every spray
The warbling birds exalt their evening lay.
Blithe skipping o'er yon hill, the fleecy train
Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain;
The golden lime and orange there were seen,
On fragrant branches of perpetual green.
The crystal streams, that velvet meadows lave,
To the green ocean roll with chiding wave.
The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar,
But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore:
And lo! his surface, lovely to behold!
Glows in the west, a sea of living gold!
While, all above, a thousand liveries gay,
The skies with pomp ineffable array.
Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains:
Above, beneath, around, enchantment reigns!
While glowing Vesper leads the starry train,
And night slow draws her veil o'er land and main,
Emerging clouds the azure east invade,
And wrap the lucid spheres in gradual shade,
While yet the songsters of the vocal grove,
With dying numbers tune the soul to love,
With joyful eyes the attentive master sees
The auspicious omens of an eastern breeze.
Round the charged bowl the sailors form a ring;
By turns recount the wondrous tale, or sing;
As love or battle, hardships of the main,
Or genial wine, awake the homely strain:
Then some the watch of night alternate keep,
The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep.
Deep midnight now involves the livid skies,
When infant breezes yet enervate rise,
The waning moon, behind a watery shroud,
Pale-glimmered o'er the long-protracted cloud.
A mighty ring around her silver throne,
With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone.
This in the troubled sky full oft prevails;
Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales.
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