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My soul shall sigh in secret, and lament
A nation scourged, yet tardy to repent.

I know the warning song is sung in vain ;

That few will hear, and fewer heed the strain ;
But if a sweeter voice, and one design'd

A blessing to my country and mankind,
Reclaim the wandering thousands, and bring home
A flock so scatter'd, and so wont to roam,
Then place it once again between my knees;
The sound of truth will then be sure to please;
And truth alone, where'er my life be cast,
In scenes of plenty, or the pining waste,
Shall be my chosen theme, my glory to the last.

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730

HOPE.

doceas iter, et sacra ostia pandas.

VIRG. Æn. vi. 109.

THE ARGUMENT.

Human life, different views of, 1-Nature always the same, although she appears in different hues to youth and age, 27-Vanity and weariness of fashionable life, 75-Life a gift of infinite value, 115-The attributes of the Creator inscribed on all his works, 133-Nature the handmaid of grace, 145-Birth and character of Hope, 152-Corruption of human nature shown in early youth, 179-Farther evidenced in more advanced life, 197 -Conscience awakened to a sense of sin, 215-False peace and formal devotion, 229—Empty honours attending a hopeless death, 260—Each man's belief right in his own eyes, 276-Only one right way to eternal life, 302 -Offers of salvation by free grace repugnant to human pride, 322-Loose ideas of the way of salvation, 357-Notwithstanding the light of science, and the spread of the gospel, 439-Reception of the simple truth in distant Greenland, 465-Its inhabitants in their unconverted and converted state, 495-Vindication of Whitefield, 554-The lover of pleasure the greatest of bigots, 594-Any hope preferred to the hope of the gospel, 614-Folly ends where genuine hope begins, 635-Apostrophe to Truth, 663-The sinner convicted, 674-Pardoned, 710-Works of Truth imperishable, 742 -Conclusion, 754.

Ask what is human life-the sage replies,
With disappointment lowering in his eyes,-
A painful passage o'er a restless flood,
A vain pursuit of fugitive false good,
A scene of fancied bliss and heartfelt care,
Closing at last in darkness and despair.-
The poor, inured to drudgery and distress,
Act without aim, think little, and feel less,
And nowhere but in feign'd Arcadian scenes,
Taste happiness, or know what pleasure means.

10

Riches are pass'd away from hand to hand,
As fortune, vice, or folly may command;
As in a dance the pair that take the lead
Turn downward, and the lowest pair succeed,
So shifting and so various is the plan

By which Heaven rules the mix'd affairs of man;
Vicissitude wheels round the motley crowd,

The rich grow poor, the poor become purse-proud:
Business is labour, and man's weakness such,
Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much;
The very sense of it foregoes its use,
By repetition pall'd, by age obtuse.
Youth lost in dissipation we deplore

Through life's sad remnant, what no sighs restore;
Our years, a fruitless race without a prize,

Too many, yet too few to make us wise.
Dangling his cane about, and taking snuff,
Lothario cries, What philosophic stuff!
O querulous and weak! whose useless brain
Once thought of nothing, and now thinks in vain ;
Whose eye reverted weeps o'er all the past,
Whose prospect shows thee a disheartening waste;
Would age in thee resign his wintry reign,
And youth invigorate that frame again,
Renew'd desire would grace with other speech
Joys always prized, when placed within our reach.
For lift thy palsied head, shake off the gloom
That overhangs the borders of thy tomb;
See Nature gay, as when she first began
With smiles alluring her admirer, Man;
She spreads the morning over eastern hills,
Earth glitters with the drops the night distils;
The sun, obedient, at her call appears,

To fling his glories o'er the robe she wears ;

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Banks clothed with flowers, groves fill'd with sprightly sounds,
The yellow tilth, green meads, rocks, rising grounds, 46
Streams edged with osiers, fattening every field
Where'er they flow, now seen and now conceal'd;
From the blue rim, where skies and mountains meet,
Down to the very turf beneath thy feet,

Ten thousand charms, that only fools despise,
Or pride can look at with indifferent eyes,

All speak one language, all with one sweet voice
Cry to her universal realm, Rejoice!

Man feels the spur of passions and desires,
And she gives largely more than he requires;
Not that, his hours devoted all to Care,
Hollow-eyed Abstinence, and lean Despair,
The wretch may pine, while to his smell, taste, sight,
She holds a Paradise of rich delight;

But gently to rebuke his awkward fear,

To

prove

that what she gives, she gives sincere, To banish hesitation, and proclaim

His happiness her dear, her only aim.

"Tis grave Philosophy's absurdest dream,

That Heaven's intentions are not what they seem,
That only shadows are dispensed below,
And earth has no reality but woe.

Thus things terrestrial wear a different hue,
As youth or age persuades-and neither true;
So Flora's wreath through colour'd crystal seen,
The rose or lily appears blue or green,
But still the imputed tints are those alone
The medium represents, and not their own.
To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undress'd,
To read the news, or fiddle, as seems best,
Till half the world comes rattling at his door,
To fill the dull vacuity till four;

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And, just when evening turns the blue vault gray,
To spend two hours in dressing for the day;
To make the Sun a bauble without use,
Save for the fruits his heavenly beams produce;
Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought,
Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not;
Through mere necessity to close his eyes

Just when the larks and when the shepherds rise ;----
Is such a life, so tediously the same,

So void of all utility or aim,

That poor JONQUIL, with almost every breath,
Sighs for his exit, vulgarly call'd death:

For he, with all his follies, has a mind
Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind,
But now and then perhaps a feeble ray
Of distant wisdom shoots across his way;
By which he reads, that life without a plan,
As useless as the moment it began,
Serves merely as a soil for discontent

To thrive in; an encumbrance, ere half spent.
Oh! weariness beyond what asses feel,
That tread the circuit of the cistern wheel;
A dull rotation, never at a stay,
Yesterday's face twin image of to-day;
While conversation, an exhausted stock,
Grows drowsy as the clicking of a clock.
No need, he cries, of gravity stuff'd out
With academic dignity devout,
To read wise lectures, vanity the text:
Proclaim the remedy, ye learned, next;
For truth self-evident, with pomp impress'd,
Is vanity surpassing all the rest.

That remedy, not hid in deeps profound,
Yet seldom sought where only to be found,

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