For solitude, however some may rave,
Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave,
A sepulchre, in which the living lie,
Where all good qualities grow sick and die.
I praise the Frenchman,* his remark was shrewd-
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude !
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper-solitude is sweet.
Yet neither these delights, nor aught beside,
That appetite can ask, or wealth provide,
Can save us always from a tedious day,
Or shine the dulness of still life away ;
Divine communion, carefully enjoy'd,
Or sought with energy, must fill the void.
O sacred art! to which alone life owes
It's happiest seasons, and a peaceful close,
Scorn'd in a world, indebted to that scorn
For evils daily felt and hardly borne,
Not knowing thee, we reap with bleeding hands
Flow'rs of rank odour upon thorny lands,
And, while experience cautions us in vain,
Grasp seeming happiness, and find it pain.
Despondence, self-deserted in her grief,
Lost by abandoning her own relief,
Murmuring and ungrateful Discontent,
That scorns afflictions mercifully meant,
Those humours, tart as wines upon the fret,
Which idleness and weariness beget;
These, and a thousand plagues, that haunt the breast,
Fond of the phantom of an earthly rest,
Divine communion chases, as the day
Drives to their dens th' obedient beasts of prey.

See Judah's promis'd king bereft of all,
Driv'n out an exile from the face of Saul,
To distant caves the lonely wand'rer flies,
To seek that peace a tyrant's frown denies.
Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice,
Hear him, o'erwhelm'd with sorrow, yet rejoice ;
No womanish or wailing grief has part,
No, not a moment, in his royal heart;
'T is manly music, such as martyrs make,
Suff'ring with gladness for a Saviour's sake,
His soul exults; hope animates his lays,
The sense of mercy kindles into praise,
And wilds, familiar with a lion's roar,
Ring with ecstatic sounds, unheard before:
T is love like his that can alone defeat
The foes of man, or make a desert sweet,

Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumber'd pleasures, harmlessly pursued ;
To study culture, and with artful toil
To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil;
To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands
The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands ;
To cherish virtue in an humble state,
And share the joys your bounty may create;
To mark the matchless workings of the pow'r
That shuts within it's seed the future flow'r,
Bids these in elegance of form excel,
In colour these, and those delight the smell;
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes ;
To teach the canvass innocent deceit,
Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet-
These, these are arts pursu'd without a crime,
That leave no stain upon the wing of Time.

Me poetry (or rather notes that aim
Feebly and vainly at poetic fame)
Employs, shut out from more important views,
Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse ;
Content if, thus sequesterd, I may raise
A monitor's, though not a poet's praise ;
And, while I teach an art too little known-
To close life wisely, may not waste my own.

HEROISM.

THERE was a time when Ætna's silent fire
Slept unperceiv'd, the mountain yet entire;
When, conscious of no danger from below,
She tower'd-a cloud-capp'd pyramid of snow.
No thunders shook with deep intestine sound
The blooming groves, that girdled her around.
Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines,
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines,)
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assur'd,
In peace upon her sloping sides matur'd:
When, on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration lab'ring in her womb,
She teem'd and heav'd with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling seas and solid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rise,
And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies,
While through the Stygian veil, that blots the day,
In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what muse, and in what pow'rs of song,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devastation in the van,
It marches o'er the prostrate works of man,
Vines, olives, herbage, forests disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.

Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninform'd and idle mass;

Without a soil t'invite the tiller's care, Or blade, that might redeem it from despair. Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?) Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live. Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade, And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade. O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats! O charming Paradise of short-liv'd sweets ! The self-same gale, that wafts the fragrance round, Brings to the distant ear a sollen sound : Again the mountain feels th’ imprison’d foe, Again pours ruin on the vale below. Ten thousand swains the wasted scene deplore, That only future ages can restore.

Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who strike the blow, then plead your own defence, Glory your aim, but justice your pretence; Behold, in Ætna's emblematic fires, The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires !

Fast by the stream, that bounds your just domain, And tells you where ye have a right to reign, A nation dwells, not envious of your throne, Studious of peace, their neighbours', and their own. Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue T'heir only crime, vicinity to you ! The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad, Through the ripe barvest lies their destin'd road ; At every step beneath their feet they tread The life of multitudes, a nation's bread ! Earth seems a garden in it's loveliest dress Before them, and behind a wilderness. Famine, and Pestilence, her first-born son, Attend to finish what the sword begun;