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Precipitating domes, and towns, and towers,
The work of ages. Crush'd beneath the weight
Of gen'ral devastation, millions find

One common grave; not even a widow left
To wail her sons: the house, that should protect,
Entombs its master; and the faithless plain,
If there he flies for help, with sudden yawn
Starts from beneath him. Shield me, gracious Heaven,
O snatch me from destruction! If this Globe,
This solid Globe, which thine own hand hath made
So firm and sure, if this my steps betray;
If my own mother Earth from whence I sprung
Rise up with rage unnatural to devour

Her wretched offspring, whither shall I fly?
Where look for succour? Where, but up to thee,
Almighty Father! Save, O save, thy suppliant
From horrors such as these! At thy good time
Let death approach; I reck not-let him but come
In genuine form, not with thy vengeance arm'd,
Too much for man to bear.

་་་་་་་་་་

Porteus.

3.-The Ideas of the Divine Mind, the Origin of every Quality pleasing to the Imagination.

ERE the radiant sun

Sprung from the east, or 'mid the vault of night
The moon suspended her serener lamp;

Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorned the globe,
Or wisdom taught the sons of men her lore,

Then liv'd th' Almighty One: then deep retir'd
In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,

The forms eternal of created things;

The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,

The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe,
And wisdom's mien celestial. From the first

Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd,
His admiration: till in time complete,
What he admir'd and lov'd, his vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame,

Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves;
Ff

Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold;
And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.

But not alike to every mortal eye

gave

Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims
Of social life, to different labours urge
The active powers of man; with wise intent
The hand of nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a different bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil.
To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,
The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars,
The golden zones of heaven: to some she
To weigh the moment of eternal things,
Of time, and space, and fate's unbroken chain,
And will's quick impulse: others by the hand
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore
What healing virtue swells the tender veins
Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn
Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind
In balmy tears. But some to higher hopes
Were destin'd; some within a finer mould
She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame.
To these the Sire omnipotent unfolds

The world's harmonious volume, there to read
The transcript of himself.

4.-On Slavery.

OH for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Akenside.

Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart-
It does not feel for man. That nat'ral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not colour'd like his own, and, having power
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause,
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey!
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplor'd,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts bis sweat
With stripes that mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast!
Then what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,

And tremble while I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation priz'd above all price,

I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home-then why abroad?
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loos’d.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein

Of all your empire. That where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

Cowper.

5.-That Philosophy, which stops at Secondary Causes,

reproved.

HAPPY the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!

Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns (since from the least
The greatest oft originate) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan,
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks,
And having found his instruments, forgets
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men

That live an atheist life; involves the heaven
In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury; springs his mines,
And desolates a nation.at a blast.

Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action, and re-action. He has found
The source of the disease that Nature feels,
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause
Suspend th' effect or heal it? Has not God

Still wrought by means since first he made the world?
And did he not of old employ his means
To drown it? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of means
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will?

Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve, ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught,

And learn, tho' late, the genuine cause of all. Cowper.

6.The Good Preacher and the Clerical Coxcomb..
WOULD I describe a preacher, such as Paul,
Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own,
Paul should himself direct me. I would trace
His master-strokes, and draw from his design.
I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain;
And plain in manner. Decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture. Much impress'd
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious, mainly, that the flock he feeds
May feel it too. Affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty men.

Behold the picture!-Is it like ?-Like whom?
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,
And then skip down again: pronounce a text,
Cry, hem! and, reading what they never wrote
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation: 'tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.

What !-will a man play tricks, will he indulge
A silly fond conceit of his fair form
And just proportion, fashionable mien
And pretty face, in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand,
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock.
Therefore, avaunt! all attitude and stare,
And start theatric, practis'd at the glass.
I seek divine simplicity in him

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