Beguiles the uneasy hours:

Well colouring every cross she meets,
With heart serene, she sleeps and eats,

She spreads her board with fancied sweets,
And strows her bed with flowers.

THE HERO'S SCHOOL OF MORALITY.

THERON, amongst his travels, found
A broken statue on the ground;
And searching onward, as he went,
He trac'd a ruin'd monument.

Mould, moss, and shades had overgrown
The sculpture of the crumbling stone,
Yet, e'er he pass'd, with much ado,
He guess'd, and spell'd out SCI-PI-O.

66

Enough," he cried; "I'll drudge no more

"In turning the dull Stoics o'er;

"Let pedants waste their hours of ease

"To sweat all night at Socrates;

"And feed their boys with notes and rules,

"Those tedious recipes of schools,

"To cure ambition: I can learn

"With greater ease, the great concern
"Of mortals; how we may despise
"All the gay things below the skies.

66

Methinks a mouldering pyramid "Says all that the old sages said; "For me these shatter'd tombs contain "More morals than the Vatican. "The dust of heroes cast abroad,

"And kick'd, and trampled in the road,
"The relics of a lofty mind,

"That lately wars and crowns design'd,
"Tost for a jest from wind to wind,
"Bid me be humble, and forbear
"Tall monuments of fame to rear,

66

They are but castles in the air.

"The towering heights, and frightful falls, "The ruin'd heaps, and funerals,

"Of smoking kingdoms and their kings, "Tell me a thousand mournful things

"In melancholy silence. . .

"That living could not bear to see "An equal, now lies torn and dead;

"Here his pale trunk, and there his head; "Great Pompey, while I meditate, "With solemn horror, thy sad fate,

"Thy carcass, scatter'd on the shore "Without a name, instructs me more "Than my whole library before.

"Lie still, my Plutarch, then, and sleep, "And my good Seneca may keep "Your volumes clos'd for ever too, "I have no further use for

you:

"For when I feel my virtue fail,
"And my ambitious thoughts prevail,
“I'll take a turn among the tombs,
"And see whereto all glory comes:
"There the vile foot of every clown
"Tramples the sons of honour down.
"Beggars with awful ashes sport,
"And tread the Cæsars in the dirt."

FREEDOM.

TEMPT me no more. My soul can ne'er comport
With the gay slaveries of a court;

I've an aversion to those charms,
And hug dear liberty in both mine arms.
Go, vassal souls, go, cringe and wait,

And dance attendance at Honorio's gate,

Then run in troops before him, to compose his state;
Move as he moves; and when he loiters stand;
You're but the shadows of a man.

Bend when he speaks; and kiss the ground:
Go, catch the impertinence of sound:
Adore the follies of the great;

Wait till he smiles: But lo, the idol frown'd,
And drove them to their fate.

Thus base-born minds: but as for me,

I can and will be free:

Like a strong mountain, or some stately tree,

My soul grows firm upright,

And as I stand, and as I

It keeps my body so.

go,

No! I can never part with my creation-right; Let slaves and asses stoop and bow,

I cannot make this iron knee

[it free.

Bend to a meaner power than that which form'd

Thus my bold harp profusely play'd,
Pindarical; then on a branchy shade
I hung my harp aloft, myself beneath it laid.
Nature, that listen'd to my strain,
Resum'd the theme, and acted it again,
Sudden rose a whirling wind,

Swelling like Honorio proud,

Around the straws and feathers crowd,

Types of a slavish mind;

Upwards the stormy forces rise,

The dust flies up and climbs the skies, And as the tempest fell, the obedient vapours sunk : Again it roars with bellowing sound,

The meaner plants that grew around,

The willow, and the asp, trembled and kiss'd the

ground;

Hard by there stood the iron trunk

Of an old oak, and all the storm defied;
In vain the winds their forces tried,
In vain they roar'd, the iron oak

Bow'd only to the heavenly thunder's stroke.

ON MR. LOCKE'S ANNOTATIONS

UPON SEVERAL PARTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, LEFT IN MS.

THUS reason learns by slow degrees,
What faith reveals; but still complains
Of intellectual pains,

And darkness from the too exuberant light.
The blaze of those bright mysteries
Pour'd, all at once, on nature's eyes,
Offend and cloud her feeble sight.

Reason could scarce sustain to see
The almighty One, the eternal Three,
Or bear the infant deity;

Scarce could her pride descend to own
Her Maker stooping from his throne,
And drest in glories so unknown.
A ransom'd world, a bleeding God,

And heaven appeas'd with flowing blood,
Were themes too painful to be understood.

Faith, thou bright cherub, speak, and say
Did ever mind of mortal race
Cost thee more toil, or larger grace,
To melt and bend it to obey.