And point the parting anguish! Thought, fond

man, Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life One scene of toil, of suffring, and of fate, Vice in his high career would stand appall’d, And heedless rambling impulse learn to think; The conscious heart of charity would warm, And her wide wish benevolence dilate; The social tear arise, the social sigh; And into clear perfection, gradual bliss, Refining still, the social passions work.

A THAW..

THOMSON, MUTT'RING, the winds at eve, with blunted

point, Blow hollow-blustring from the south. Subdu'd, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet descends, And floods the country round. The rivers swell, Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O'er rocks and woods in broad brown cataracts, A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once! And where they rush, the wide-resounding plain Is left one slimy waste.

Those sullen seas That wash'd th’ungenial pole, will rest no more Beneath the shackles of the mighty north; But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave. And hark! the length’ning roar continuous runs Athwart the rifted deep: at once it bursts, And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds. Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charg'd, That, tost amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle, While night o’erwhelms the sea, and horror looks More horrible, Can human force endure Th'assembled mischiess that besiege them round? Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness, The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice, Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder

rage, And in dire echoes bellowing round the main. More to embroil the deep, Leviathan And his unweildy train in dreadful sport Tempest the loosen'd brine, while thro' the gloom, Far from the bleak inhospitable shore, Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks. Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye, Looks down with pity on the feeble toil Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.

REFLECTIONS ON A FUTURE STATE,

FROM A REVIEW OF WINTER.

THOMSON.

'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest

glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lics! How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends His desolate domain. Behold, fond man! See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years, Thy flow'ring Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, Thy sober Autumn fading into age, And pale concluding Winter comes at last, And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness! those unsolid hopes Of happiness? those longings after fame? Those restless cares? those busy bustling days? Those gay-spent festive nights ? those veering

thoughts, Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life? All now are vanish’d! Virtue sole survives, Immortal never failing friend of man, His guide to happiness on high. And see! 'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth

Of heaven and earth! awak’ning nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In ev'ry heighten’d form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd, clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power,
And Wisdom, oft arraign'd; see now the cause,
Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd,
And dy'd, neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul :
Why the lone widow and her orphans piu'd
In starving solitude, while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants : why heaven-born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's scourge: -why licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Innbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distrest!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more:
The storms of Wint'ry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

AN

HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

THOMSON.

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide-flush the fields; the softning air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And ev'ry sense, and ev'ry heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whisp'ring gales. Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolld, Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding sublime, thou bid'st the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast.