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When with rebukes thou chast'nest man for sin,
Thou mak'st his beauty to consume away:
Distemper prays upon him, as a moth

Fretting a garment. Ah, what then is Man?
Every man living is but Vanity!

Hear, hear my prayer, O Lord! oh hear my cry!
Pity my tears! for I am in thy sight
But as a stranger, and a sojourner,
As all my fathers were. Oh, spare me then,
Though but a little, to regain my strength
Ere I be taken hence and seen no more.

CCXXVI. ROBERT LLOYD, 1733-1764.
1. THE POET.

The harlot muse, so passing gay,
Bewitches only to betray.
Though for awhile with easy air
She smoothes the rugged brow of care,
And laps the mind in flowery dreams,
With Fancy's transitory gleams;
Fond of the nothings she bestows,
We wake at last to real woes.
Through every age, in every place,
Consider well the poet's case;
By turns protected and caressed,
Defamed, dependent, and distressed.
The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,
The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;
Too proud to stoop for servile ends,
To lacquey rogues or flatter friends;
With prodigality to give,

Too careless of the means to live;
The bubble fame intent to gain,
And yet too lazy to maintain;
He quits the world he never prized,
Pitied by few, by more despised,
And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes,
Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.

O glorious trade! for wit's a trade,
Where men are ruin'd more than made!

Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay,
The shabby Otway, Dryden gray,
Those tuneful servants of the Nine,
(Not that I blend their names with mine),
Repeat their lives, their works, their fame.
And teach the world some useful shame.

2. THE USHER.

Were I at once empowered to show
My utmost vengeance on my foe,
To punish with extremest rigour,
I could inflict no penance bigger,
Than, using him as learning's tool,
To make him usher of a school.
For, not to dwell upon the toil
Of working on a barren soil,
And labouring with incessant pains,
To cultivate a blockhead's brains,
The duties there but ill befit
The love of letters, arts, or wit.

For one, it hurts me to the soul,
To brook confinement or control;
Still to be pinioned down to teach
The syntax and the parts of speech;
Or, what perhaps is drudgery worse,
The links, and points, and rules of verse;
To deal out authors by retail,
Like penny pots of Oxford ale;
Oh 'tis a service irksome more,
Than tugging at the slavish oar!
Yet such his task, a dismal truth,
Who watches o'er the bent of youth,
And while a paltry stipend earning,
He sows the richest seeds of learning,
And tills their minds with proper care,
And sees them their due produce bear
No joys, alas! his toil beguile,
His own lies fallow all the while.
'Yet still he's on the road,' you say,
'Of learning.' Why, perhaps he may,

But turns like horses in a mill,
Nor getting on, nor standing still;
For little way his learning reaches,

Who reads no more than what he teaches.

CCXXVII. WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE,

1734-1788.

NAE LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE.

But are ye sure the news is true?
And are ye sure he's weel?

Is this the time to think o' wark?
Ye jauds, fling bye your wheel.

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck at a',

There's nae luck about the house,
When our gudeman's awa.

Is this a time to think o' wark,
When Colin's at the door?
Rax down my cloak-I'll to the quay,
And see him come ashore.

Rise up and make a clean fireside,
Put on the muckle pot;

Gie little Kate her cotton goun,

And Jock his Sunday coat.

And mak their shoon as black as slaes,

Their hose as white as snaw;

It's a' to pleasure our gudeman

He likes to see them braw.

There are twa hens upon the crib,
Hae fed this month and mair,
Mak haste and thraw their necks about,
That Colin weel may fare.

My Turkey slippers I'll put on,
My hose o' pearl blue-
It's a' to pleasure our gudeman,

For he's both leal and true.

Sae true his heart, sae smooth his tongue;
His breath's like caller air;

His

very foot has music in't, As he comes up the stair.

And will I see his face again?

And will I hear him speak?
I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought:
In troth I'm like to greet.

CCXXVIII. JAMES BEATTIE, 1735-1803.

1. THE HERMIT.

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove:
'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began;
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.
"Ah! why, all abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthral,
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay.
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn:
O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away:
Full quickly they pass-but they never return.
"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays:
But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again:
But man's faded glory what change shall renew!
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfum'd with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew:

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save:
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!"

'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd,
That leads, to bewilder, and dazzles, to blind,
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

"O pity, great Father of light," then I cried,
"Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee;
Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:
From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free."
“And darkness and doubt are now flying away,
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.

So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn,

See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

2. TIME AND CHANGE.

Of chance or change O let not man complain,
Else shall he never never cease to wail:

For, from the imperial dome, to where the swain
Rears the lone cottage in the silent dale,
All feel th' assault of fortune's fickle gale;
Art, empire, earth itself, to change are doom'd;
Earthquakes have rais'd to heaven the humble vale,
And gulfs the mountain's mighty mass entomb'd
And where th' Atlanticrolls wide continents have bloom'd.
But sure to foreign climes we need not range,
Nor search the ancient records of our race,
To learn the dire effects of time and change,
Which in ourselves, alas! we daily trace.
Yet at the darken'd eye, the wither'd face,
Or hoary hair, I never will repine:

But spare, O Time, whate'er of mental grace,
Of candour, love, or sympathy divine,

Whate'er of fancy's ray, or friendship's flame is mine!

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