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Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, poured
On this devoted head, be poured in vain.

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time,
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands dispatch:

How much is to be done? My hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss!
A dread eternity! How surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder He, who made him such!
Who centered in our make such strange extremes,
From different natures marvellously mixed,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a God !—I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels!

O what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly distressed! What joy! what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed!

What can preserve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

PROCRASTINATION.

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead ;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life!
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene..
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born:
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel, and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least their own; their future selves applaud
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails ;
That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone
"Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool;

And scarce in human wisdom to do more.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage. When young, indeed, In full content we sometimes nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

And why? because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of Fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread: But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where, past the haft, no trace is found. As from the wing no scar the sky retains, The parted wave no furrow from the keel, So dies in human hearts the thought of death Even with the tender tear which nature sheds O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave.

ARENSIDE.

FOR A STATUE OF CHAUCER, AT WOODSTOC L

SUCH was old Chaucer.

Such the placid mien Of him who first with harmony informed The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt For many a cheerful day. These ancient walls Have often heard him, while his legend blithe He sang; of love, or knighthood, or the wiles Of homely life: through each estate and age, The fashions and the follies of the world, With cunning hand pourtraying. Though perchance From Blenheim's towers, stranger, thou art come, Glowing with Churchill's trophies; yet in vain Dost thou applaud them, if thy breast be cold To him, this other hero; who, in times Dark and untaught, began with charming verse To tame the rudeness of his native land.

MOURNFUL PLEASURES.

Ask the faithful youth,

Why the cold urn of her whom long he loved,
So often fills his arms; so often draws
His lonely footsteps at the silent hour,
To pay the mournful tribute of his tears?
O! he will tell thee that the wealth of worlds
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego
That sacred hour, when stealing from the noise
Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes
With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast
And turns his tears to rapture. Ask the crowd
Which flies impatient from the village walk,
To climb the neighbouring cliffs, when far below
The cruel winds have hurled upon the coast
Some helpless bark; while sacred pity melts
The general eye, or terror's icy hand
Smites their distorted limbs and horrent hair,
While every mother closer to her breast-

Catches her child, and pointing where the waves
Foam through the shattered vessel, shrieks aloud,
As some poor wretch that spreads his piteous arms
For succour, swallowed by the roaring surge,
As now another, dashed against the rock,
Drops lifeless down. O, deemest thou indeed
No kind endearment here by nature given
To mutual terror and compassion's tears?
No sweetly melting softness which attracts,
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers,
To this their proper action and their end?

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