JUVENILIA.

Ah! blest be the days when with Mira I took The learning of Love.... When we pluck'd the wild blossoms that blush'd in the grass, And I taught my dear maid of their species and class; For Conway, the friend of mankind, had decreed That Hudson should show us the wealth of the mead.

Ye gentle Gales, that softly move, Go whisper to the Fair I love; Tell her I languish and adore, And pity in return implore. But if she's cold to my request, Ye louder Winds, proclaim the rest— My sighs, my tears, my griefs proclaim, And speak in strongest notes my flame. Still, if she rests in mute disdain, 10 And thinks I feel a common pain— Wing'd with my woes, ye Tempests, fly, And tell the haughty Fair I die.

A wanton chaos in my breast raged high, A wanton transport darted in mine eye; False pleasure urged, and ev'ry eager care, That swell the soul to guilt and to despair. My Mira came! be ever blest the hour, That drew my thoughts half way from folly's power; She first my soul with loftier notions fired; I saw their truth, and as I saw admired; With greater force returning reason moved, 10 And as returning reason urged, I loved; Till pain, reflection, hope, and love allied My bliss precarious to a surer guide— To Him who gives pain, reason, hope, and love, Each for that end that angels must approve. One beam of light He gave my mind to see, And gave that light, my heavenly fair, by thee; That beam shall raise my thoughts, and mend my strain, Nor shall my vows, nor prayers, nor verse be vain.

Oh, Thou! who taught my infant eye To pierce the air, and view the sky, To see my God in earth and seas, To hear him in the vernal breeze, To know him midnight thoughts among, O guide my soul, and aid my song! Spirit of Light! do thou impart Majestic truths, and teach my heart; Teach me to know how weak I am, 10 How vain my powers, how poor my frame; Teach me celestial paths untrod— The ways of glory and of God. No more let me, in vain surprise, To heathen art give up my eyes— To piles laborious science rear'd For heroes brave, or tyrants fear'd; But quit Philosophy, and see The Fountain of her works in Thee. Fond man! yon glassy mirror eye— 20 Go, pierce the flood, and there descry The miracles that float between The rainy leaves of wat'ry green; Old Ocean's hoary treasures scan; See nations swimming round a span. Then wilt thou say—and rear no more Thy monuments in mystic lore— My God! I quit my vain design, And drop my work to gaze on Thine: Henceforth I'll frame myself to be, 30 Oh, Lord! a monument of Thee.

Give me, ye Powers that rule in gentle hearts, The full design, complete in all its parts, Th' enthusiastic glow, that swells the soul— When swell'd too much the judgment to control— The happy ear that feels the flowing force Of the smooth line's uninterrupted course; Give me, oh give, if not in vain the prayer, That sacred wealth, poetic worth, to share— Be it my boast to please and to improve, 10 To warm the soul to virtue and to love; To paint the passions, and to teach mankind Our greatest pleasures are the most refined; The cheerful tale with fancy to rehearse, And gild the moral with the charm of verse.

Friendship is like the gold refined, And all may weigh its worth; Love like the ore, brought undesign'd In virgin beauty forth. Friendship may pass from age to age, And yet remain the same; Love must in many a toil engage, And melt in lambent flame.

You're in love with the Muses? Well, grant it be true, When, good Sir, were the Muses enamour'd of you? Read first—if my lectures your fancy delight— Your taste is diseased, can your cure be to write? You suppose you're a genius, that ought to engage The attention of wits and the smiles of the age: Would the wits of the age their opinion make known, Why—every man thinks just the same of his own. You imagine that Pope—but yourself you beguile— 10 Would have wrote the same things, had he chose the same style. Delude not yourself with so fruitless a hope— Had he chose the same style, he had never been Pope. You think of my muse with a friendly regard, And rejoice in her author's esteem and reward: But let not his glory your spirits elate, When pleased with his honours, remember his fate.

Proud, little Man, opinion's slave. Error's fond child, too duteous to be free, Say, from the cradle to the grave, Is not the earth thou tread'st too grand for thee? This globe that turns thee, on her agile wheel Moves by deep springs, which thou canst never feel; Her day and night, her centre and her sun, Untraced by thee, their annual courses run. A busy fly, thou sharest the march divine, 10 And flattering fancy calls the motion thine; Untaught how soon some hanging grave may burst, And join thy flimsy substance to the dust.

The wintry winds have ceased to blow, And trembling leaves appear; And fairest flowers succeed the snow, And hail the infant year. So, when the world and all its woes Are vanish'd far away, Fair scenes and wonderful repose Shall bless the new-born day— When, from the confines of the grave, 10 The body too shall rise, No more precarious passion's slave, Nor error's sacrifice. 'Tis but a sleep—and Sion's king Will call the many dead; 'Tis but a sleep—and then we sing O'er dreams of sorrow fled. Yes!—wintry winds have ceased to blow, And trembling leaves appear, And Nature has her types to show 20 Throughout the varying year.

Through a dull tract of woe, of dread, The toiling year has pass'd and fled: And, lo! in sad and pensive strain, I sing my birth-day date again. Trembling and poor, I saw the light, New waking from unconscious night; Trembling and poor I still remain, To meet unconscious night again. Time in my pathway strews few flowers, 10 To cheer or cheat the weary hours; And those few strangers, dear indeed, Are choked, are check'd, by many a weed.

The Hebrew king, with spleen possest, By David's harp was soothed to rest; Yet, when the magic song was o'er, The soft delusion charm'd no more; The former fury fired the brain, And every care return'd again. But had he known Eliza's skill To bless the sense and bind the will, To bid the gloom of care retire, 10 And fan the flame of fond desire, Remembrance then had kept the strain, And not a care return'd again.

Think ye, the joys that fill our early day, Are the poor prelude to some full repast? Think you, they promise?—ah! believe they pay; The purest ever, they are oft the last. The jovial swain that yokes the morning team, And all the verdure of the field enjoys, See him, how languid, when the noon-tide beam Plays on his brow, and all his force destroys. So 'tis with us, when, love and pleasure fled, 10 We at the summit of our hill arrive: Lo! the gay lights of Youth are past—are dead, But what still deepening clouds of Care survive!

O sacred gift of God to man, A faith that looks above, And sees the deep amazing plan Of sanctifying love. Thou dear and yet tremendous God, Whose glory pride reviles; How did'st thou change thy awful rod To pard'ning grace and smiles! Shut up with sin, with shame below, 10 I trust, this bondage past, A great, a glorious change to know, And to be bless'd at last. I do believe, that, God of light! Thou didst to earth descend, With Satan and with Sin to fight— Our great, our only friend. I know thou did'st ordain for me, Thy creature, bread and wine; The depth of grace I cannot see, 20 But worship the design.

The sober stillness of the night That fills the silent air, And all that breathes along the shore, Invite to solemn prayer. Vouchsafe to me that spirit, Lord! Which points the sacred way, And let thy creatures here below Instruct me how to pray.

Oh, great Apollo! by whose equal aid The verse is written and the med'cine made, Shall thus a boaster, with his fourfold powers, In triumph scorn this sacred art of ours? Insulting quack! on thy sad business go, And land the stranger on this world of woe. Still I pass on, and now before me find The restless ocean, emblem of my mind; There wave on wave, here thought on thought succeeds, 10 Their produce idle works and idle weeds. Dark is the prospect o'er the rolling sea, But not more dark than my sad views to me; Yet from the rising moon the light beams dance In troubled splendour o'er the wide expanse; So on my soul, whom cares and troubles fright, The Muse pours comfort in a flood of light.— Shine out, fair flood! until the day-star flings His brighter rays on all sublunar things. "Why in such haste? by all the powers of wit, 20 I have against thee neither bond nor writ. If thou'rt a poet, now indulge the flight Of thy fine fancy in this dubious light; Cold, gloom, and silence shall assist thy rhyme, And all things meet to form the true sublime."— "Shall I, preserver deem'd around the place, With abject rhymes a doctor's name disgrace? Nor doctor solely, in the healing art I'm all in all, and all in every part; Wise Scotland's boast let that diploma be 30 Which gave me right to claim the golden fee. Praise, then, I claim, to skilful surgeon due, For mine th' advice and operation too; And, fearing all the vile compounding tribe, I make myself the med'cines I prescribe. Mine, too, the chemic art; and not a drop Goes to my patients from a vulgar shop. But chief my fame and fortune I command From the rare skill of this obstetric hand: This our chaste dames and prudent wives allow, 40 With her who calls me from thy wonder now."