Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages of hopeless mifery. Future death, And death ftill future. Not an hafty stroke, Like that which fends him to the dufty grave, But unrepealable enduring death.
Scripture is ftill a trumpet to his fears: What none can prove a forg'ry, may be true, What none but bad men with exploded, must. That fcruple checks him. Riot is not loud- Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midft Of laughter his compunctions are fincere, And he abhors the jeft by which he shines. Remorfe begets reform. His master-lust Falls firft before his refolute rebuke,
And seems dethron'd and vanquifh'd. Peace. enfues,
But fpurious and short-liv'd, the puny child. Of felf-congratulating pride, begot On fancied Innocence. Again he falls, And fights again; but finds his best effay A prefage ominous, portending still Its own dishonour by a worse relapse. Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foil'd So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now Takes part with appetite, and pleads the cause, Perversely, which of late the fo condemn'd; With fhallow shifts and old devices, worn
And tatter'd in the service of debauch, Cov'ring his fhame from his offended fight. • Hath God indeed giv'n appetites to man, And stor❜d the earth so plenteously with means To gratify the hunger of his wish,
And doth he reprobate and will he damn The use of his own bounty? making first So frail a kind, and then enacting laws So ftrict, that less than perfect must despair ? Falfehood! which whofo but fufpects of truth, Difhonours God, and makes a flave of man. • Do they themselves, who undertake for hire The teacher's office, and difpense at large Their weekly dole of edifying strains, • Attend to their own mufic? have they faith In what with fuch folemnity of tone
And gefture they propound to our belief? • Nay-conduct hath the loudeft tongue. The • voice
Is but an inftrument on which the priest • May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, The unequivocal authentic deed,
• We find found argument, we read the heart." Such reas'nings (if that name must needs belong
T'excufes in which reafon has no part) Serve to compose a spirit well inclin'd To live on terms of amity and vice, And fin without difturbance. Often urg'd
(As often as libidinous difcourfe Exhausted, he reforts to folemn themes Of theological and grave import) They gain at laft h isunrefery'd affent. Till harden'd his heart's temper in the forge Of luft, and on the anvil of despair,
He flights the ftrokes of confcience. Nothing
Or nothing much, his conftancy in ill,
Vain tamp'ring has but fofter'd his disease, 'Tis defp'rate, and he fleeps the sleep of death. Hafte now, philofopher, and fet him free. Charm the deaf ferpent wifely. Make him hear Of rectitude and fitnefs; moral truth
How lovely, and the moral-sense how fure, Confulted and obey'd, to guide his steps.
Directly, to the FIRST AND ONLY FAIR. Spare not in fuch a cause. Spend all the pow'rs. Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise : Be most fublimely good, verbosely grand, And with poetic trappings grace thy profe, Till it out-mantle all the pride of verfe.- Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brass, Smitten in vain! fuch mufic cannot charm Th' eclipfe that intercepts truth's heav'nly beam, And chills and darkens a wide-wand'ring foul. The still small voice is wanted. He must speak,
Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect, Who calls for things that are not, and they come. Grace makes the flave a freeman. "Tis a change That turns to ridicule the turgid fpeech And stately tone of moralifts, who boast, As if like him, of fabulous renown,
They had indeed ability to fmooth The fhag of favage nature, and were each An Orpheus, and omnipotent in fong. But transformation of apoftate man From fool to wife, from earthly to divine, Is work for Him that made him. He alone, And he by means in philosophic eyes Trivial and worthy of difdain, ate hieves The wonder; humanizing what is brute In the loft kind, extracting from the lips Of afps their venom, overpow'ring strength By weakness, and hoftility by love.
Patriots have toil'd, and in their country's caufe Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud recompence. We give in charge Their names to the fweet lyre. Th' hiftoric muse, Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in ftone and ever-during brass To guard them, and t' immortalize her truft. But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, To those who, pofted at the fhrine of truth,
Have fall'n in her defence. A patriot's blood, Well spent in fuch a ftrife, may earn indeed And for a time insure to his lov'd land
The sweets of liberty and equal laws; But martyrs ftruggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is fhed In confirmation of the nobleft claim,
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To foar, and to anticipate the skies.
Yet few remember them. They liv'd unknown Till perfecution dragg'd them into fame,
And chas'd them up to heaven. Their afhes flew -No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard embalms and fanctifies his fong;
And History, fo warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious fuff'rers little praise. *
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are flaves befide. There's not a chain That hellifh foes, confed'rate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he cafts it off With as much eafe as Samfon his green wyths. He looks abroad into the varied field
Of Nature, and though poor perhaps, compar'd
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