The vast majestic globe,
So beauteously array'd
In nature's various robe,
With wondrous skill difplay'd,
Is to a mourner's heart
A dreary wild at beft;
It flutters to depart,
And longs to be at rest.
VERSES SELECTED FROM AN OCCASIONAL
POEM ENTITLED VALEDICTION.
H Friendship! cordial of the human
breaft!
So little felt, fo fervently profeff'd!
Thy bloffoms deck our unfuspecting years;
The promise of delicious fruit appears:
We hug the hopes of conftancy and truth,
Such is the folly of our dreaming youth;
But foon, alas! detect the rafsh mistake
That fanguine inexperience loves to make;
And view with tears the expected harvest loft,
Decay'd by time, or wither'd by a froft.
Whoever undertakes a friend's great part
Should be renew'd in nature, pure in heart,
Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove
A thousand ways the force of genuine love.
He may be call'd to give up health and gain,
To exchange content for trouble, ease for pain,
To echo figh for figh, and groan for groan,
And wet his cheeks with forrows not his own.
The heart of man, for such a task too frail,
When most relied on is moft fure to fail;
And, fummon'd to partake its fellow's woe,
Starts from its office like a broken bow.
Votaries of business and of pleasure prove
Faithless alike in friendship and in love.
Retired from all the circles of the gay,
And all the crowds that bustle life away,
To scenes where competition, envy, ftrife,
Beget no thunder-clouds to trouble life,
Let me, the charge of fome good angel, find
One who has known, and has escaped mankind;
Polite, yet virtuous, who has brought away
The manners, not the morals, of the day:
With him, perhaps with her (for men have known
No firmer friendships than the fair have shown),
Let me enjoy, in fome unthought-of spot,
(All former friends forgiven, and forgot,)
Down to the clofe of life's faft fading scene,
Union of hearts without a flaw between.
"Tis grace, 'tis bounty, and it calls for praise,
If God give health, that funshine of our days!
And if he add, a bleffing shared by few,
Content of heart, more praises ftill are due :
But if he grant a friend, that boon poffeff'd
Indeed is treasure, and crowns all the reft;
And giving one, whose heart is in the skies,
Born from above and made divinely wife,
He gives, what bankrupt nature never can,
Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man,
Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew,
A foul, an image of himself, and therefore true.
Lunaque mutatæ reparat difpendia for
Aftraque, purpurei telis extincta diei,
Rurfus nocte vigent. Humiles telluris alumni,
Graminis herba virens, et florum picta propago,
Quos crudelis hyems lethali tabe peredit,
Cum Zephyri vox blanda vocat, rediitque fereni
Temperies anni, fœcundo è cefpite furgunt.
Nos domini rerum, nos, magna et pulchra minati,
Cum breve ver vitæ robuftaque tranfiit ætas,
Deficimus; nec nos ordo revolubilis auras
Reddit in æthereas, tumuli neque clauftra refolvit.
ON THE SHORTNESS OF HUMAN
Tranflation of the foregoing.
UNS that fet, and moons that wane,
Rife, and are restored again;
Stars that orient day fubdues,
Night at her return renews.
Herbs and flowers, the beauteous birth
Of the genial womb of Earth,
Suffer but a tranfient death
From the winter's cruel breath.
Zephyr speaks; ferener skies
Warm the glebe, and they arise.
We, alas! Earth's haughty kings,
We, that promise mighty things,
Lofing foon life's happy prime,
Droop, and fade, in little time.
Spring returns, but not our bloom;
Still 'tis winter in the tomb.
ERE Johnfon lies, a fage by all allow'd,
Whom to have bred may well make
England proud,
Whose profe was eloquence, by wisdom taught,
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
Whose verse may claim-grave, mafculine, and
strong,
Superior praise to the mere poet's fong;
Who many a noble gift from Heaven poffeff'd,
And faith at laft, alone worth all the rest.
O man, immortal by a double prize,
By fame on earth-by glory in the skies!
Jan. 1785.
TO MISS C-, ON HER BIRTHDAY.
many between east and west
Difgrace their parent earth,
Whofe deeds conftrain us to deteft
The day that gave them birth!
Not fo when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And with her born once more!
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