ON SLAVERY. BUT, ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayer But not the thought that they must meet no more: All other sorrows virtue may endure, To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase, Bid suffer it awhile, and kiss the rod; That has a heart and life in it, Be free! K 2 HYMN ON SOLITUDE. HAIL, mildly pleasing Solitude, Oh! how I love with thee to walk, A thousand shapes you wear with ease, And still in every shape you please. Now wrapt in some mysterious dream, A lone philosopher you seem; Now quick from hill to vale you fly, And now you sweep the vaulted sky. A shepherd next you haunt the plain, And warble forth your oaten strain. A lover now, with all the grace Of that sweet passion in your face; Then, calm'd to friendship, you assume The gentle-looking Hartford's bloom, As, with her Musidora, she (Her Musidora fond of thee) Amid the long withdrawing vale, Awakes the rivall'd nightingale. Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Just as the dew-bent rose is born; And while meridian fervors beat, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat; But chief, when evening scenes decay, And the faint landscape swims away, Thine is the doubtful soft decline, And that best hour of musing thine. Descending ages bless thy train, The virtues of the sage and swain; Plain innocence in white array'd, Before thee lifts her fearless head: Religion's beams around thee shine, And cheer thy glooms with light divine : About thee sports sweet liberty; And wrapt Urania sings to thee. Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell, And in thy deep recesses dwell. Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill, When meditation has her fill, I just may cast my careless eyes Where London's spiry turrets rise; Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain, Then shield me in the woods again. HYMN TO DARKNESS. DARKNESS, thou first great parent of us all, Thou art our great original; Since from thy universal womb Does all thou shad'st below, thy numerous offspring come. Thy wondrous birth is even to Time unknown, Whilst Light did its first being owe Unto that awful shade it dares to rival now. Say, in what distant region dost thou dwell, To Reason inaccessible? From form and duller matter free, Thou soar'st above the reach of man's philosophy. Involv'd in thee, we first receive our breath, Great Monarch of the grave and womb, Where'er our souls shall go, to thee our bodies come. The silent globe is struck with awful fear, When thy majestic shades appear: Thou dost compose the air and sea, And Earth a Sabbath keeps, sacred to rest and thee. |