EVER lovely and benign,
Endow'd with energy divine,
Hail, Virtue! hail! From thee proceed
The great design, the heroic deed,
The heart that melts for human woes,
Valour, and truth, and calm repose.
Though Fortune frown, though Fate prepare
Her shafts and wake corroding care;
Though wrathful clouds involve the skies,
Though lightnings glare and storms arise;
In vain to shake the guiltless soul
Changed Fortune frowns, and thunders roll.
Pile, Avarice, thy yellow hoard;
Spread, Luxury, thy costly board;
Ambition, crown thy head with bays;
Let Sloth recline on beds of ease;
Admired, adored, let Beauty roll
The magic eye that melts the soul,-
Unless with purifying fires
Virtue the conscious soul inspires,
In vain, to bar intruding woe,
Wealth, fame, and power, and pleasure flow.
To me thy sovereign gift impart,
The resolute unshaken heart,
To guide me from the flowery way
Where pleasure tunes her siren lay:
Deceitful path! where shame and care
The poisonous shaft, conceal'd, prepare!
And shield me with thy generous pride,
When fashion scoffs and fools deride.
Ne'er let Ambition's meteor ray
Mislead my reason, and betray
My fancy with the gilded dream
Of hoarded wealth and noisy fame:
But let my soul, consenting, flow,
Compassionate of others' woe;
Teach me the kind endearing art
To heal the mourner's broken heart;
To ease the rankling wounds of care,
And sooth the frenzy of despair.
LO, THE LILIES OF THE FIELD.
Lo, the lilies of the field,
How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson given
By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy :
Mortal, flee from doubt and sorrow : God provideth for the morrow!
Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily ;
Mortal, flee from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!
One there lives whose guardian eye Guides our humble destiny:
One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely, then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!
And canst thou, Mother, for a moment think
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honours on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away,
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought!-where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home.
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
Он, Lady, take this drooping flower,
"Twill call to mind our parting hour;
This simple plant, whate'er my lot,
In silence says" Forget-me-not."
When on the ocean far away,
Or tossed about in Biscay's Bay;
When stormy winds howl round thy cot,
"Twill tell thy heart-" Forget-me-not."
Ev'n when 'tis withered think of me,
Ah! many thoughts I'll waft to thee;
Though I no more may see the spot,
"Twill whisper thee-" Forget-me-not."
And now Farewell! where'er I flee,
All hopes and joys shall rest on thee;
Ne'er from thy heart my memory blot-
I ask but this "Forget-me-not."
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