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Till all obscuring earth hath laid
The body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude,

Which doth short joys, long woes include;
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epitaph but death.

H. KING.

AN EPODE

FROM A CHORUS IN THE UNFINISHED TRAGEDY OF

SOHRAB.

WHAT Power, beyond all powers elate,

Sustains this universal frame?

'Tis not nature, 'tis not fate,

"Tis not the dance of atoms blind,
Ethereal space, or subtile flame;
No; 'tis one vast eternal mind,
Too sacred for an earthly name!
He forms, pervades, directs the whole;
Not like the macrocosm's imaged soul,

But provident of endless good,

By ways nor seen nor understood,

Which e'en His angels vainly might explore.

High their highest thoughts above,

Truth, wisdom, justice, mercy, love,

Wrought in His heavenly essence, blaze and soar.

Mortals who His glory seek,

Rapt in contemplation meek,

Him fear, Him trust, Him venerate, Him adore !

SIR W. JONES.

ON THE GRAVE.

Solum mihi superest sepulchrum. Job.

WELCOME, thou safe retreat! Where the' injured man doth fortify 'Gainst the invasions of the great: Where the lean slave, who the' oar doth ply, Soft as his admiral may lie!

Great statist! 'tis your doom, Though your designs swell high and wide, To be contracted in a tomb! And all your happy cares provide But for your heir authorized pride. Nor shall your shade delight In the' pomp of your proud obsequies. And should the present flattery write A glorious epitaph, the wise

Will say the poet's wit here lies.

How reconciled to fate

Will grow the aged villager,

When he shall see your funeral state!
Since death will him as warm inter
As you in your gay sepulchre.

The great decree of God
Makes every path of mortals lead
To this dark common period*.
For what by-ways soe'er we tread,
We end our journey 'mong the dead.

* The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Gray.

E'en I, while humble zeal
Makes fancy a sad truth indite,
Insensible away do steal:

And when I'm lost in death's cold night,
Who will remember now I write?

HABINGTON.

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

THE lopped tree in time may grow again, 'Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorriest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow;

She draws her favours to the lowest ebb: Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web: No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring, Not endless night, yet not eternal day: The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay: Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; The net that holds no great takes little fish ; In some things all, in all things none are cross'd; Few all they need, but none have all they wish. Unmingled joys here to no man befall; Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

SOUTHWELL.

STANZAS.

A BEAM of tranquillity smiled in the west,
The storms of the morning pursued us no more,
And the wave,while it welcomed the moment of rest,
Still heaved, as remembering ills that were o'er!
Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,
Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the
dead,
[power,
And the spirit becalm'd but remember'd their
As the billow the force of the gale that was fled!
I thought of the days when to pleasure alone

My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh;
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known
Was pity for those who were wiser than I!
I felt how the pure intellectual fire

In luxury loses its heavenly ray;

How soon, in the lavishing cup of desire,
The pearl of the soul may be melted away!
And I pray'd of that spirit that lighted the flame,
That pleasure no more might its purity dim;
And that sullied but little, or brightly the same,
I might give back the gem I had borrow'd of him!
The thought was ecstatic! I felt as if Heaven
Had already the wreath of eternity shown;
As if, passion all chasten'd and error forgiven,
My heart had begun to be purely its own!
I look'd to the west, and the beautiful sky
Which morning had clouded was clouded no

more:

'Oh, thus,' I exclaim'd, ' can a heavenly eye Shed light on the soul that was darken'd before!'

T. MOORE.

THE LEADING STRING.

GUIDE of my wayward steps, when young desire
Caught the first spark of Emulation's fire
(Whose genial power, enkindling as it ran,
Raised life to sense, to reason, and to man),
Still, still my soul in memory's inmost cell,
Where images most dear, most sacred dwell,
With willing gratitude retains, reveres
Thy faithful service to my weakest years!

Oft as my thoughts recall those early days,
Thy gentle aid deserves my warmest praise;
By thee at once directed and sustain'd,
Unhurt I roved where countless dangers reign'd;
Where else, each petty pebble had o'erthrown
A helpless wanderer in a world unknown.

Beneath a thousand forms reflection shows Combining perils, hardships, pains, and woes : O! baneful influence, every moment spread In varied terrors o'er an infant's head; Whom still, alike unconscious, unalarm'd, The plain invited, and the desert charm'd; Whose heedless foot with equal haste had trod The fatal precipice and flowery road; Who, fondly rash, no other object knew Than what each changing trifle set to view;— Tired of the present, fond of that which flies; Still prone to fall, and impotent to rise.

Even now I tremble at the' affecting scene:Be firm, my soul!-What can this transport mean? Hark! on mine ear some sound more awful breaks! 'Tis no illusion! 'tis the Muse that speaks. 'My son!' she says, 'if thus thine heart, aghast, Starts at the little snares thy childhood pass'd,

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