Then took his Muse at once and dipp'd her
Full in the middle of the Scripture.
What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself he out-Sternholded:
Made David seem so mad and freakish,
All thought him just what thought King Achish.
No mortal read his Solomon",
But judged Re'boam his own son.
Moses he served as Moses Pharaoh,
And Deborah, as she Siserah1:
Made Jeremy's full sore to cry,
And Job
himself curse God and die.
What punishment all this must follow?
Shall Arthur use him like King Tollo?
Shall David as Uriah slay him?
Or dexterous Deborah Sisera-him?
Or shall Eliza lay a plot,
To treat him like her sister Scot?
Shall William dub his better end 's,
Or Marlborough serve him like a friend?
No!-none of these?—Heaven spare his life!
But send him, honest Job! thy wife.
10 Translation of all the Psalms.
11 Canticles and Ecclesiastes.
12 Paraphrase of the Canticles of Moses and Deborah, &c. 13 The Lamentations.
14 The whole book of Job, a poem, in folio.
15 Kick him on the breech, not knight him on the shoulder.
WHETHER amid the gloom of night I stray,
Or my glad eyes enjoy revolving day,
Still Nature's various face informs my sense,
Of an all-wise, all-powerful Providence.
When the gay sun first breaks the shades of night,
And strikes the distant eastern hills with light,
Colour returns, the plains their livery wear,
And a bright verdure clothes the smiling year;
The blooming flowers with opening beauties glow,
And grazing flocks their milky fleeces show;
The barren cliffs with chalky fronts arise,
And a pure azure arches o'er the skies.
But when the gloomy reign of Night returns,
Stripp'd of her fading pride, all Nature mourns:
The trees no more their wonted verdure boast,
But weep in dewy tears their beauty lost :
No distant landscapes draw our curious eyes,
Wrapp'd in Night's robe the whole creation lies:
Yet still, even now, while darkness clothes the land,
We view the traces of the' Almighty hand;
Millions of stars in Heaven's wide vault appear,
And with new glories hang the boundless sphere:
The silver moon her western couch forsakes,
And o'er the skies her nightly circle makes;
Her solid globe beats back the sunny rays,
And to the world her borrow'd light repays.
Whether those stars that twinkling lustre send
Are suns, and rolling worlds those suns attend,
Man may conjecture, and new schemes declare,
Yet all his systems but conjectures are;
But this we know, that Heaven's eternal King,
Who bade this universe from nothing spring,
Can at his word bid numerous worlds appear,
And rising worlds the' all-powerful word shall hear.
When to the western main the sun descends,
To other lands a rising day he lends:
The spreading dawn another shepherd spies,
The wakeful flocks from their warm folds arise;
Refresh'd, the peasant seeks his early toil,
And bids the plough correct the fallow soil.
While we in Sleep's embraces waste the night,
The climes opposed enjoy meridian light;
And when those lands the busy sun forsakes,
With us again the rosy morning wakes:
In lazy sleep the night rolls swift away,
And neither clime laments his absent ray.
When the pure soul is from the body flown,
No more shall Night's alternate reign be known;
The sun no more shall rolling light bestow,
But from the' Almighty streams of glory flow.
Oh! may some nobler thought my soul employ,
Than empty, transient, sublunary joy:
The stars shall drop, the sun shall lose his flame,
But thou, O God! for ever shine the same.
ERE the foundations of the world were laid,
Ere kindling light the' Almighty word obey'd,
Thou wert; and when the subterraneous flame
Shall burst its prison, and devour this frame,
From angry Heaven when the keen lightning flies,
When fervent heat dissolves the melting skies,
Thou still shalt be; still as thou wert before,
And know no change, when time shall be no more.
O endless thought! divine Eternity!
The' immortal soul shares but a part of thee;
For thou wert present when our life began,
When the warm dust shot up in breathing man.
Ah! what is life? with ills encompass'd round;
Amidst our hopes Fate strikes the sudden wound.
To-day the statesman of new honour dreams,
To-morrow death destroys his airy schemes.
Is mouldy treasure in thy chest confined?
Think all that treasure thou must leave behind;
Thy heir with smiles shall view thy blazon'd hearse,
And all thy hoards with lavish hand disperse.
Should certain Fate the' impending blow delay,
Thy mirth will sicken, and thy bloom decay;
Then feeble age will all thy nerves disarm,
No more thy blood its narrow channels warm.
Who then would wish to stretch this narrow span,
To suffer life beyond the date of man?
The virtuous soul pursues a nobler aim, And life regards but as a fleeting dream:
She longs to wake, and wishes to get free,
To launch from earth into eternity :
For while the boundless theme extends our thought,
Ten thousand thousand rolling years are nought.
EPITAPH OF BY-WORDS.
HERElies a round woman, who thought mighty odd Every word she e'er heard in this church about God: To convince her of God the good dean did endeavour,
But still in her heart she held Nature more clever. Though he talk'd much of virtue, her head al
Upon something or other, she found better fun: For the dame, by her skill in affairs astronomical, Imagined, to live in the clouds was but comical. In this world she despised every soul she met here, And now she's in the' other, she thinks it but
MY OWN EPITAPH.
LIFE is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it.
C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick.
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