We'll ask, no long protracted treat,
Since winter-life is feldom fweet;

But, when our feaft is o'er,
Grateful from table we'll arife,

Nor grudge our fons, with envious eyes,
The relics of our store,

Thus, hand in hand, through life we'll go;
Its checker'd paths of joy and woe,
With cautious steps, we'll tread ;
Quit its vain scenes without a tear,
Without a trouble or a fear,

And mingle with the dead.

While Confcience, like a faithful friend,
Shall thro' the gloomy vale attend,
And cheer our dying breath;
Shall, when all other comforts cease,
Like a kind angel whisper peace,
And smooth the bed of death.

SECTION IX.

COTTON.

Providence vindicated in the present State of Man.

HEAV'N from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state.
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know
Or who could fuffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to fhed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;

Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;
Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always TO BE blet:
The foul, uneafy and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His foul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the Solar Walk, or Milky Way;
Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the wat'ry waste;

Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirft for gold.
TO BE, contents his natural defire,

He asks no angel's wing, no feraph's fire :
But thinks, admitted to that equal fky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much.-
In pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Afpiring to be gods, if angels fell,

Afpiring to be angels, men rebeli

And who but wishes to invert the laws w
Of ORDER, fins against th' ETERNAL CAUSE.G

POPE.

SECTION X.

Selfishness Reproved.

HAS God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him has kindly spread the flow'ry lawn.
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own, and raptures fwell the note.
The bounding fteed you pompously beftride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year
?
Part pays, and juftly, the deferving fteer.
The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While man exclaims, "See all things for my ufe!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose. And just as short of reafon he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Grant that the pow'rful ftill the weak control;

Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole;

Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, ftooping from above, o pr
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?"
Admires the jay, the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For fome his int'reft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride.
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy
Th' extenfive bleffing of his luxury.

That very life his learned hunger craves,
He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feast;
And, till he ends the being, makes it bleft;
Which fees no more the stroke, nor feels the pain,
Than favour'd man by touch ethereal flain.

The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too muft perifh, when thy feast is o'er!

SECTION XI.

Human Frailty.

WEAK and irrefolute is man;

The purpose of to-day,
Woven with pains into his plan,
To-morrow rends away.

The bow well bent, and fmart the fpring,
Vice feems already flain;

But Paffion rudely fnaps the ftring,

And it revives again.

POPE.

Some foe to his upright intent

Finds out his weaker part, Virtue engages his affent,

But pleasure wins his heart.

"Tis here the folly of the wife,
Through all his art, we view;
And while his tongue the charge denies,
His confcience owns it true.

Bound on a voyage of awful length,
And dangers little known,
A ftranger to fuperior strength,
Man vainly trufts his own.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the diftant coaft;

The breath of heav'n must fwell the fail,

Or all the toil is loft.

COWPER.

SECTION XII.

Ode to Peace.

COME, Peace of Mind, delightful gueft!

Return, and make thy downy nest

Once more in this fad heart:
Nor riches I, nor pow'r purfue,
Nor hold forbidden joys in view;
We therefore need not part.

Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
From Av'rice and Ambition free,
And Pleafure's fatal wiles;

For whom, alas! doft thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,

The banquet of thy fmiles?