LINES WRITTEN THE NIGHT BE.
FORE HIS EXECUTION.
F'en such is time; which takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us back with earth and dust;
Which in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
Like to Diana in her summer weed,
Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,
Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed,
When washed by Arethusa faint they lie,
Is fair Samela;
As fair Aurora in her morning grey,
Decked with the ruddy glister of her love,
Is fair Samela;
Like lovely Thetis on a calmèd day,
When as her brightness Neptune's fancy move,
Shines fair Samela;
Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams,
Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory
Her cheeks like rose and lily yield forth gleams,
Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony;
Thus fair Samela
Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,
And Juno in the show of majesty,
Pallas in wit, all three, if you will view,
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity Yield to Samela.
"What am I? and from whence ?-I nothing know
But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been; eternal there must be.-
But what eternal ?-Why not human race?
And Adam's ancestors without an end?
That's hard to be conceived, since every link
Of that long-chain'd succession is so frail.
Can every part depend, and not the whole
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rise;
I'm still quite out at sea, nor see the shore.
Whence Earth, and these bright orbs?-Eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs
Would want some other father;-much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes;
Design implies intelligence, and art;
That can't be from themselves-or man: that art
Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?
And nothing greater yet allow'd than man.—
Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? then each atom,
Asserting its indisputable right
To dance, would form an universe of dust:
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms And boundless flights, from shapeless, and repos'd!
Has matter more than motion? has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fram'd such laws,
Which but to guess, a Newton made immortal?-
If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,
Who think a clod inferior to man!
If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct;
And that with greater far than human skill,
Resides not in each block;-a Godhead reigns.
Grant, then, invisible, eternal, Mind;
That granted, all is solv'd-But, granting that,
Draw I not o'er me a still darker cloud?
Grant I not that which I can ne'er conceive?
A being without origin, or end!-
Hail, human liberty! There is no God-
Yet, why? On either scheme that knot subsists;
Subsist it must, in God, or human race:
If in the last, how many knots beside,
Indissoluble all?-Why choose it there,
Where chosen, still subsist ten thousand more?
Reject it, where, that chosen, all the rest
Dispers'd, leave reason's whole horizon clear;
This is not reason's dictate; reason says,
'Close with the side where one grain turns the scale;'
What vast preponderance is here! can reason
With louder voice exclaim-'Believe a God?'
And reason heard, is the sole mark of man.
What things impossible must man think true,
On any other system! and how strange
To disbelieve, through mere credulity!"
If, in this chain, Lorenzo finds no flaw,
Let it for ever bind him to belief.
And where the link, in which a flaw he finds?
And, if a God there is, that God how great!
How great that power, whose providential care
Through these bright orbs' dark centres darts a ray!
Of Nature universal threads the whole!
And hangs creation, like a precious gem,
Though little, on the footstool of his throne!
SALLY IN OUR ALLEY.
[H. CAREY. A wild and eccentric genius. Born 1700. Died by his own hand at his house in Coldbath Fields, 1743.]
Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Her father he makes cabbage-nets
And through the streets does cry 'em ; Her mother she sells laces long
To such as please to buy 'em :
But sure such folks could ne'er beget
So sweet a girl as Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
When she is by, I leave my work,
I love her so sincerely!
My master comes like any Turk,
And bangs me most severely-
But let him bang his bellyful,
I'll bear it all for Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Of all the days that's in the week
I dearly love but one day-
And that's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I'm drest all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.
My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamed
Because I leave him in the lurch
As soon as text is named;
I leave the church in sermon-time
And slink away to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
When Christmas comes about again
O then I shall have money;
I'll hoard it up, and box it all,
I'll give it to my honey:
I would it were ten thousand pound,
I'd give it all to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
My master and the neighbors all Make game of me and Sally,
And but for her I'd better be
A slave and row a galley;
But when my seven long years are out
O then I'll marry Sally-
And then we'll wed, and then we'll bed,
But not in our alley.
ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE
ANGEL.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said—
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one ?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still, and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest;
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
UPON HUSBAND AND WIFE, WHO DIED AND
WERE BURIED TOGETHER.
To these, whom death again did wed,
This grave's their second marriage-bed;
For though the hand of Fate could force
"Twixt soul and body a divorce,
It could not sunder man and wife,
'Cause they both lived but one life.
Peace, good reader, do not weep;
Peace, the lovers are asleep;
They, (sweet turtles) folded lie
In the last knot that love could tie.
And though they lie as they were dead,
Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead;
(Pillow hard, and sheets not warm)
Love made the bed, they'll take no harm.
Let them sleep, let them sleep on,
Till this stormy night be gone,
And the eternal morrow dawn;
Then the curtains will be drawn,
And they wake into that light,
Whose day shall never die in night.
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