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While party-color'd shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows
Their tatters by, and shows their nakedness.

4. He sees with other eyes than theirs; where they Behold a sun, he spies a Deity;

What makes them only smile, makes him adore.
Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees;
An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain.
They things terrestrial worship as divine:
His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust,
That dims his sight and shortens his survey,
Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bound.

5. Titles and honors (if they prove his fate)
He lays aside to find his dignity;
No dignity they find in aught besides.
They triumph in externals, (which conceal
Man's real glory,) proud of an eclipse:
Himself too much he prizes to be proud;
And nothing thinks so great in man, as man.
Too dear he holds his int'rest, to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade;
Their int'rest, like a lion, lives on prey.

6. They kindle at the shadow of a wrong; Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heav'n, Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe.

Nought, but what wounds his virtue, wounds his peace. A cover'd heart their character defends;

!

A cover'd heart denies him half his praise.
7. With nakedness his innocence
agrees
While their broad foliage testifies their fall!
Their no-joys end, where his full feast begins:
His joys create, their's murder, future bliss.
To triumph in existence, his alone;
And his alone triumphantly to think
His true existence is not yet begun.

His glorious course was, yesterday, complete:
Death, then, was welcome; yet life still is sweet.

LESSON CLXIII.

Hymn on a Review of the Seasons.-THOMSON. 1. THESE, as they change, Almighty Father! these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year

Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the soft'ning air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles,
And ev'ry sense, and ev'ry heart is joy.

2. Then comes Thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection thro' the swelling year;
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whisp'ring gales.
3. Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that live.
In winter, awfu! Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore;
And humblest nature with Thy northern blast.
4. Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art, .
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
Shade unperceived, so softening into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That as they still succeed, they ravish still.

5. But wand'ring oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion inat o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds ev'ry creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.

6. Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky:
In adoration join! and, ardent, raise
One general song!-

Ye, chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn!

7. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray

The sun.

Russets the plain; inspiring autumn gleams;
Or winter rises in the black'ning east;

Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

8. Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barb'rous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic Isles; 'tis nought to me;
Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where HE vital breathes there must be joy.
9. When e'en at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new pow'rs,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where UNIVERSAL LOVE not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But 1 lose
Myself in HIM, in light ineffable!

Come then, expressive silence, musc his praise.

LESSON CLXIV.

Questions and Answers.-MONTGOMERY.

Q. FLOWERS,-wherefore do ye bloom?

A.

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-We strew thy pathway to the tomb.

Q. Stars, wherefore do ye rise?

A. To light thy spirit to the skies.

Q. Fair Moon-why dost thou wane?
A. That I may wax again.

Q. O Sun,-what makes thy beams so bright?
A. The Word that said," Let there be light."
Q. Planets,-what guides you in your course?
A. Unseen, unfelt, unfailing force.

Q. Nature, whence sprang thy glorious frame?
A. -My Maker call'd me, and I came.

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Q. O Light, thy subtile essence who may know? A. Ask not; for all things but myself I show.

Q. What is yon arch which every where I see?
The sign of omnipresent Deity.

A.

Q. Where rests the horizon's all-embracing zone?
A.

-Where earth, God's footstool, touches heaven, his
throne.

Q. Ye clouds,-what bring ye in your train?

A.

God's embassies,-storm-lightning-hail-or rain. Q. Winds, whence and whither do ye A. Thou must be born again to know.

blow?

Q. Bow in the cloud,-what token dost thou bear?
A.

That Justice still cries "strike," and Mercy "spare."
Q. Dews of the morning,-wherefore were ye given?
A. To shine on earth, then rise to heaven.

A.

Q. Rise, glitter, break; yet, Bubble, tell me why?
To show the course of all beneath the sky.
Q. Stay, Meteor, stay thy falling fire!

A.

No, thus shall all the host of heaven expire.
Q. Ocean,-what law thy chainless waves confined?
A. That which in Reason's limits, holds thy mind
Q. Time,-whither dost thou flee?

A. I travel to Eternity.

Q. Eternity, what art thou?-say.

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A. -Time past, time present, time to come,-to-day

Q. Ye Dead,--where can your dwelling be?

A. -The house for all the living;-come and see.

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Q. O Life, what is thy breath?

A. —A vapor, lost in death.

Q. O Death, how ends thy strife?

A.

In everlasting life.

Q. O Grave,-where is thy victory?

A.

Ask him who rose again from me.

LESSON CLXV.

On the Death of Mrs. Mason. MASON.

1. TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:
Take that best gift, which heaven so lately gave :
To Bristol's fount I bore, with trembling care,
Her faded form. She bow'd to taste the wave.

2. And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breast alarm?

Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine;

E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.

3. Bid them be chaste, be innocent like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere, as meekly move: And if as fair, from vanity as free,

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love:

4. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,
('Twas e'en to thec) yet the dread path once trod,
Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids the "pure in heart behold their God."

LESSON CLXVI.

Ode from the 19th Psalm.-ADDISON.

1 THE spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue etherial sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great original proclaim.

Th' unwearied sun, from day to day,

Does his Creator's power display ;
And publishes to ev'ry land,
The work of an Almighty hand.

2. Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wond'rous tale,
And, nightly, to the list'ning earth,
Repeats the story of her birth;

Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
3. What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid these radiant orbs be found?
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing, as they shine,
"The hand that made us is divine.”

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