That bids defiance to the ftorms of fate: EPITAPH ON MISS STANLEY. . HERE, Stanley! reft, escap'd this mortal ftrife, O! born to bloom, then fink beneath the storm, To show us artless Reafon's moral reign, Yes, we must follow foon, will glad obey, A PARAPHRASE ON THE Latter part of the fixth chapter of St. Matthew. WHEN my breast labours with oppreffive care, And o'er my cheek defcends the falling tear; While all my warring paffions are at ftrife, O! let me liften to the words of Life! Raptures deep-felt his doctrine did impart, And thus he rais'd from earth the drooping heart, Think not, when all your scanty stores afford Is spread at once upon the fparing board; Think not, when worn the homely robe appears, While on the roof the howling tempeft bears, What farther fhall this feeble life sustain, And what shall clothe these fhiv'ring limbs again. Say, does not life its nourishment exceed? And the fair body its investing weed? Behold! and look away your low despair See the light tenants of the barren air; To them nor ftores nor granaries belong, Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song; Yet your kind heavenly Father bends his eye On the least wing that flits along the sky. To him they fing when Spring renews the plain, To him they cry in Winter's pinching reign, Nor is their music nor their plaint in vain : He hears the gay and the distressful call, They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow, If, ceafelefs, thus the fowls of heaven he feeds, TELL ODE. I. ILL me, thou Soul of her I love! Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled, To what delightful world above, Appointed for the happy dead? 11. Or doft thou, free, at pleasure, roam, III. Oh! if thou hover'ft round my walk, IV. Should then the weary eye of Grief, Oh! vifit thou my foothing dream. ODE. ONIGHTINGALE! beft poet of the grove, That plaintive ftrain can ne'er belong to thee, Bleft in the full poffeffion of thy love: O lend that ftrain, fweet Nightingale! to me. ODE. TO SERAPHINA. THE wanton's charms, however bright, Are like the false illufive light, To precipices oft' betrays; But that fweet ray your beauties dart, Which clears the mind and cleans the heart, Is like the facred Queen of Night, Who pours a lovely gentle light Wide o'er the dark, by wanderers bleft, 2 |