There let me sit, and gaze with you

On Nature's works by Art refined: And own, while we their contest view, Both fair, but fairest thus combined!

AN ELEGY ON MAN.

WRITTEN JANUARY, 1752.

BEHOLD Earth's lord, imperial man,
In ripen'd vigour gay;

His outward form attentive scan,

Behold his plans of future life,
His care, his hope, his love,
Relations dear of child and wife,
The dome, the lawn, the grove.

Now see within his active mind
More generous passions share,
Friend, neighbour, country, all his kind,
By turns
engage his care.

Behold him

range with curious eye

O'er Earth from pole to pole,

And through the' illimitable sky
Explore with daring soul.

Yet pass some twenty fleeting years,
And all his glory flies;

His languid eye is bathed in tears,
He sickens, groans, and dies.

And is this all his destined lot,
This all his boasted sway,
For ever now to be forgot,
Amid the mouldering clay?

Ah, gloomy thought! ah! worse than death!
Life sickens at the sound;

Better it were not draw our breath,
Than run this empty round.

Hence, cheating Fancy, then away,
O let us better try,

By Reason's more enlighten'd ray,
What 'tis indeed to die.

Observe yon mass of putrid earth,
It holds an embryo brood;
E'en now the reptiles crawl to birth,
And seek their leafy food.

Yet stay till some few suns are pass'd,
Each forms a silken tomb,

And seems, like man, imprison'd fast,

To meet his final doom.

Yet from this silent mansion too

Anon you see him rise;

No more a crawling worm to view,

But tenant of the skies.

And what forbids that man should share

Some more auspicious day,

To range at large in open air,

As light and free as they?

There was a time when life first warm'd
Our flesh in shades of night,

Then was the' imperfect substance form'd,
And sent to view this light.

There was a time, when every sense

In straiter limits dwelt,

Yet each its task could then dispense,
We saw, we heard, we felt.

And times there are, when through the veins The blood forgets to flow,

Yet then a living power remains,

Though not in active show.

Times too there be, when friendly Sleep's

Soft charms the Senses bind,

Yet Fancy then her vigils keeps,

And ranges unconfined.

And Reason holds her separate sway,
Though all the Senses wake,

And forms in Memory's storehouse play
Of no material make.

What are these then, this

eye,

this ear,

But nicer organs found,
A glass to read, a trump to hear,
The modes of shape, or sound?

And blows may maim, or time impair
These instruments of clay,

And Death may ravish what they spare,
Completing their decay.

But are these then that living power
That thinks, compares, and rules?
Then say a scaffold is a tower,
A workman is his tools.

For aught appears that Death can do,
That still survives his stroke,
Its workings placed beyond our view,
Its present commerce broke.

But what connexions it may find,
Boots much to hope and fear1;
And if Instruction courts the mind,
"Tis madness not to hear.

ON RECEIVING

A LITTLE IVORY BOX FROM A LADY,

CURIOUSLY WROUGHT BY HER OWN HANDS.

LITTLE Box of matchless grace!

Fairer than the fairest face,

Smooth as was her parent hand

That did thy wondrous form command;

Spotless' as her infant mind;

As her riper age refined:

Beauty with the Graces join'd.

Let me clothe thee, lovely stranger, Let me lodge thee safe from danger, Let me guard thy soft repose

From giddy Fortune's random blows;

1 Vid. Butler's Analogy.

From thoughtless mirth, barbaric hate,
From the iron hand of Fate,
And Oppression's deadly weight.

Thou art not of a sort, or number,
Fashion'd for a Poet's lumber;
Though more capacious than his purse,
Too small to hold his store of verse:
Too delicate for homely toil,

Too neat for vulgar hands to soil.

O! would the Fates permit the Muse

Thy future destiny to choose!

In thy circle's fairy round
With a golden fillet bound;
Like the snowdrop silver white,
Like the glowworm's humid light,
Like the dew at early dawn,
Like the moonlight on the lawn,
Lucid rows of pearls should dwell,
Pleased as in their native shell;
Or the brilliant's sparkling rays,
Should emit a starry blaze.

And if the Fair, whose magic skill
Wrought thee passive to her will,
Deign to regard thy Poet's love,
Nor his aspiring suit reprove,

Her form should crown the fair design,
Goddess fit for such a shrine !

VALENTINE'S DAY.

THE tuneful choir in amorous strains
Accost their feather'd loves;

While each fond mate, with equal pains,
The tender suit approves.