For truth with native force prevails, Be to the Church a firm support, He scorn'd the arts of flattery: The alteration in your dress And men of sense and education Your own peculiar pow'r to please, Aw'd with respect e'en Pride shall view [ 15 ] HYMN FOR THE PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETY. [Set to Music by Dr. BUSBY, and sung at one of their public Dinners.] To snatch deserted youth from sin and woe, Your guardian care protects them here below, Relieves each want, and points the way to Heav'n. Then, while their thanks like grateful incense rise, Let our glad strains with theirs united be: Angels themselves th' ascending notes shall prize, And hail, with joy, Divine Philanthropy! Divine Philanthropy! whose heav'nly voice Amid the seraph choir this descant ran"My blessed vot'ries shall in GOD rejoice, "And live in bliss with Him who died for man." O! ye, whose wealth can sooth affliction's tear, Secure that bliss by God-like pity here! SONNET, Imitated from a Passage in 'La Bergere des Alpes,' of Marmontel.] WITH what a gentle, parting ray serene, With what a tranquil gleam, and soften❜d light, The setting sun shuts the diurnal scene, Then sinks beneath the wave-and all is night! Thus at the awful close of life's sad stage, Perplex'd with wand'rings, and beset with care, The soul, exhausted in her pilgrimage, Pants to be free, and breathe a purer air: Elate with hope, eager to take the wing, And to that promis'd happier spot to fly, Where she may bloom again in youthful spring, And quaff the stream of immortality.* But how remote is that celestial day; And with how dull a step life lingers on the way! "Quaffs immortality and joy." MILTON. STANZAS, WRITTEN ON THE SETTING IN OF A SEVERE WINTER. AH! where is now the balmy breath of May, That wakes dull Nature from her sullen trance; When Flora, crown'd by Spring with chaplets gay, With Venus and the Graces swells the dance? Ah! where is Summer's animated glow, The eve unclouded, and the purple dawn; When thro' the warbling grove's young zephyrs blow, Or cool the heats that scorch the upland lawn? Ah! where is Autumn, with his ripen'd stores The stream of plenty o'er the laughing fields? |