II.

Begin, my muse, the heav'nly song,
A burden for an angel's tongue :
When Gabriel sounds these awful things,
He tunes and summons all his strings.

III.

Proclaim inimitable love:

Jesus, the Lord of worlds above,
Puts off the beams of bright array,
And vails the God in mortal clay.

IV.

What black reproach defil'd his name,
When with our sin he took our shame!
The power whom kneeling angels blest
Is made the impious rabble's jest.

V.

He that distributes crowns and thorns,
Hangs on a tree, and bleeds and groans :
The Prince of life resigns his breath,
The King of glory bows to death.

VI.

But see the wonders of his power,
He triumphs in his dying hour,
And whilst by Satan's rage he fell,
He dash'd the rising hopes of hell.

VII.

Thus were the hosts of death subdu'd,
And sin was drown'd in Jesus' blood;

Then be arose, and reigns above,

And conquers sinners by his love.

If I could pursue all the wondrous achievements of a dying and a rising Saviour in verse, as fast and as far as my thoughts sometimes attempt to trace them, I should lengthen this ode to many stanzas, and yet, at last, I should lose both my thoughts and my verse amongst the unknown wonders of his glory, and the ages of eternity.

Who

Who shall fulfil this boundless song?

What vain pretender dares ?

The theme surmounts an angel's tongue,
And Gabriel's heart despairs *.

V. COMPLAINT and HOPE under great PAIN. 1736.

I.

LORD, I am pain'd; but I resign
To thy superior will :
'Tis grace-'tis wisdom all divine,
Appoints the pains I feel.

II.

Dark are thy ways of providence,

While those that love thee groan
Thy reasons lie conceal'd from sense,
Mysterious and unknown.
III.

Yet Nature may have leave to speak,
And plead before her God,

Lest the o'erburden'd heart should break

Beneath thy heavy rod.

IV.

Will nothing but such daily pain

Secure my soul from hell?
Canst thou not make my health attain
Thy kind designs as well?

V.

How shall my tongue proclaim thy grace

While thus at home confin'd?

What can I write, while painful flesh

Hangs beavy on the mind?

* Note, In this ode, there are three or four lines taken from Mr Stennet's Sacramental Hymns; for when I found they exprest my thought and design, in proper and beautiful language, I chose rather to borrow and ac knowledge the debt, than to labour hard for worse lines, that I might have the poor pleasure of calling them my own.

VI.

These groans, and sighs, and flowing tears,
Gove my poor spirit ease,
While ev'ry groan my Father hears,
And ev'ry tear he sees.

VII.

Is not some smiling hour at hand

With peace upon its wings?
Give it, O God, thy swift command,
With all the joys it brings.

VI. On an ELEGY, written by the Right Hon. the Countess of HERTFORD, on the Death of Mrs Rowe. 1737.

STRUCK with the sight of Philomela's urn
Eusebia weeps, and calls her muse to mourn :
While from her lips the tuneful sorrows fell,
The groves confess a rising Philomel.

VII. Dr YOUNG's admirable Description of the Peacock enlarged.

VIEW next the peacock: what bright glories run

From plume to plume, and vary in the sum?

Proudly he boasts, then to the heav'nly ray
Gives all his colours, and adorns the day.
Was it thy pencil, Fob, divinely bold,
Drest his rich form in azure, green, and gold?

Thy hand his crest with starry radiance crown'd,
Or spread his sweepy train? his train disdains the ground,
And kindles living lamps thro' all the spacious round.
Mark with what conscious state the bird displays
His native gems, and midst the waving blaze,
On the slow step of majesty, he moves,
Asserts his honours, and demands his loves.

VIII. VANITY inscribed on all Things.

TIME, like a long flowing stream, makes haste into eternity, and is for ever lost and swallowed up there; and while it is hastening to its period, it sweeps away all things with it which are not immortal. There is a limit appointed by providence to the duration of all the pleasant and desirable scenes of life, to all the works of the hands of men, with all the glories and excellences of animal nature, and all that is made of flesh and blood. Let us not dote upon any thing here below, for heaven hath inscribed vanity upon it. The moment is hastening when the decree of heaven shall be uttered, and providence shall pronounce upon every glory of the earth, "Its time shall be no longer."

What is that stately building, that princely palace, which now entertains and amuses our sight with ranks of marble columns, and wide spreading arches, that gay edifice which enriches our imagination with a thousand royal ornaments, and a profusion of costly and glittering furniture? Time, and all its circling hours, with a swift wing are brushing it away; decay steals upon it insensibly, and a few years hence it shall lie in mouldering ruin and desolation. happy possessor, if he has no better inheritance!

Un

What are those fine and elegant gardens, those delightful walks, those gentle ascents and soft declining hopes, which raise and sink the eye by turns to a thousand vegetable pleasures? How lovely are those sweet borders, and those growing varieties of bloom and fruit, which recal lost paradise to mind? Those living parterres which regale the sense with vital fragrancy, and make glad the sight by their refreshing verdure and intermingled flowery beauties? The scythe of time is passing over them all: they wither, they die away, they drop and vanish into dust; their duration is short; a few months deface all their yearly glories, and within a few years, perhaps all these rising terras-walks, these gentle verging declivities, shall lose all order and elegance, and become a rugged heap of ruins:

those well distinguished borders and parterres shall be levelled in confusion, and thrown into common earth again, for the óx and the ass to graze upon them. Unhappy man who possesses this agreeable spot of ground, if he has no paradise more durable than this!

And no wonder that these labours of the hands of men should perish, when even the works of God are perishable. What are these visible heavens, these lower skies, and this globe of the earth? They are indeed the glorious workmanship of the Almighty. But they are waxing old, and waiting their period too, when the angel shall pronounce upon them that Time shall be no more. The heavens shall be folded up as a vesture, the elements of the lower world shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works thereof, shall be burnt up with fire. May the unruinable world be but my portion, and the heaven of heavens my inheritance, which is built for an eternal mansion for the sons of God: these buildings shall outlive time and nature, and exist through unknown ages of felicity!

What have we mortals to be proud of in our present state, when every human glory is so fugitive and fading? Let the brightest and the best of us say to ourselves that we are but dust and vanity.

Is my body formed upon a graceful model? Are my limbs well turned, and my complexion better coloured than my neighbours? Beauty, even in perfection, is of the shortest date; a few years will inform me that its bloom vanishes, its flower withers, its lustre grows.dim, its duration shall be no longer; and, if life be prolonged, yet the pride and glory of it is for ever lost in age and wrinkles: or perhaps our vanity meets a speedier fate. Death and the grave, with a sovereign and irresistible command, summon the brightest as well as the coarsest pieces of human nature, to lie down early in their cold embraces; and at last they must all mix together, among worms and corruption. Esop the deformed, and Helena the fair, are lost and undistin

guished