INSCRIBED BENEATH THE PICTURE OF AN ASS. MEEK animal, whose simple mien Of patience in thy front display'd, Is life? a long, long gloomy stage In the dark evening of thy cheerless day, From the rude storm of unresisted hate. Yet dares the' erroneous crowd to mark With folly thy despised race, The' ungovernable pack, who bark With impious howlings in Heaven's awful face, If e'er on their impatient head Affliction's bitter shower is shed. But 'tis the weakness of thy kind REV. W. CROWE. VOL. I. Q Q THE DIRGE. WHAT is the' existence of man's life, Till Death's cold hand signs his release: It is a storm, where the hot blood Which beats his bark with many a wave It is a flower, which buds, and grows, Then shrinks into that fatal mould It is a dream, whose seeming truth It is a dial, which points out Till all obscuring earth hath laid It is a weary interlude, Which doth short joys, long woes include; H. KING. AN EPODE FROM A CHORUS IN THE UNFINISHED TRAGEDY OF SOHRAB. WHAT Power, beyond all powers elate, 'Tis not nature, 'tis not fate, "Tis not the dance of atoms blind, By ways nor seen nor understood, Which e'en His angels vainly might explore. High their highest thoughts above, Truth, wisdom, justice, mercy, love, Wrought in His heavenly essence, blaze and soar. Mortals who His glory seek, Rapt in contemplation meek, Him fear, Him trust, Him venerate, Him adore! SIR W. JONES. ON THE GRAVE. Solum mihi superest sepulchrum. Job. WELCOME, thou safe retreat! Where the' injured man doth fortify 'Gainst the invasions of the great: Where the lean slave, who the' oar doth ply, Soft as his admiral may lie! Great statist! 'tis your doom, Though your designs swell high and wide, To be contracted in a tomb! And all your happy cares provide But for your heir authorized pride. Nor shall your shade delight In the' pomp of your proud obsequies. And should the present flattery write A glorious epitaph, the wise Will say the poet's wit here lies. How reconciled to fate Will grow the aged villager, When he shall see your funeral state! The great decree of God * The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Gray. E'en I, while humble zeal Makes fancy a sad truth indite, Insensible away do steal: And when I'm lost in death's cold night, HABINGTON. TIMES GO BY TURNS. THE lopped tree in time may grow again, The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow; She draws her favours to the lowest ebb: Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web: No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring, Not endless night, yet not eternal day: The saddest birds a season find to sing, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay: Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; The net that holds no great takes little fish ; In some things all, in all things none are cross'd; Few all they need, but none have all they wish. Unmingled joys here to no man befall; Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all. SOUTHWELL. |