Thine is that bliss; then Oh! what cause

For heart-felt gratitude is thine;

In death's dread hour the heart's applause Can yield a pleasure half divine.

If at that hour unclouded shine

That path which all the just have trod,

The soul with rapture shall resign

Its hopes and fears, and fly to God.

SONNET.

SLANDER! thy name I will not woman call,
For often, in the garb of either sex,

I see thee play thy sorry pranks to vex

Thy betters from the cottage to the hall.
Whether with wining tongue, or crafty scrawl,
Thou circulate thy blasphemies abroad,

Truth holds a mirror to reflect thy fraud,

And justice hath decreed thy speedy fall.

Then shall the fiends that follow'd in thy train

Be foremost to pursue thee with disdain,

And only folly at thy fate repine:

Malice shall charge thee with her foul misdeeds,

And injur'd innocence, whose bosom bleeds,

Shall hear with pity every plaint but thine.

AN ELEGY.

"TWAS at the silent hour when Fancy dreams

Of what delights, or what distracts the mind; Promotes or disappoints the worldly schemes

Of mortals to their heavenly interest blind;

She bore me far, with instantaneous flight,

Through torrid regions of the eastern sky; Brought objects new before my wondering sight,

And absent friends to my remembrance nigh.

Awhile forgetful of my native shore

I leap'd with joy on India's burning sand,

As if of future happiness my store

Lay ready there, and that were fairy land.

I heard the pestilential breezes sigh

Through spicy groves with blossoms ever gay,

And every object that entic'd my eye

Seem'd to betoken one eternal May.

But while I gaz'd, a melancholy band

With solemn step and slow approach'd the spot,

Whose silence told me that the mighty hand

Of Death had fix'd another victim's lot.

The sable vestments, and the friendly tear

That many a downcast eye in sorrow shed, Plainly bespoke the soul departed dear

To those from whom it had so lately fled.

The crowd retir'd; instinctively I sought

The place wherein the poor remains were laid; And contemplation to my memory brought

Those once belov'd who nature's debt had paid.

But, while I mourn'd, on my attentive ear

Faint accents fell, low murmuring from above, Some guardian spirit's voice to calm my fear,

And soothe my sorrowing heart with strains of love.

Stranger! forbear. Suppress the rising sigh,
Nor idly thus bewail the slumbering dead;

Go number rather all the hours that fly

In quick succession o'er thy troubled head.

What though the youth who silent rests below,

Has prematurely met his earthly doom;

What though his generous breast no more shall glow

With love, nor friendship call the wand'rer home: