Glitt'ring moths of sunny noon

Plum'd with gold of joy and health ? O think! a blast may come, yourselves may perish

soon!

Yet, different in this common state, What different care attends your happier fate !

Fading you may sure receive All wayward fancy craves, all soothing art can give:

While, with equal wants opprest, The child of Misery heaves his lab’ring breast,

Cheer'd by no kind assisting powers, Scarce with such crumbs sustain'd as hungry

Health devours.

Melt, in soft compassion melt,
Ye gentle, wail th’ unletter'd peasant poor:

Yet keener far, as more severely felt,
Does Penury haunt th' ill-omen'd scholar's door;
Hecalls for all your tears; give these, if nothing more.

Warm’d his soul with genial flame
In youth's gay spring was bid to rise,

To pant for science, thirst for fame,
And hope fair Merit's golden prize.

Much he hop'd, for many a tale

Of praise was echo'd to his ear; Full many a promise (Aatt'ring gale!)

Foretold the wish'd- for port was near,

Awhile it blew,—then dy'd away,

Like breezes with declining day, And left him, wondring wretch! forsaken quite, In Poverty's dead calm, and Disappointment's night.

What avails th’ expanded mind,

Tutor'd in the choicest lore?
The suffering body lags behind,

Nor lets the rising spirit soar:
Callid home,—what Stoic pride the soul can steel,
When every sinew's rack’d, and every nerve must

feel ?

What avails the glowing heart,

The eye that glistens at distress; The wish all blessings to impart, Or make at least a brother's sorrow less? From Trouble's spring the deepest draught he drew, Who mourns his own hard lot, and weeps for others too.

At the sad mistaken gate When the maim'd veteran takes his suppliant stand,

Struck with the hapless warrior's state, Sudden the pitying tenant gives his hand.

--'Tis empty-See! his lids o'er flow, To send undold away the hoary son of woe.

Love too--for in the lowliest cell.
Chaste love with purest flame may dwell

His lovewhat sorer can befall ? Is doom'd to sour its sweets, and dash his cup with gall.

Before the husband's and the father's eyes

Stormy clouds in prospect rise,
The future orphan's cry, the widow's groan ;

These and more he makes his own-
For all the faithless world by him too well is known.

For these the homely robe, the scanty board,

While life in toil is ling’ring on, The drudge of science may afford :But where's the friend will cheer, when that poor life

is gone?

No friend may rise, but many a foe

Will deck his visage with a smile,

Will hide in softest words the basest guile, And, while he soothes the most, will strike the deepest

blow,

Hence the pang, and hence the tear,
When his daughter's rip’ning bloom

Swells into agony his fear
Of the fell spoiler's den-fair Virtue's early tomb.

ODE XL.

TO

SCULPTURE.

BY

JAMES SCOTT, D.D.

Led by the Muse, my step pervades
The sacred haunts, the peaceful shades

Where Art and Sculpture reign :
I see, I see, at their command,
The living stones in order stand,

And marble breathe through every vein!
Time breaks his hostile scythe ; he sighs

To find his pow'r malignant fled; “ And what avails my dart,” he cries,

“ Since these can animate the dead? “ Since wak'd to mimic life again in stone “ The patriot seems to speak, the hero frown." There Virtue's silent train are seen, Fast fix'd their looks, erect their mien. Lol while with more than stoic soul, The Attic sage exhausts the bowl, A pale suffusion shades his eyes, 'Till by degrees the marble dies !

See there the injur'd Poet bleed!
Ah! see he droops his languid head !
What starting nerves, what dying pain,

What horror freezes every vein!
These are thy works, O Sculpture! thine to shew
In rugged rock a feeling sense of woe.

Yet not alone such themes demand
The Phidian stroke, the Daedal hand ;

I view with melting eyes
A softer scene of grief display'd,
While from her breast the duteous maid

Her infant sire with food supplies.
In pitying stone she weeps, to see

His squalid hair, and galling chains:
And trembling, on her bended knee,

His hoary head her hand sustains;
While every look and sorrowing feature prove
How soft her breast, how great her filial love.

Lo! there the wild Assyrian queen,
With threat'ning brow, and frantic mien !
Revenge! revenge! the marble cries,
While fury sparkles in her eyes.
Thus was her awful form beheld,
When Babylon's proud sons rebellid;
She left the woman's vainer care,
And flew with loose dishevell’d hair ;
She stretch'd her hand, imbru'd in blood,

While pale Sedition trembling stood ;
In sudden silence, the mad crowd obey'd
Her awful voice, and Stygian Discord fled!