Whence has the world her magic power?
Why deem we death a foe?
The cause is Conscience :-Conscience oft
Her tale of guilt renews;
Her voice is terrible though soft,
And dread of death ensues.
Then anxious to be longer spared
Man mourns his fleeting breath:
All evils then seem light compared
With the approach of Death.
'Tis judgement shakes him; there's the fear
That prompts the wish to stay:
He has incurr'd a long arrear,
And must despair to pay.
Pay?-follow Christ, and all is paid;
His death your peace ensures;
Think on the grave where he was laid,
And calm descend to yours.
ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,
FOR THE YEAR 1793.
De sacris autem hæc sit una sententia, ut conserventur.
But let us all concur in this one sentiment, that things sacred be inviolate.
He lives who lives to God alone,
And all are dead beside;
For other source than God is none
Whence life can be supplied.
To live to God is to requite
His love as best we may;
To make his precepts our delight,
His promises our stay.
But life, within a narrow ring
Of giddy joys comprised,
Is falsely named, and no such thing,
But rather death disguised.
Can life in them deserve the name,
Who only live to prove
For what poor toys they can disclaim
An endless life above?
Who, much diseased, yet nothing feel;
Much menaced, nothing dread;
Have wounds which only God can heal,
Yet never ask his aid?
Who deem his house a useless place,
Faith, want of common sense;
And ardour in the Christian race,
A hypocrite's pretence?
Who trample order; and the day
Which God asserts his own
Dishonour with unhallow'd play,
And worship chance alone?
If scorn of God's commands, impress'd
On word and deed, imply
The better part of man unbless'd
With life that cannot die;
Such want it, and that want, uncured
Till man resigns his breath,
Speaks him a criminal, assured
Of everlasting death.
Sad period to a pleasant course!
Yet so will God repay
Sabbaths profaned without remorse,
And mercy cast away.
THRACIAN parents, at his birth,
Mourn their babe with many a tear,
But with undissembled mirth
Place him breathless on his bier.
Greece and Rome with equal scorn,
"O the savages!" exclaim,
“Whether they rejoice or mourn,
Well entitled to the name!"
But the cause of this concern
And this pleasure would they trace,
Even they might somewhat learn
From the savages of Thrace.
THE PRIMARY LAW OF NATURE.
ANDROCLES from his injured lord in dread
Of instant death, to Libya's desert fled.
Tired with his toilsome flight, and parch'd with heat,
He spied, at length, a cavern's cool retreat,
But scarce had given to rest his weary frame,
When, hugest of his kind, a lion came:
He roar'd approaching; but the savage din
To plaintive murmurs changed,―arrived within,
And with expressive looks, his lifted paw
Presenting, aid implored from whom he saw.
The fugitive, through terror at a stand,
Dared not awhile afford his trembling hand,
But bolder grown, at length inherent found
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound.
The cure was wrought; he wiped the sanious blood,
And firm and free from pain the lion stood.
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day,
Regales his inmate with the parted prey;
Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepared,
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shared.
But thus to live-still lost-sequester'd still-
Scarce seem'd his lord's revenge a heavier ill.
Home native home! O might he but repair!
He must, he will, though death attends him there.
He goes, and doom'd to perish, on the sands
Of the full theatre unpitied stands;
When lo! the self-same lion from his cage
Flies to devour him, famish'd into rage.
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey
The man, his healer, pauses on his way,
And soften'd by remembrance into sweet
And kind composure, crouches at his feet.
Mute with astonishment the assembly gaze:
But why, ye Romans? Whence your mute amaze?
All this is natural: Nature bade him rend
An enemy; she bids him spare a friend.
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