Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy! Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?

Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife!

If parts allured thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!
Or ravished with the whistling of a name.
See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,

From ancient story learn to scorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honored, famed, and great,
See the false scale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy those to ruin, these betray.
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose ;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that raised the hero sunk the man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But stained with blood, or ill exchanged for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plundered provinces.
Oh wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
E'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophied arches, storied halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;

The whole amount of that enormous fame,

A tale, that blends their glory with their shame! Know then this truth-(enough for man to know)

"Virtue alone is happiness below."

The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill :
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequalled, if its end it gain ;
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so bless'd,
And but more relished as the more distressed:
The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,
Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears:
Good, from each object, from each place acquired,
For ever exercised, yet never tired;

Never elated while one man's oppressed;
Never dejected while another's blessed;
And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.

See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow! Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know!

Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad must miss, the good, untaught, will find,
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature, up to nature's God:

Pursues that chain which links the immense de

sign, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal, and divine; Sees that no being any bliss can know,

But touches some above, and some below;
Learns from this union of the rising whole,
The first, last purpose of the human soul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end in love of God, and love of man.
For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul;
Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined,
It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
He sees why nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown.
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind

Are given in vain, but what they seek they find.)
Wise is her present; she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be blest,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.

Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbor's blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part:

Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life and sense,
In one close system of benevolence :
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,

And height of bliss but height of charity.

God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace; His country next; and next all human race; Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in, of every kind; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And heaven beholds its image in his breast.

Come then, my friend! my genius! come along; Oh, master of the poet, and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, To man's low passions, or their glorious ends, Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise; Formed by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe; Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, Intent to reason, or polite to please. Oh! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame, Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,

Shall then this verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That, urged by thee, I turned the tuneful art,
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For wit's false mirror held up nature's light;
Showed erring pride, whatever is, is right ;
That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue only makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.

MESSIAH.

A SACRED ECLOGUE.

YE Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more. O thou my voice inspire,
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!

Rapt into future times, the bard begun:
A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies:
The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic dove.
Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,