NOTE. These Poems are selected from a manuscript, which appears to contain copies of Mr. PAINE's themes, as they are called, at Cambridge. These themes, written during his junior and senior' years, were submitted to a Professor for revision. Whether the copies were made before or after such revision I know not. The motto and preface to this manuscript are worthy of places in the text. Beside the poems selected from this manuscript, it is proposed under this division of the work, to arrange, according to time, such of Mr. PAINE's performances, while at the University, as came without exaction from his pen, or were produced by some publick solemnity. COLLEGE EXERCISES. PREFACE. Maturer life, with smiling eye, will view WHILE vernal years in swift succession roll, To teach the rapid moments, as they fly To mould the heart by sentiment and truth, These were the motives, which inspired the verse, Though neither bold, nor elegantly terse, Though in the strains no dazzling beauties shine, Though poesy reject each embryo line; Yet simple numbers, unrefined by art, "An undevout astronomer is mad." YOUNG. [Written Nov. 17, 1790.] BRIGHT is the sun beam, smiling after showers; Hail, sacred eve, thy presence sweet I woo, Where pensive Solitude with rambling feet, Strays through thy dusky groves, to view the works Of heaven's high King; or, sunk in rapture's trance, With silent gratitude delights to hear Nature's soft harp, "the musick of the spheres," Which chant in endless notes Jehovah's praise! Come then, sweet nymph, thy mildest breath impart, To swell the youthful muse's artless reed ;* Faintly to echo, with unskilful trill, One note of Nature's universal song. The sun, fatigued with his diurnal course Through heaven's high summit, sunk to soft repose, The Zephyrs, loaded with the rich perfumes |