Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see,
Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be;
Returning back, I in fresh pastures go,
To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low;
In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on,
Then I do live in a small house alone;
Altho' 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within,
Like to a soul that's pure and clear from sin;
And there I dwell in quiet and still peace,
Not fill'd with cares how riches to increase;
I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures,
No riches are but what the mind intreasures,
Thus am I solitary, live alone,
Yet better loved the more that I am known;
And tho' my face, ill-favour'd at first sight,
After acquaintance it will give delight.
Refuse me not, for I shall constant be,
Maintain your credit and your dignity.
MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.
FATAL effects of luxury and ease!
We drink our poison, and we eat disease,
Indulge our senses at our reason's cost,
Till sense is pain, and reason hurt, or lost.
Not so, O Temperance bland! when ruled by thee,
The brute's obedient, and the man is free.
Soft are his slumbers, balmy is his rest,
His veins not boiling from the midnight feast.
Touch'd by Aurora's rosy hand, he wakes
Peaceful and calm, and with the world partakes
The joyful dawnings of returning day,
For which their grateful thanks the whole creation
All but the human brute: 'tis he alone,
Whose works of darkness fly the rising sun. 'Tis to thy rules, O Temperance! that we owe All pleasures, which from health and strength can flow;
Vigour of body, purity of mind,
Unclouded reason, sentiments refined,
Unmixt, untainted joys, without remorse,
Th' intemperate sinner's never-failing curse.
IF thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warn'd, and know that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye
Is ever on himself doth look on one,
The least of Nature's works,--one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful ever. O, be wiser thou!—
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love:
True dignity abides with him alone,
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere, himself,
In lowliness of heart.
THE quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed,-
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
"Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute of awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,-
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
SHAKSPEARE.
COME, Peace of mind, delightful guest!
Return, and make thy downy nest
Once more in this sad heart:
Nor riches I, nor pow'r pursue,
Nor hold forbidden joys in view;
We therefore need not part.
Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
From Av'rice and Ambition free,
And Pleasure's fatal wiles?
For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,
The banquet of thy smiles?
The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heav'n that thou alone canst make?
And wilt thou quit the stream,
That murmurs thro' the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequester'd shade.
To be a guest with them?
For thee I planted, thee I prized,
To thee I gladly sacrificed
Whate'er I loved before;
And shall I see thee start away,
And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say,
Farewell! we meet no more?
BENEFITS OF MENTAL EXERTION.
CALL now to mind what high capacious powers
Lie folded up in man; how far beyond
The praise of mortals may the eternal growth
Of Nature, to perfection half divine
Expand the blooming soul? What pity, then,
Should sloth's unkindly fogs depress to earth
Her tender blossom, choke the streams of life,
And blast her spring! Far otherwise design'd
Almighty wisdom; Nature's happy cares
The obedient heart far otherwise incline.
Witness the sprightly joy when aught unknown
Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power
To brisker measures: witness the neglect
Of all familiar prospects, though beheld
With transport once; the fond attentive gaze
Of young astonishment; the sober zeal
Of age, commenting on prodigious things.
For such the bounteous providence of heaven,
In every breast implanting this desire
Of objects new and strange, to urge us on
With unremitted labour to pursue
Those sacred stores, that wait the ripening soul,
In Truth's exhaustless bosom.
SELF-CULTURE.
-WHEN the roused mind
Seeks to emancipate itself, and dares
To spurn the world's oppression; when it throws
Back upon ignorance her bitter curse,
And casts the gauntlet down in bravery,
Defying all the malice of mankind;
When it would brave, with noble deeds, the sneer
Of purse-proud arrogance, and meet the scorn
Of birth-ennobled slaves with high disdain;
When all the things of time and sense seem vain
And mean, compared to mental liberty;
And life, and death, and joy, and sorrow, are
Alike in estimation in the war
Of the mind's freedom; then she hath a power
Omnipotent to rise. The barriers set
Around her course are but as brittle straws;
Pride's massive battlements are piles of sand
A mole may pierce; and rude misfortune's storm,
And poverty's chill ice blasts but as breath
Sighed by a dying child. Man may confine
The flesh in a deep dungeon; load with chains
The pale emaciated form; may pin,
In factories foul, the body to the loom;
Or stow it far away in sulphurous mines,
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