A god; and in devout and humble plight
Before it kneeled, the greater to the less;

And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace,

Truth, faith, integrity; good conscience, friends,

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Love, charity, benevolence, and all

The sweet and tender sympathies of life;

And, to complete the horrid, murderous rite,

And signalize their folly, offered up

Their souls and an eternity of bliss,

To gain them—what? — an hour of dreaming joy,
A feverish hour that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of woe.

Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp,
The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly further gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up,
The miser, who with dust inanimate

Held wedded intercourse. Ill-guided wretch!

Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept, and in light winged dreams
Ascended up to God, in wasteful hall,

With vigilance and fasting worn to skin

And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags,

Thou mightst have seen him bending o'er his heaps,

And holding strange communion with his gold;

And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear

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The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old decrepit, withered hand,

That palsy shook, grasping this yellow earth
To make it sure.

Of all God made upright,

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased;

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Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

None bargained on so easy terms with Death.
Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags. and, with a look

Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed, and midst abundance died,
Sorest of evils! died of utter want.

EXERCISE XXI.

Anticipations of the Millenium.-COWPER.

The groans of Nature in this nether world,
Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end.
Foretold by prophets and by poets sung,
Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp,
The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes.
Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course
Over a sinful world; and what remains
Of this tempestuous state of human things,
Is merely as the working of the sea
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest:

For He whose car the winds are, and the clouds
The dust that wait upon his sultry march,
When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot,
Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend
Propitious in his chariot paved with love;
And what his storms have blasted and defaced
For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair.

Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet
Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch:
Nor can the wonders it records be sung

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5

10

15

20

To meaner music, and not suffer loss.
But when a poet, or when one like me,
Happy to rove among poetic flowers,

Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair,
Such is the impulse and the spur he feels
To give it praise proportioned to its worth,
That not to attempt it, arduous as he deems
The labor, were a task more arduous still.

O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true!
Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel

His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Rivers of gladness water all the Earth,

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And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field

Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,

Exults to see its thistly curse repealed.

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The various seasons woven into one,
And that one season an eternal spring,

The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet, all are full.

The lion, and the libbard, and the bear,

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Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon
Together, or all gambol in the shade

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream.
Antipathies are none. No foe to man

Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees,
And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand
Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm,
To stroke his azure neck, or to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
All creatures worship man, and all mankind
One Lord, one Father. Error has no place:

That creeping pestilence is driven away;

The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart

No passion touches a discordant string,

But all is harmony and love. Disease

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Is not; the pure and uncontaminate blood

Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age
One song employs all nations; and all cry,

66 Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round.
Behold the measure of the promise filled;
See Salem built, the labor of a God!
Bright as a sun the sacred city shines;
All kingdoms and all princes of the Earth
Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
Flows into her; unbounded is her joy,

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And endless her increase. Thy rams are there,

Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there :

The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind,

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And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates; upon her walls,
And in her streets, and in her spacious courts,
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there
Kneels with the native of the farthest West;
And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand,
And worships. Her report has travelled forth
Into all lands. From every clime they come
To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy,
O Sion! an assembly such as Earth

Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see.

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EXERCISE XXII.

Fame.-POLLOK.

Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist
Of Time, though meagre all, and ghostly thin,
Most unsubstantial, unessential shade,

Was earthly Fame. She was a voice alone,
And dwelt upon the noisy tongues of men.
She never thought, but gabbled ever on ;
Applauding most what least deserved applause :
The motive, the result, was nought to her:
The deed alone, though dyed in human gore,
And steeped in widows' tears, if it stood out
To prominent display, she talked of much,
And roared around it with a thousand tongues.
As changed the wind her organ, so she changed
Perpetually; and whom she praised to-day,
Vexing his ear with acclamations loud,
To-morrow blamed, and hissed him out of sight.

Such was her nature, and her practice such.
But, oh! her voice was sweet to mortal ears,
And touched so pleasantly the strings of pride
And vanity, which in the heart of man
Were ever strung harmonious to her note,
That many thought, to live without her song
Was rather death than life. To live unknown,
Unnoticed, unrenowned ! to die unpraised,
Unepitaphed to go down to the pit,

And moulder into dust among vile worms,

And leave no whispering of a name on earth!

Such thought was cold about the heart, and chilled

The blood. Who could endure it? who could choose,

Without a struggle, to be swept away

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