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some modern writers have stretched their sentences, especially the concluding verse. In these the ear is the truest judge; nor was it made to be enslaved to any precise model of elder or later times.

After all, I must petition my reader to lay aside the sour and sullen air of criticism, and to assume the friend. Let him choose such copies to read at particular hours, when the temper of his mind is suited to the song. Let him come with a desire to be entertained and pleased, rather than to seek his own disgust and aversion, which will not be hard to find. I am not so vain as to think there are no faults, nor so blind as to espy none; though I hope the multitude of alterations in this second edition are not without amendment. There is so large a difference between this and the former, in the change of titles, lines, and whole poems, as well as in the various transpositions, that it would be useless, and endless, and all confusion, for any reader to compare them throughout. The additions also make up almost half the book, and some of these have need of as many alterations as the former. Many a line needs the file to polish the roughness of it, and many a thought wants richer language to adorn and make it shine. Wide defects and equal superfluities may be found, especially in the larger pieces; but I have at present neither inclination nor leisure to correct, and I hope I never shall. It is one of the biggest satisfac

tions I take in giving this volume to the world, that I expect to be for ever free from the temptation of making or mending poems again.* So that my friends may be perfectly secure against this impression's growing waste upon their hands, and useless, as the former has done. Let minds that are better furnished for such performances pursue these studies, if they are convinced that poesy can be made serviceable to religion and virtue. As for myself, I almost blush to think that I have read so little, and written so much. The following years of my life shall be more entirely devoted to the immediate and direct labours of my station, excepting those hours that may be employed in finishing my imitation of the Psalms of David in Christian language, which I have now promised the world.†

I cannot court the world to purchase this book for their pleasure or entertainment, by telling them that any one copy entirely pleases me. The best of them sinks below the idea which I form of a divine or a moral ode. He that deals in the mysteries of Heaven or of the Muses, should be a genius of no vulgar mould and as the name

:

* Naturam expellas furca licet, usque recurret. Hor. Will this short note of Horace excuse a man who has resisted nature many years, but has been sometimes overcome? 1736, Edition the Seventh.

In the year 1719 these were finished and printed.

vates belongs to both, so the furniture of both is comprised in that line of Horace,

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But what Juvenal spake in his age, abides true in ours: a complete poet or prophet is such a

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Qualem nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum.

Perhaps neither of these characters in perfection shall ever be seen on earth, till the seventh angel has sounded his awful trumpet; till the victory be complete over the beast and his image, when the natives of heaven shall join in consort with prophets and saints, and sing to their golden harps, salvation, honour, and glory to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever.' May 14, 1709.

6

HORE LYRICÆ.

BOOK I.

SACRED TO DEVOTION AND PIETY

WORSHIPPING WITH FEAR.

WHO dares attempt the eternal name With notes of mortal sound? Dangers and glories guard the theme, And spread despair around.

Destruction waits to obey his frown,
And Heaven attends his smile:
A wreath of lightning arms his crown,
But love adorns it still.

Celestial King, our spirits lie,

Trembling, beneath thy feet,

And wish, and cast a longing eye,
To reach thy lofty seat.

When shall we see the Great Unknown,
And in thy presence stand?
Reveal the splendours of thy throne,
But shield us with thy hand.

In thee what endless wonders meet,
What various glory shines!
The crossing rays too fiercely beat
Upon our fainting minds.

Angels are lost in sweet surprise,
If thou unveil thy grace;

And humble awe runs through the skies,
When wrath arrays thy face.

When mercy joins with majesty,
To spread their beams abroad,
Not all their fairest minds on high
Are shadows of a God.

Thy works the strongest seraph sings
In a too feeble strain,

And labors hard on all his strings,
To reach thy thoughts, in vain.

Created powers, how weak they be!
How short our praises fall!
So much akin to nothing we,

And thou the eternal All.

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