Virgins, who roll your artful eyes,
And shoot delicious danger thence, -
Swift the lovely lightning flies,
And melts our reason down to sense,-

Boast not of those withering charms, That must yield their youthful grace To age and wrinkles, earth and worms, But love the Author of your smiling face; That heavenly Bridegroom claims your blooming hours:

O make it your perpetual care

To please that Everlasting Fair;

His beauties are the sun, and but the shade is

Infants, whose different destinies

yours

Are wove with threads of different size,
But from the same spring-tide of tears
Commence your hopes, and joys, and fears,
(A tedious train !) and date your following years,—
Break your first silence in his praise

Who wrought your wondrous frame :
With sounds of tenderest accent raise
Your honours to his name,
And consecrate your early days
To know the Power Supreme.

Ye heads of venerable age,
Just marching off the mortal stage,
Fathers, whose vital threads are spun
As long as e'er the glass of life would run,

Adore the hand that led your way

Through flowery fields, a fair long summer's day; Gasp out your soul in praises to the sovereign power

That set your west so distant from your dawning hour.

FLYING FOWL AND CREEPING THINGS, PRAISE YE THE LORD.

PSALM CXLVIII. 10.

SWEET flocks, whose soft enamell'd wing
Swift and gently cleaves the sky,
Whose charming notes address the spring
With an artless harmony,

Lovely minstrels of the field,

Who in leafy shadows sit,

And your wondrous structures build,

Awake your tuneful voices with the dawning light: To Nature's God your first devotions pay,

Ere you salute the rising day;

"Tis he calls up the sun, and gives him every ray

Serpents, who o'er the meadows slide,

And wear upon your shining back

Numerous ranks of gaudy pride,

Which thousand mingling colours make,
Let the fierce glances of your eyes
Rebate their baleful fire;

In harmless play twist and unfold
The volumes of your scaly gold;
That rich embroidery of your gay attire
Proclaims your Maker kind and wise.

Insects and mites, of mean degree,

That swarm in myriads o'er the land,
Moulded by Wisdom's artful hand,

And curl'd and painted with a various dye,
your innumerable forms

In

Praise him that wears the ethereal crown,
And bends his lofty counsels down
To despicable worms.

THE COMPARISON AND COMPLAINT.

INFINITE Power, eternal Lord,

How sovereign is thy hand!

All nature rose to obey thy word,
And moves at thy command.

With steady course thy shining sun
Keeps his appointed way;

And all the hours obedient run
The circle of the day.

But ah! how wide my spirit flies,
And wanders from her God;
My soul forgets the heavenly prize,
And treads the downward road.

The raging fire, and stormy sea,
Perform thine awful will,
And every beast and every tree
Thy great designs fulfil:

While my wild passions rage within, Nor thy commands obey;

And flesh and sense, enslav'd to sin, Draw my best thoughts away.

Shall creatures of a meaner frame
Pay all thy dues to thee;
Creatures, that never knew thy name,
That never lov'd like me?

Great God, create my soul anew,
Conform my heart to thine,
Melt down my will and let it flow,
And take the mold divine.

Seize my whole frame into thy hand;
Here all my powers I bring;

Manage the wheels by thy command,

And govern every spring.

Then shall my feet no more depart,
Nor wandering senses rove;
Devotion shall be all my heart,
And all my passions love.

Then not the sun shall more than I
His Maker's law perform,
Nor travel swifter through the sky,

Nor with a zeal so warm.

GOD SUPREME AND SELF-SUFFICIENT,

WHAT is our God, or what his name,
Nor men can learn, nor angels teach;
He dwells conceal'd in radiant flame,
Where neither eyes nor thoughts can reach.

The spacious worlds of heavenly light,
Compar'd with him, how short they fall!
They are too dark, and he too bright,
Nothing are they, and God is all.