"And, from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe,

O never, never turn away thine ear.

Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,

Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear! To others do (the law is not severe)

What to thyself thou wishest to be done.

Forgive thy foes; and love thy parents dear,

And friends and native land; nor those alone;

All human weal and woe learn thou to make thine own."

"The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark;

Crown'd with her pail the tripping milk-maid sings; The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and hark! Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings; Thro' rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs; Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower, And shrill lark carols clear from her aërial tour.

"O Nature, how in every charm supreme!
Whose votaries feast on raptures ever new!
O for the voice and fire of seraphim,

To sing thy glories with devotion due!
Blest be the day I 'scaped the wrangling crew,
From Pyrrho's maze, and Epicurus' sty;
And held high converse with the godlike few,
Who to th' enraptur'd heart, and ear, and eye,
Teach beauty, virtue, truth, and love, and melody!

"Hence! ye who snare and stupify the mind,
Sophists! of beauty, virtue, joy, the bane!
Greedy and fell, tho' impotent and blind,
Who spread your filthy nets in Truth's fair fane,
And ever ply your venom'd fangs amain!

Hence to dark Error's den, whose rankling slime

First gave you form! hence! lest the Muse should deign (Tho' loth on theme so mean to waste a rhyme,) With vengeance to pursue your sacrilegious crime.

"One part, one little part, we dimly scan
Thro' the dark medium of life's feverish dream,
Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan,
If but that little part incongruous seem.
Nor is that part perhaps what mortals deem;
Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise.
O then renounce that impious self-esteem,
That aims to trace the secrets of the skies:
For thou art but of dust; be humble, and be wise.

"Is there a heart that music cannot melt?

Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn!

Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt

Of solitude and melancholy born?

He needs not woo the Muse; he is her scorn.

The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine;
Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or mourn,
And delve for life in Mammon's dirty mine;

Sneak with scoundrel fox, or grunt with glutton swine.

"O Thou, at whose creative smile, yon heaven,

In all the pomp of beauty, life, and light,

Rose from the abyss; when dark Confusion, driven
Down, down the bottomless profound of night,

Fled, where he ever flies thy piercing sight!
O glance on these sad shades one pitying ray,
To blast the fury of oppressive might,

Melt the hard heart to love and mercy's sway,
And cheer the wandering soul, and light him on the way."

"I cannot blame thy choice," the Sage replied,.
"For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways.

And yet even there, if left without a guide,

The young adventurer unsafely plays.
Eyes dazzled long by Fiction's gaudy rays,

In modest Truth no light nor beauty find.

And who, my child, would trust the meteor-blaze,
That soon must fall, and leave the wanderer blind,

More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shin'd?”

Page 23.

"So too, the instructive Rogers."

Among the classic productions of our country," the Pleasures of Memory," and "the Pleasures of Hope," will always retain a distinguished place. Unlike the ephemeral oblations of Genius, or the results of impotent thought tortured to the last "dregs and squeezings of the brain," these elegant tablets of mentality are now to be found in every select cabinet of taste.

They exhibit concentration of sentiment, delectable thought, and exquisite expression. If once perused, they will always be read again with increasing satisfaction. Of that class, in which, in the main, the elegance of taste predominates over the sublimity of genius, (as may be observed in the kindred productions of Goldsmith, Pope, and Gray,) they will never fail to be quoted by the sentimental, and admired by all. In his first production Mr. Rogers has been the most successful. Some of his smaller pieces are admirable; particularly the verses, "On a Tear;" "The Sailor;" "To the Gnat;" "To the Butterfly; and "To a Friend on his Marriage." The following will give an adequate idea of the talent he has displayed:

Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain.
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!

Each, as the various avenues of sense

Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense,

Brightens or fades; yet all, with magic art,

Control the latent fibres of the heart.

"What soften'd views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy temper'd gleams of happiness resign'd
Glance on the darken'd mirror of the mind.

"Ah, then, what honest triumph flush'd my breast! This truth once known-To bless is to be blest! We led the bending beggar on his way, (Bare were his feet, his tresses silver-gray) Sooth'd the keen pangs his aged spirit felt, And on his tale with mute attention dwelt. As in his scrip we dropt our little store, And wept to think that little was no more,

He breath'd his pray'r," Long may such goodness live!"

'Twas all he gave, 'twas all he had to give.

Angels, when Mercy's mandate wing'd their flight,

Had stopt to catch new rapture from the sight.

"But can her smile with gloomy Madness dwell?
Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell?
Each fiery flight on Frenzy's wing restrain,

And mould the coinage of the fever'd brain?
Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam supplies,
There in the dust the wreck of Genius lies!
He, whose arresting hand sublimely wrought
Each bold conception in the sphere of thought;
And round, in colours of the rainbow, threw
Forms ever fair, creations ever new!
But, as he fondly snatch'd the wreath of Fame,
The spectre Poverty unnerv'd his frame.
Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore;
And Hope's soft energies were felt no more.