Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep
Him company all day, and in him sleep.
Yet never sleep the sun up ;1 prayer should
Dawn with the day; there are set awful hours
"Twixt heaven and us; the manna was not good
After sun-rising; fair day sullies flowers.
Rise to prevent2 the sun: sleep doth sins glut,
And heaven's gate3 opens when this world's is shut.
Walk with thy fellow-creatures :4 note the hush
And whisperings amongst them. Not a spring
Or leaf but hath this morning hymn; each bush
And oak doth know I AM.5 Canst thou not sing?
Oh leave thy cares and follies! go this way,
And thou art sure to prosper all the day.
Serve God before the world; let him not go
Until thou hast a blessing; then resign
The whole unto him, and remember who
Prevailed by wrestling ere the sun did shine;
Pour oil upon the stones, weep for thy sin,
Then journey on, and have an eye to heaven.8
Mornings are mysteries: the first world's youth,
Man's resurrection, and the future's bud,
Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth,
Is styled their star; the store and hidden food:
Three blessings wait upon them; one of which
Should move: they make us holy, happy, rich.
(1) The sun up-i. e. when the sun is up.
(2) Prevent—from the Latin præ, before, and venire, to come or go-to go before. This is the primitive signification of the word, and was common in the 17th century and earlier, as is evident from the Liturgy :-" Prevent us, O Lord, by thy continual grace."
(3) Heaven's gate, &c.—It is difficult to conceive of a more beautiful mode of suggesting the charms and benefits of early rising. Many a long poem on the subject is less eloquent than this one line.
(4) Fellow-creatures-i. e. the trees, flowers, birds, &c., created by the same hand.
(5) 1 Am-See Exodus iii. 14.
(6) Go this way—i, e do as they do-praise God early in the morning.
(7) Who prevailed, &c.-See Genesis xxxii. 26.
(8) Heaven-rhymes here, by a most extraordinary licence, with sin.
(9) Shroud in, &c.-are wrapt in, or symbolized by; as when we speak of the morning of the world. of the resurrection, &c.
When the world's up, and every swain abroad,
Keep well thy temper, mix not with each clay;
Despatch necessities; life hath a load
Which must be carried on and safely may;
Yet keep those cares without thee; let the heart
Be God's alone, and choose the better part.
THE lopped tree in time may grow again,
The naked plants renew both leaf and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower.
Times go by turns, and changes come by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
Not always fall of leaf, nor always spring,
Not endless night, yet not eternal day:
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.
A chance may win that2 by mischance was lost,
The net that holds no great, takes little fish
In some things all, in all things none are crost;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish!
Unmingled joys here to no man befal :
Who least, hath some, who most, hath never all
THE IDEA OF A STATE.
IN IMITATION OF ALCEUS.
WHAT Constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
(1) The pithiness of these lines countenances Pope's assertion that poetry is emphatically the language of brevity. They are of the same date as the last. (2) That--that which.
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride:
No-men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:
Men, who their duties know,
But know their rights; and, knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.
These constitute a State;
And sovereign Law,1 that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend Dissension like a vapour sinks ;
And e'en the all-dazzling Crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
THE NEW MOON.2
WHEN, as the garish day is done,
Heaven burns with the descended sun,
'Tis passing sweet to mark
Amid that flush of crimson light,
The new moon's modest bow grow bright,
As earth and sky grow dark.
Few are the hearts too cold to feel
A thrill of gladness o'er them steal,
When first the wandering eye
Sees faintly, in the evening blaze,
That glimmering curve of tender rays
Just planted in the sky.
(1) It may not be inappropriate to quote here Hooker's eulogy on Law ("Ecclesiastical Polity," book i.)-" Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power."
(2) The quiet beauty of these lines well befits their subject, and reminds us of the similar tone of Campbell's "Rainbow" (see p. 7), and Montgomery's "Daisy" (see "Select Poetry for Children," p. 220).
The sight of that young crescent brings
Thoughts of all fair and youthful things-
The hopes of early years;
And childhood's purity and grace,
And joys that like a rainbow chase
The passing shower of tears.
The captive yields him to the dream
Of freedom, when that virgin beam
Comes out upon the air;
And painfully the sick man tries
To fix his dim and burning eyes
On the soft promise there.
And there do thoughtful men behold
A type1 of errors, loved of old,
Forsaken and forgiven;
And thoughts and wishes not of earth,
Just opening in their early birth,
Like that new light in heaven.
EPISTLE TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.2
DEAR Joseph, five and twenty years ago—
Alas, how time escapes!-'tis even so-
With frequent intercourse, and always sweet,
And always friendly, we were wont to cheat
A tedious hour-and now we never meet!
As some grave gentleman in Terence says
('Twas therefore much the same in ancient days),
Good lack, we know not what to-morrow brings-
Strange fluctuation of all human things!
True. Changes will befall, and friends may part,
But distance only cannot change the heart;
And, were I called to prove the assertion true,
One proof should serve a reference to you.
Whence comes it then, that, in the wane of life,
Though nothing have occurred to kindle strife,
We find the friends we fancied we had won,
Though numerous once, reduced to few or none?
(1) A type, &c.-The new moon is a type of purification and restoration.
(2) "The epistle to Hill is quite Horatian.”—Quarterly Review. Horace's epistles are characterized by freedom and ease of style, liveliness of tone, and apt delineation of character.
Can gold grow worthless that has stood the touch ?
No; gold they seemed, but they were never such.
Horatio's servant once, with bow and cringe,
Swinging the parlour-door upon its hinge,
Dreading a negative, and overawed
Lest he should trespass, begged to go abroad.
"Go, fellow !—whither ?"-turning short about-
"Nay-stay at home-you're always going out."-
""Tis but a step, Sir, just at the street's end."-
"For what?”- -"An't1 please you, Sir, to see a friend."-
"A friend!" Horatio cried, and seemed to start-
"Yea, marry? shalt thou, and with all my heart;
And fetch my cloak; for, though the night be raw,
I'll see him too-the first I ever saw!"
I knew the man, and knew his nature mild,
And was his plaything often when a child;
But somewhat at that moment pinched him close,
Else he was seldom bitter or morose.
Perhaps his confidence just then betrayed,
His grief might prompt him with the speech he made;
Perhaps 'twas mere good humour gave it birth,
The harmless play of pleasantry and mirth:
Howe'er it was, his language, in my mind,
Bespoke at least a man that knew mankind.
But not to moralize too much, and strain
To prove an evil of which all complain,
(I hate long arguments verbosely spun);
One story more, dear Hill, and I have done.
Once on a time an emperor, a wise man,
No matter where, in China or Japan,
Decreed, that whosoever should offend
Against the well-known duties of a friend,
Convicted once should ever after wear
But half a coat, and show his bosom bare;
The punishment importing this, no doubt,
That all was naught within, and all found out.
O happy Britain! we have not to fear
Such hard and arbitrary measures here;
Else could a law like that which I relate
Once have the sanction of our triple state,
(1) An't for an it, which is an obsolete expression for if it.
(2) Marry-a corruption of the word Mary, formerly employed as a kind of oath. "By Mary." It is used above in the sense of indeed, to be sure.
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