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No blight shall on his leaf descend,
For still hath Heav'n decreed,
That full prosperity attend

His every thought and deed.

But for the unrepenting race,

Not such their transient day,

They are like chaff, which wild winds chase, Scatter'd from earth away.

Therefore the wicked shall not stand
In Judgment's dread abode,
Nor sinners 'midst the righteous band
That meet before their God,

For He discerns the pure of heart,
But, at the impious hurl'd,
Eternal Vengeance speeds the dart,

Which strikes them from the world.

137TH PSALM PARAPHRASED.

By clear Euphrates' palmy tide
Near Babylon's high towers,
Remembering Sion, oft we sigh'd
And wept her vanquish'd powers.

Our silent harps on trees we hung
That wav'd along its shores;
Then our proud foes required the song
Of Sion's hallow'd bowers.

How shall we sing the sacred strains,

O Solyma! that flow'd,

And taught thy echoing rocks and plains The mercies of our God!

If thee, Jerusalem, my heart

E'er ceases to regret,

Let my right hand its tuneful art,

And all its skill forget!

If I forget thee, let my tongue,
Parch'd to my palate cleave!
Yes, if to thee, amid the song,
My sighs forbear to heave.

Remember Edom's sons, O Lord!
In Sion's fatal day,

Howling aloud their fell award
Amid th' unequal fray!

When red with Idumean gore

Fair Olivet was found,

These fanes, they cried, shall rise no more, Down with them to the ground!

Daughter of Babylon, thy doom,
From God's avenging hand,
In retribution dread shall come,
And desolate the land.

And blest the man, whom Heav'n ordains To 'whelm thy boasted towers,

And dash thy infants on the plains,

As thou did'st slaughter ours!

TO

CHARLES SIMPSON, Esq.

BARRISTER;

WITH THOS. WARTON'S EDITION OF MILTON'S LESSER POEMS, ENRICHED BY THE EDITOR'S CRITICAL NOTES.

ACCEPT, most worthy of thy studious hours,
This brightest effluence of the critic powers,
Pervading every source whence Milton drew
Dim thoughts of others into radiant view,
Or shaped, and kindled, with Promethean strife,
Their crude, cold images to endless life.

Rival of JOHNSON's tomes in every glow That Talent sheds, or Judgment can bestow;

1. 4. Dim thoughts-Mr T. Warton has shewed how largely Milton drew from the English poets who preceded him.

1. 7. Johnson's tomes-Lives of the Poets.

Guiltless of all which stains their specious page,
Envy's fell blight, and Party's stormy rage,
More learn'd to trace, more generous to admire,
This pours on Genius Taste's enlightning fire.

Accept it, SIMPSON, who art skill'd to rove,
With firm unerring step, the classic grove;
And while thou feel'st the poet's ray divine,
Rejudge the justice of the critic line
Unlike the general eye of owlish sight,
Thou find❜st not darkness in excessive light.

O! while this great essay of learned art Meets thy clear judgment, charms thy liberal heart, Still may the donor thy kind friendship claim, Than gold more welcome, and more wish'd than fame!

1. 3. More learn'd-It is well known that, with the exception of Chaucer, Johnson knew little of our early obsolete poetry. Mr T. Warton, in this his ingenious and learned work, shews us the prima stamina of an infinite number of those poetic flowers which adorn the juvenilia of Milton's muse. The style of Mr T. Warton's notes is eloquent in the first degree. We often find passages whose oratoric force and beauty equal the finest sentences of Dr Johnson.

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