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IX.

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear:

The winds too soon will waft thee here!
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come:

Alas, thou know'st not thou art wreck'd at home!
No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face;
Thou hast already had her last embrace.
But look aloft, and if thou kenn'st from far
Among the Pleiads a new-kindled star,
If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
"T is she that shines in that propitious light.

X.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations under ground;
When, in the valley of Jehoshaphat,
The judging God shall close the book of fate;
And there the last assizes keep,

For those who wake, and those who sleep;
When rattling bones together fly

From the four corners of the sky;
When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,
Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,

And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are cover'd with the lightest ground;
And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,
Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shalt
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learnt below.

go,

THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON.*

A PARISH priest was of the pilgrim train;

An awful, reverend, and religious man.
His eyes diffused a venerable grace;

And charity itself was in his face.

* Dryden intended this for a description of Bishop Ken.

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor;
For such, on earth, his bless'd Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seem'd, and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived to fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere.
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see;
But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity:
Mild was his accent, and his action free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was arm'd:
Though harsh the precept, yet the people charm'd;
For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky:
And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears;
(A music more melodious than the spheres ;)
For David left him, when he went to rest,
His lyre; and, after him, he sung the best.
He bore his great commission in his look;

But sweetly temper'd awe, and soften'd all he spoke.
He preach'd the joys of Heaven, and pains of Hell,
And warn'd the sinner with becoming zeal;
But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the gospel rather than the law;
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw:
For Fear but freezes minds; but Love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime to seek her native seat.
To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard,
Wrapp'd in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But, when the milder beams of Mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.
Lightning and thunder (Heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly:
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there.

The tithes his parish freely paid, he took;
But never sued, or cursed with bell and book;
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none,
Since every man is free to lose his own.

Yet of his little he had some to spare,

To feed the famish'd, and to clothe the bare;
For mortified he was to that degree,
A poorer than himself he would not see.

True priests, he said, and preachers of the word,
Were only stewards of their Sovereign Lord:
Nothing was theirs, but all the public store;
Intrusted riches to relieve the poor;

Who, should they steal, for want of his relief,
He judged himself accomplice with the thief.
Wide was his parish; not contracted close
In streets, but here and there a straggling house.
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the sick, to succour the distress'd;
Tempting, on foot, alone, without affright,
The dangers of a dark, tempestuous night.

All this the good old man perform'd alone;
Nor spared his pains, for curate he had none.
Nor durst he trust another with his care;
Nor rode himself to Paul's, the public fair,
To chaffer for preferment with his gold,
Where bishoprics and sinecures are sold;
But duly watch'd his flock by night and day,
And from the prowling wolf redeem'd the prey,
And hungry sent the wily fox away.

The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheer'd:
Nor to rebuke the rich offender fear'd.

His preaching much, but more his practice, wrought;
A living sermon of the truths he taught.

For this, by rules severe, his life he squared,
That all might see the doctrine which they heard.
"For priests," he said, “are patterns for the rest;
The gold of Heaven, who bear the God impress'd:
But, when the precious coin is kept unclean,
The Sovereign's image is no longer seen.
If they be foul on whom the people trust,
Well may the baser brass contract a rust."
The prelate for his holy life he prized;
The worldly pomp of prelacy despised.
His Saviour came not with a gaudy show;
Nor was His kingdom of the world below.
Patience in want, and poverty of mind,-

These marks of church and churchmen He design'd,
And living taught, and dying left behind.
The crown He wore was of the pointed thorn;
In purple He was crucified, not born.

They who contend for place and high degree

Are not His sons, but those of Zebedee.

Not but he knew, the signs of earthly power
Might well become St. Peter's successor.
The holy father holds a double reign:

The prince may keep his pomp, the fisher must be plain!
Such was the saint; who shone with every grace,
Reflecting, Moses-like, his Maker's face.

God saw His image lively was express'd;
And His own work, as in creation, bless'd.
The tempter saw him, too, with envious eye,
And, as on Job, demanded leave to try.
He took the time when Richard was deposed,
And high and low with happy Harry closed.

This prince, though great in arms, the priest withstood:
Near though he was, yet not the next of blood.
Had Richard, unconstrain'd, resign'd the throne,
A king can give no more than is his own;
The title stood entail'd, had Richard had a son.
Conquest, an odious name, was laid aside,
Where all submitted, none the battle tried.
The senseless plea of right by Providence
Was, by a flattering priest, invented since,
And lasts no longer than the present sway;
But justifies the next who comes in play.

The people's right remains; let those who dare, Dispute their power, when they the judges are.

He join'd not in their choice, because he knew Worse might, and often did, from change ensue. Much to himself he thought, but little spoke; And, undeprived, his benefice forsook.

Now through the land his cure of souls he stretch'd, And like a primitive apostle preach'd;

Still cheerful, ever constant to his call,

By many follow'd, loved by most, admired by all.
With what he begg'd, his brethren he relieved;
And gave the charities himself received ;
Gave while he taught, and edified the more,
Because he show'd, by proof, 't was easy to be poor.
He went not with the crowd to see a shrine;

But fed us, by the way, with food Divine.
In deference to his virtues, I forbear
To show you what the rest in orders were:
This brilliant is so spotless and so bright,

He needs no foil, but shines by his own proper light.

133

SELECTIONS FROM PRIOR.

SOLOMON ON THE VANITY OF THE WORLD.

YE sons of men, with just regard attend,
Observe the preacher, and believe the friend,
Whose serious Muse inspires him to explain,
That all we act, and all we think, is vain;
That, in this pilgrimage of seventy years,
O'er rocks of perils, and through vales of tears,
Destined to march, our doubtful steps we tend,
Tired with the toil, yet fearful of its end ;
That from the womb we take our fatal shares
Of follies, passions, labours, tumults, cares;
And, at approach of Death, shall only know
The truth from which these pensive numbers flow,—
That we pursue false joy and suffer real woe.
Each evening I behold the setting sun,
With downward speed, into the ocean run:
Yet the same light (pass but some fleeting hours)
Exerts his vigour, and renews his powers;
Starts the bright race again: his constant flame
Rises and sets, returning still the same.
I mark the various fury of the winds;
These neither seasons guide, nor order binds;
They now dilate, and now contract, their force;
Various their speed, but endless is their course.
From his first fountain and beginning ooze,
Down to the sea each brook and torrent flows:
Though sundry drops or leave or swell the stream,
The whole still runs, with equal pace, the same;
Still other waves supply the rising urns,
And the eternal flood no want of water mourns.
Why, then, must man obey the sad decree,
Which subjects neither sun, nor wind, nor sea?
A flower, that does with opening morn arise,
And, flourishing the day, at evening dies;
A winged eastern blast, just skimming o'er
The ocean's brow, and sinking on the shore;
A fire, whose flames through crackling stubble fly;
A meteor shooting from the summer sky;
A bowl adown the bending mountain roll'd;
A bubble breaking, and a fable told;

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