O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms, which nature to her votary yields !
These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health,
And love, and gentleness, and joy, impart.
But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth
E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart;
For, ah! it poisons like the scorpion's dart.

From labour health, from health contentment springs;

Contentment opes the source of every joy.

His heart, from cruel sport estranged, would bleed To work the woe of any living thing.

And from the prayer of want and plaint of woe, O never, never turn away thine ear.

Hence ! ye who snare and stupify the mind,
Sophists, of beauty, virtue, joy, the bane.

O Edwin, while thy heart is yet sincere,
Th' assaults of discontent and doubt repel.
Dark even at noon-tide is our mortal sphere,
But let us hope,—to doubt is to rebel,
Let us exult in hope,-that all shall yet be well.

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.

Of chance or change, ()! let not man complain,
Else shall he never, never cease to wail.

But spare, O time, whate'er of mental grace,
Of candour, love, or sympathy divine,

Whate'er of fancy's ray, or friendship's flame, is mine.

Vigour from toil, from trouble patience grows.

True dignity is his, whose tranquil mind
Virtue has rais'd above the things below;
Who, every hope and fear to heaven resign'd,
Shrinks not, tho' fortune aim her deadliest blow.

Henceforth, no earthly hope with heaven shall share His heart, when peace serenely shines at last.

O man! creation's pride, Heaven's darling child, Whom Nature's best divinest gifts adorn;

Why from thy home are truth and joy exil'd, And all thy fav'rite haunts with blood and tears defil'd!

None speaks false, when there is none to hear.

Spiders ensnare, snakes poison, tygers prowl,
Love is the godlike attribute of man.

If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain.

Eyes dazzled long by fiction's gaudy rays,
In modest truth no light nor beauty find.

Fancy enervates, while it soothes the heart.

And yet, alas! the real ills of life
Claim the full vigour of a mind prepared.

We fare on earth as other men have fared:
Were they successful? let not us despair.
Was disappointment oft their sole reward?
Yet shall their tale instruct, if it declare

How they have borne the load ourselves are doom'd to bear.

How sweet the words of Truth breath'd from the lips of Love.

What cannot art and industry perform,

When science plans the progress of their toil!

COWPER.

NATURE is but the name of an effect,
Whose cause is GOD.

Happy the man, who sees a GOD employ'd
In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.

Time was, we closed as we began the day,
With decent duty, not ashamed to pray:
The practice was a bond upon the heart,
A pledge we gave for a consistent part:
Nor could we dare presumptuously displease
A Power confess'd so lately on our knees.

It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguish'd than ourselves that thus
We may with patience bear our moderate ills,
And sympathize with others suffering more.

:

O, friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd:

Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets.

MRS. CUTTS.-Almeria.

WHAT age too soon to bring the stubborn will
To bow the neck ?—Too early to instil
The love of truth in ev'ry gen'rous mind;
Or fright from falsehood those of baser kind?
Is virtue so congenial to the soul,

That no instruction's wanted, no control?

On sound religion all his hopes were plac'd,
Which to implant, each moment he embrac'd ;
Nor fear'd just censure, if, in earliest youth,
He fixed the bias on the side of Truth ;
Gave Virtue her foundation, safeguard, crown,
And furnish'd pleasures to the world unknown.

But tho' as thro' a glass his ways appear, GOD leaves himself not without witness here, More fully seen hereafter, when that plan, Which in its circle takes the whole of man, Shall be complete, and ev'ry part approve Itself the work of Wisdom, join'd with Love.

Judge for thyself, nor idly rest thy faith-
On what another, tho' a parent, saith.
Implicit faith is due to GOD alone,

And what HE wills, from Scripture only known.