Poetic fields encompass me around, O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide! Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng, (Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry), Yet run for ever by the Muses' skill, And in the smooth description murmur still. HYMN.1 How are thy servants blest, oh Lord! Eternal wisdom is their guide, Their help Omnipotence. In foreign realms and lands remote, Through burning climes I passed unhurt, Thy mercy sweetened every toil, Think, oh my soul, devoutly think, Thou saw'st the wide extended deep 1 A thanksgiving for preservation during his continental travels. 2 The Italian malaria. 3 Tuscan. FROM THE CAMPAIGN. Confusion dwelt in every face, And fear in every heart; When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs, Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, Whilst in the confidence of prayer, For, though in dreadful whirls we hung, I knew thou wert not slow to hear, The storm was laid, the winds retired The sea, that roared at thy command, In midst of dangers, fears, and death, And praise thee for thy mercies past, My life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be ; And death, if death must be my doom, Shall join my soul to thee. FROM THE CAMPAIGN. Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound And all the thunder of the battle rise. 287 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examined all the dreadful scenes of war; In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, 1 In November 1703 there was an almost unprecedented storm in England. "No other tempest was ever in this country the occasion of a parliamentary address or of a And pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform, CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. It must be so-Plato,' thou reason'st well, Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Eternity!-thou pleasing-dreadful thought! Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; But-when?-or where?-This world was made for Cæsar. I'm weary of conjectures :-This must end them. [Laying his hand on his sword. Thus am I doubly armed; my death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me. The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away, large mansions had been blown down, one prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace, London and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities just sacked, hundreds of families were still in mourning. The popularity which the simile of the angel enjoyed among Addison's contemporaries has always seemed to us to be a remarkable instance of the advantage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the general."-Macaulay. 1 The scene represents him as holding in his hand Plato's book on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn sword being on the table beside him. FREE PHILOSOPHY. 289 ISAAC WATTS, D.D. (1674-1748.) THE name of this eminent theologian is familiar to our nursery associations. He was born at Southampton. His parents were Protestant Dissenters, who had suffered severely for their faith during the arbitrary times of Charles II. He devoted himself to the ecclesiastical profession, but his health was unequal to his professional duties, and, fortunately for literature and Christianity, he obtained, in the household of Sir Thomas Abney, a retreat in which for thirty-six years he devoted his whole energies to the Christian good of his fellow-men. The lyric poetry of Watts displays the easy elegance of a mind unbending itself from severer studies. His poems of "Heavenly Love" are the ecstatic expressions of his devotional feelings. Johnson finds fault with their sameness. "He is," the critic adds, "one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity; to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God." FREE PHILOSOPHY. CUSTOM, that tyranness of fools, No more ye slaves with awe profound, I hate these shackles of the mind, Forged by the haughty wise: Souls were not born to be confined, And led, like Samson, blind and bound; Thoughts should be free as fire or wind. Will through all nature fly. But who can drag up to the poles 1 Riches that the world bestows, She can take and I can lose ; But the treasures that are mine Lie afar beyond her line. When I view my spacious soul, And survey myself a whole, And enjoy myself alone, I've a kingdom of my own. I've a mighty part within That the world hath never seen, Rich as Eden's happy ground, And with choicer plenty crown'd. Here on all the shining boughs Knowledge fair and useless1 grows; On the same young flowery tree All the seasons you may see; Notions in the bloom of Light Just disclosing to the sight; Here are thoughts of larger growth Ripening into solid truth; Fruits refined of noble taste,Seraphs feed on such repast. Here, in green and shady grove, Streams of pleasure mix with love; There, beneath the smiling skies, Hills of contemplation rise; Now upon some shining top Angels light and call me up; I rejoice to raise my feet; Both rejoice when there we meet. There are endless beauties more Earth hath no resemblance for ; Nothing like them round the pole ; Nothing can describe the soul: 'Tis a region half unknown, That has treasures of its own, Apparently implying not to be used in this world. |