Yet gave me, in this dark Efate,

To see the Good from Ill;
And binding Nature fast in Fate,

Lest free the Human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done,

Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than Hell to shun,

That, more than Heav'n pursue.

What Blessings thy free Bounty gives,
Let me not cast

away;
For God is paid when Man receives,

T' enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to Earth's contracted Span

Thy goodness let me bound, Or think Thee Lord alone of Man,

When thousand Worlds are round:

Let not this weak, unknowing hand

Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land,

On each I judge thy Foe.

COMMENTARY,

ligious acquiescence, and confidence full of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the Poet chose for his model the Lord's PRAYER, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to his paraphrase.

If I am right, thy grace impart,

Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart

To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish Pride,

Or impious Discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has deny’d,

Or aught thy Goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's Woe,

To hide the Fault I fee; That Mercy I to others shew,

That Mercy shew to me,

Mean tho' I am, not wholly so,

Since quick’ned by thy Breath; Oh lead me wherefoe'er I go,

Thro' this day's Life or Death.

Notes.

If I am right, thy grace impart,

If I am wrong, O teach my heart] As the imparting of grace, on the christian system, is a stronger exertion of the divine Power, than the natural illumination of the heart, one would expect that right and wrong should change places; more aid being required to restore men to right, than to keep them in it. But as it was the Poet's purpose to insinuate that Revelation was the right, nothing could better express his purpose than making the right secured by the guards of grace.

This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot:

All else beneath the Sun, Thou know'ft if best bestow'd or not,

And let Thy Will be done.

To thee, whose Temple is all Space,

Whose Altar, Earth, Sea, Skies! One Chorus let all Being raise !

All Nature's Incenfe rise !

The dying Christian to his Soul.

O DE..

1.
ITAL spark of heav'nly flame;

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,

Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy ftrife,
And let me languish into life.

II.
Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite?

Steals my senses, shuts my fight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me my Soul, can this be Death?

III.
The world recedes; it disappears !
Heav'n opens on my eyes ! my ears

With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount! I Ay!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy Sting?

NOTE s. • This ode was written in imitation of the famous fone net of Hadrian to his departing soul; but as much superior to his original, in sense and sublimity, as the Chriftian Religion is to the Pagan.

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