But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou; and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here He gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man 's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there :
Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge His justice, be the god of God.
THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.
FATHER of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Thou Great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confined;
To know but this, that Thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And binding nature fast in fate,
Left 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 heaven pursue.
What blessings Thy free bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives;
To 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.
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 denied
Or aught Thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quickened by Thy breath:
Oh, lead me wheresoe'er I go,
Through this day's life or death.
This day be bread and peace my lot: All else beneath the sun,
Thou know'st if best bestowed or not;
And let Thy will be done
To Thee whose temple is all space;
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all beings raise !
All nature's incense rise!
JAMES THOMSON.
(1700-1748.)
BORN at Ednam (Roxburghshire), and educated at the Jedburgh Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh. Studied for the Church, but left Scotland in early life for London, to try his fortune as a literary man. Ultimately, met with considerable success, and settled at Richmond (Surrey), where he died in 1748. Thomson's principal works are The Seasons, and The Castle of Indolence.
A HYMN ON THE SEASONS.
THESE as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm ;
And every sense, and every heart, is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, and hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with Thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force Divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful, mixed with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined!
Shade unperceived so soft'ning into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots teeming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth ;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature attend! Join every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and ardent raise
One general song!
RULE, BRITANNIA.
WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain :
Rule, Britannia! rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turns to tyrants fall,
Whilst thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe and thy renown.
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest isle with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule, Britannia! rule the waves ;
Britons never will be slaves.
BORN in Cornhill, London. Educated at Eton and Peter-house, Cambridge. Travelled on the Continent with Horace Walpole, and subsequently settled at Cambridge. Three years before his death was appointed Professor of Modern History in the University. Died at Cambridge, 1771. Gray's works are, Elegy written in a Country Churchyard; Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College; The Bard; Hymn to Adversity.
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY
CHURCHYARD.
THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea;
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world—to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemnness still holds ;
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ;
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
|