To distant caves the lonely wanderer flies,
To seek that peace a tyrant's frown denies.
Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice,
Hear him, o'erwhelmed with sorrow, yet rejoice.
No womanish or wailing grief has part,
No, not a moment, in his royal heart;
'Tis manly music, such as martyrs make,
Suffering with gladness for a Saviour's sake:
His soul exults, hope animates his lays,
The sense of mercy kindles into praise,
And wilds, familiar with the lion's roar,
Ring with ecstatic sounds unheard before:
'Tis love like his that can alone defeat
The foes of man, or make a desert sweet.

Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued;
To study culture, and with artful toil
To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil;
To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands

The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands;
To cherish virtue in an humble state,

And share the joys your bounty may create;
To mark the matchless workings of the power
That shuts within its seed the future flower,
Bids these in elegance of form excel,

In colour these, and those delight the smell,
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes;
To teach the canvas innocent deceit,
Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet-
These, these are arts pursued without a crime,
That leave no stain upon the wing of Time.

Me poetry (or rather notes that aim
Feebly and faintly at poetic fame)
Employs, shut out from more important views,
Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse;
Content if thus sequestered I may raise
A monitor's, though not a poet's, praise,
And while I teach an art too little known,
To close life wisely, may not waste my own.

THE DOVES

REASONING at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way,

While meaner things, whom instinct leads,
Are rarely known to stray:

One silent eve I wandered late,
And heard the voice of love;
The turtle thus addressed her mate,
And soothed the listening dove :

"Our mutual bond of faith and truth
No time shall disengage,

Those blessings of our early youth
Shall cheer our latest age;

"While innocence without disguise,
And constancy sincere,

Shall fill the circles of those eyes,
And mine can read them there;

"Those ills, that wait on all below,
Shall ne'er be felt by me,
Or gently felt, and only so
As being shared with thee.

"When lightnings flash among the trees,
Or kites are hovering near,
I fear lest thee alone they seize,
And know no other fear.

"'Tis then I feel myself a wife,
And press thy wedded side,
Resolved a union formed for life
Death never shall divide.

"But oh! if, fickle and unchaste,
(Forgive a transient thought,)
Thou couldst become unkind at last,
And scorn thy present lot,

"No need of lightnings from on high,
Or kites with cruel beak;
Denied the endearments of thine eye,
This widowed heart would break."

Thus sang the sweet sequestered bird,
Soft as the passing wind,
And I recorded what I heard,
A lesson for mankind.

A FABLE

A RAVEN, while with glossy breast
Her new-laid eggs she fondly pressed,
And, on her wicker-work high mounted,
Her chickens prematurely counted,
(A fault philosophers might blame,
If quite exempted from the same,)
Enjoyed at ease the genial day;
'Twas April as the bumpkins say,
The legislature called it May.
But suddenly a wind, as high
As ever swept a winter sky,

Shook the young leaves about her ears,
And filled her with a thousand fears,

Lest the rude blast should snap the bough,

And spread her golden hopes below.

But just at eve the blowing weather,

And all her fears, were hushed together;

"And now," quoth poor unthinking Ralph, ""Tis over, and the brood is safe;

(For ravens, though, as birds of omen, They teach both conjurers and old women To tell us what is to befall,

Can't prophesy themselves at all).

The morning came, when neighbour Hodge Who long had marked her airy lodge,

And destined all the treasure there

A gift to his expecting fair,

Climbed like a squirrel to his dray,
And bore the worthless prize away.

MORAL

'Tis Providence alone secures

In every change both mine and yours:
Safety consists not in escape
From dangers of a frightful shape;
An earthquake may be bid to spare
The man that's strangled by a hair.

Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

A COMPARISON

THE lapse of time and rivers is the same,
Both speed their journey with a restless stream;
The silent pace with which they steal away

No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay;
Alike irrevocable both when past,

And a wide ocean swallows both at last.
Though each resemble each in every part,

A difference strikes at length the musing heart;
Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound
How laughs the land with various plenty crowned!
But time, that should enrich the nobler mind,
Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.

ANOTHER

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY

SWEET stream, that winds through yonder glade,
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid!

Silent and chaste she steals along,

Far from the world's gay busy throng,
With gentle yet prevailing force,
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does,
Blessing and blest where'er she goes;
Pure-bosomed as that watery glass,
And heaven reflected in her face!

VERSES

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ

I AM monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

O Solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms

Than reign in this horrible place.

I am out of humanity's reach,

I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech,
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts that roam over the plain
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, friendship, and love,

Divinely bestowed upon man,
Oh, had I the wings of a dove,
How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth,
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheered by the sallies of youth.

Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a sabbath appeared.

Ye winds, that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more.

My friends,-do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me?

O tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see.

How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light
When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But alas! recollection at hand

Soon hurries me back to despair.