Captivity led captive, rose to claim

The wreath he won so dearly in our name;
That thron'd above all height he condescends
To call the few that trust in him his friends;

That, in the Heav'n of heav'ns, that space he

deems

Too scanty for th' exertion of his beams,
And shines, as if impatient to bestow
Life and a kingdom upon worms below;
That sight imparts a never-dying flame,
Though feeble in degree, in kind the same.
Like him the soul thus kindled from above
Spreads wide her arms of universal love;
And still enlarg❜d as she receives the grace,
Includes creation in her close embrace.
Behold a Christian!-and without the fires

The founder of that name alone inspires,

590

600

Though all accomplishment, all knowledge meet,

To make the shining prodigy complete,

Whoever boasts that name-behold a cheat!

Were love, in these the World's last doting years, As frequent as the want of it appears,

The churches warm'd, they would no longer hold Such frozen figures, stiff as they are cold;

Relenting forms would lose their pow'r, or cease; And ev❜n the dipp'd and sprinkled live in peace: Each heart would quit it's prison in the breast, And flow in free communion with the rest.

611

She statesman, skill'd in projects dark and deep,
Might burn his useless Machiavel, and sleep;
His budget often fill'd, yet always poor,
Might swing at ease behind his study door,
No longer prey upon our annual rents,
Or scare the nation with it's big contents;
Disbanded legions freely might depart,
And slaying man would cease to be an art.
No learned disputants would take the field,
Sure not to conquer, and sure not to yield;
Both sides deceiv'd, if rightly understood,
Pelting each other for the public good.

620

Did charity prevail, the

press would

prove

A vehicle of virtue, truth, and love;

628

And I might spare myself the pains to show
What few can learn, and all suppose they know.
Thus have I sought to grace a serious lay
With many a wild indeed but flow'ry spray,
In hopes to gain, what else I must have lost,
Th' attention pleasure has so much engross'd.
But if unhappily deceiv'd I dream,

And prove so weak for so divine a theme,
Let Charity forgive me a mistake

That zeal, not vanity, has chanc'd to make,
And spare the poet for his subject's sake.

636

CONVERSATION.

Nam neque me tantum venientis sibilus austri,
Nec percussa juvant fluctú tam littora, nec quæ
Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles.

VIRG. Ecl. 5.

THOUGH nature weigh our talents, and dispense

To ev'ry man his modicum of sense,

And Conversation in it's better part

May be esteem'd a gift, and not an art,
Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil,

On culture, and the sowing of the soil.

Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse;

Not more distinct from harmony divine,

The constant creaking of a country sign.

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